A confessional from an academic parent that just flat rubs me the wrong way (via Crooked Timber):
I spent a lot of those years exhausted and angry. We continued to have only part-time child care. Some nights I put the children to bed crying because I knew they were better off crying alone in bed than interacting with an angry sleep-deprived mother. I was furious that I had to make constrained choices and could not have the life I wanted. When he was home, my spouse was “superdad,” who did a lot of the work and played a lot with the children, so there was a big hole when he was gone. He was aware of how much he did when he was around, but not of what it was like when he was not around. I wanted him to confront the consequences of the work-home choice he was making and feel just as bad as I did. In retrospect, I probably should have used more paid child care and household help, as the children would probably have been better off with a saner mother, but I did not want to concede defeat to the constraints in my life. I preferred feeling angry to adjusting.
I need to think about why I’m reacting so strongly to this. It goes on:
Because I have never regretted putting my children first in those years. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly regretted some of the ways I handled the situation, and I can feel as jealous and resentful as the next person when I compare my professional status with that of the men who “passed” me while I was on the mommy track. But not the core decision to put the children first. That decision had negative consequences for my career, but it had positive consequences, too. As they say, few people in the cancer wards say, “Boy, I wish I’d spent more time working.” Spending time with my children was, in fact, its own intrinsic reward, and my relationship with them now that they are adults continues to be rewarding. I do not mean it was always fun or inspiring. Children can be very selfish and annoying, and it is traumatic when they have problems you cannot fix. More than anything else, parenthood taught me that I am deeply imperfect, that I am capable of doing things that I disapprove of and that hurt other people. But I grew and deepened as a human being from these very struggles and disappointments. I became less self-centered, less self-righteous, and more open to and forgiving of the struggles and disappointments of other imperfect people. I feel good about my ability to sustain a rich relationship with my children despite all our imperfections. I also learned a lot from hanging out with stay-at-home moms about choosing priorities, having a sense of perspective about life, helping each other out in a pinch, and norms of reciprocity.
And this expression of sentiments I ought to agree with completely is leaving me cross-eyed. I’ll think about it a bit and am interested in what other people think on reading it. (A note to readers: I have three sons, shared custody of them and had custody of them at various times in their lives. All of the parents they share are parents first and foremost.)
An excess of the first person perhaps? It’s all about how things relate to I and Me, not the kids or the husband.
My wife and I have been together for 20 years and we raised two children successfully (both are in the service). We certainly have had our ups and downs financialy, emotionally and individual career changes for the sake of the good of our overall family. All four of us worked very hard at our individual endeavors – my wife as school teacher, my children in their academics and sports, myself as an economist in corporate America for the last ten years, grad school before that and the service before that – and to keep the family horse farm going.
The article (I followed the link and read the whole thing) seems to be all about people who feel they are “owed” something; selfish self-centered people who do understand the meaning of dedication or love nor the realities of life and who are, therefore, lost.
This sense of being “owed” is very American and is very destructive to the self and to our society.
I have always believed – and always reminded my children – that we are owed nothing in life except death; despite what Madison Avenue tells us. In fact, to the contrary, I would tell them, they owe it to Life and to the Power that gave it to them to be upright, honest, courageous, respectful and hard working towards creating good in whatever situation they find themselves.
Furthermore, I would tell them, the “freedom” so many Americans seek is only attainable when the chains of self-importance are dropped; true freedom is not found in a cool bachelor pad, or a six figure salary or even in a wanderer’s back pack.
Finally, I would tell them, there are many paths that one can go down in life; the more intelligent and more talented an individual, the more potential paths that present. Life is too short and one cannot possibly walk them all. The apparent choice of selecting the “right” one can be confusing and staggering to the mind. Select one path – just one – with heart and walk it to its conclusion and don’t worry about what could have been, should have been, etc. One knows when the conclusion has been reached and it is time to change paths.
Children are capable of understanding all of this if the parent provides a real example and is honest about instances where he/she himself/herself has slipped off the path.
So, from my perspective, the author of the post is just another whining self-absorbed materialistic bourgoise American devoid of any real spiritual underpinnings. Worse, she accepts the same in her husband and children. And that is what causes the unsettling reaction.
Life’s just much to hard today. I hear ev’ry mother say. The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore….
*yawn*
Parenting requires selflessness.
Selflessness is the sacrifice of one’s interests for a greater cause.
And, after personally hearing too many people in my life go on and on about their sacrifices, I am reminded of the Golden Rule of Selflessness: Keep your sacrifice to yourself. Tell no one. Telling of your sacrifices neatly converts selflessness into selfishness — obsession with oneself.
In telling of her sacrifices, this woman betrays that she really is self-centered. Her sacrifices must be known, so she can be at the center of their purpose. Not her children.
Mick: I think you might be misreading your own song. Mother’s little helper is about moms bored to tears running a household when they would rather do anything else (so they take drugs to get through their suffering). This article is about a mom & dad who got a chance to do everything else, and then realized they didn’t leave enough time to run a household. Opposite kind of problem.
I agree with a lot of what Avedis says. Life, unfortunately, has too many paths, especially for those who get the chance to move into bright & exciting directions. At some point, you have to choose: career or kids. Joy in the exceptional(such as award-winning research) or joy in family. And then you have to deal with the fact that one of you may get the career they want, while the other has to wait. And sometimes, that can be extremely trying.
I don’t agree with the decisions this writer made, but it’s not really my life. It’s not really my business. it’s an opportunity to vent public stress, and it should be discussed with families, friends and therapists, not in a public blog “dissection”.
This is really about her family coming to grips with the decisions they’ve made. And someday, I imagine, the narrator, her husband and her children will have to deal with the emotional scars from wanting to much, and not being able to fulfill their promises.
It’s a mistake everyone makes from time to time. And yes, I agree that it’s a very American mistake. However, I think everyone, at some time, feels constrained by the choices they have made (or have not had the ability to choose). We all have an ideal for where our life will be in the next 10 years. But when we become a family, our dreams are often modified by the needs of others. Either children, or sick parents, or siblings who can’t get their act together. That’s love, that’s life.
I’m dealing with a similar problem right now, (albeit years in advance). My wife has had to lose the career she wanted so that I could get the job that I wanted. We thought she had a replacement job lined up in NC, but it didn’t pan out. I think this has been emotional stressful for her, especially since in the past I have asked her to sacrifice more than I have.
She wants a career, but she also wants children (really, really soon). I’m trying to wait, because right now I’m working too hard, we’re broke, and she doesn’t have a plan for the future. I want to make sure we’re both settled into something before we make the commitment to children. I see this writer’s tribulations coming, and I’m trying to avoid them all together. However, they’re are other problems coming that I don’t see yet. They’re impossible to plan for, and will affect my future more than I know.
Sorry for the long post, this has hit a chord for me too, but probably not the same one.
It really sounds like this individual had children as part of a plan to ‘accomplish goals’ … not as a byproduct of love. I agree with Foobarista, a lot of ME and not enough about THEM. Parenting is about growing your children, not building a resume.
Your phrase “All of the parents they share …” stuck out for me. How many marriages and divorces have these kids been part of?
they do go on,these academic types. i will summarize the article, and save others the trouble (you won’t be missing anything interesting):
1. i know i’m a bad mother but i like to ignore that
2. raising kids isn’t fun or glamorous
3. whhaaaaaa
4. after my kids grew up i never really did anything with the extra time
wow! four conferences in one summer! no wonder you were so tired.
Bob – too many. I have been divorced twice in thirty years; In some ways, I’m a poster child of how not to do marriage. But some part of that is my feeling that it’s more important to be a good father than a good husband – which is my own failure of breadth as a person.
What’s happened post-divorce is interesting, though. My first ex- met her current husband on a trip she took with my second wife, the kids, and me. My second ex’s husband and I get beers or coffee about once a month just to hang out; I think he’s a wonderful guy.
We do joint birthdays and Thanksgiving dinners, sometimes joint Christmases, and manage to have some sense of being an extended family tied together by the boys. That’s a credit to the graciousness of my exes – and to the huge heart of TG, who looked at all that and still was crazy enough to marry me.
A.L.
Oh Lord – where to begin?
As a mid-50s female professional, now in academia, my sympathy for this twit is about zero.
Self centered. Whiny. Firmly convinced she is OWED things. Resentful. Small hearted. Juvenile.
I could go on …..
Which is NOT to say that women in professions don’t face tough tradeoffs – I did and do, and so do other women.
But I do so much want to tell this woman to Grow Up. Life isn’t a candy bowl — deal with it.
As a college student I know what I didn’t like:
“I thought having my second child would be ok, too, as I had tenure by then . . . My teaching was not all that good then, either. My stress and negative affect implicitly said “no†to a lot of student requests before they even asked.”
But beyond that, I don’t really understand something else:
“Some nights I put the children to bed crying because I knew they were better off crying alone in bed than interacting with an angry sleep-deprived mother . . . I have never regretted putting my children first in those years . . . Spending time with my children was, in fact, its own intrinsic reward, and my relationship with them now that they are adults continues to be rewarding”
A little later when her husband changed jobs:
“The children still stayed at the top of the list, but their ranking relative to work went down . . . I worked at home, so I was there in the background, but I ignored my children more. This both hurt their feelings and impacted their lives . . . I overheard my son once telling a friend that he had the world’s most inattentive mother.”
To me it sounds like she’s saying she always put her children first, and she’s happy about that. While I read it though, I don’t see where she ever put them first. But since this story isn’t supposed to be a narrative history I don’t know what can actually be determined from it. /Disclaimer
Apart from the emotions, division of labor is a good thing. Somebody has to bring in money, somebody has to maintain a household, etc, it’s easier when people specialise.
But women can’t afford to specialise in things that can’t bring in money, because their husbands might divorce them and leave them without a way to make a living.
If the husband can make a good living by specialising, it makes sense for him to. They can live better on one good job and one mediocre job than on two mediocre jobs. But then he isn’t going to do half the housework or childcare. She’s going to do it. If somebody has to take time off from work because of emergencies — a sick child, say — it will be the woman.
So women don’t do as well in careerts where the job comes first. They get jobs where there’s some leeway, and after the divorce the man walks off with the job that pays well, ands maybe the woman winds up with the deed to a house she can’t pay the mortgage on, so she has to sell fast.
Women who want good careers and children both have a problem that men don’t have. One solution is to find a man who wants to be a house-husband and let him work a meager job on the side. Usually men and women don’t like that.
Another solution is to marry a woman from a poor background, who’ll be happy to be a housewife on what you can afford or to work the kind of job she can get.
Under the circumstances we might be better off with two couples together. Three of them get good jobs and one stays home with the kids. If the family falls apart then it’s three sets of child support. (One ex-wife who doesn’t get her child support winds up getting a lawyer, the lawyer takes a cut, the ex-husband hates to pay and doesn’t, she gets another lawyer, etc. One ex-wife with three people supporting child support has two others to yell at the one that doesn’t.) You can support a household better with three good jobs than with one and a half good jobs, and you can find one career woman and one housewife easier than you can find somebody who does both well without complaining.
I dunno. There’s a real problem there but I don’t know what the government or the bigger culture ought to do about it.
Shes almost as longwinded and obtuse as Foer is in his non-apology.
“I also learned a lot from hanging out with stay-at-home moms about choosing priorities, having a sense of perspective about life, helping each other out in a pinch, and norms of reciprocity.”
I’m sorry, but if it took having children to get a clue about any of these things, then the rest of the generally infuriating post makes a lot more sense. (I also have to wonder how well those lessons can be learned post-adolescence, but I suppose that would be a good research topic for a psychologist/sociologist….)
_”I was furious that I had to make constrained choices and could not have the life I wanted”_
Wow. Just wow.
For the record I’m furious I cant be the quarterback for the Bears, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and running Hugh Hefners empire concurrently. Damned constrained choices.
_”But women can’t afford to specialise in things that can’t bring in money, because their husbands might divorce them and leave them without a way to make a living.”_
I’m not necessarilly disagreeing with this but somewhere in this argument the fact gets glossed over that the man NEVER really has a choice- he’s tasked to go out and maximize family income (then come home and share the household responsiblility as well). If the husband’s dream is to be a lounge singer, well too damned bad. His wife might divorce him and leave with the house, the cars, and the kids.
Its a strange thing that the wife’s dreams and aspirations are all that gets the focus and flexibility. The man that really wants to spend more than a couple of hours at the end of his long day with his kids is told to suck it up and get back to work.
As an aside, I’ll say that women have a much harder deal in the modern family arrangement then men do – but not necessarily for the reasons that are typically given.
What liberation has brought women is an opening of the array of possibilities (as the author here shows) and a sense of ‘being owed’ (after all, they needed to be liberated from something). What the sense of being owed means is that somehow women feel compelled to cram everything into their lives – all the roles; wife, mother, lover, professional, community leader. And in reality, no one can live all those roles; no life is big enough to contain them all, so you have to make choices.
As a man, because I don’t come from a belief that I’ve been deprived or that the natural roles for me are inherently exploitive, making the tradeoffs and sacrifices seems easy to me.
But because many women (particularly intellectual, academic ones) do have a root belief that women have been historically subjugated, and that now they are finally given all the opportunities they deserve – turning down any of those opportunities must seem like betrayal.
So someone like that is in a horrible position – trying to live up to impossible expectations and contain – and excel at – more roles than anyone can possibly do.
A.L.
_”So someone like that is in a horrible position – trying to live up to impossible expectations and contain – and excel at – more roles than anyone can possibly do.”_
Mmmmm, i respect that to some degree but i wonder how much is really tied up to consumerism and beating the Joneses. Ever suggest to a young family struggling a bit that they buy a smaller house, or even *gasp* a townhouse? Maybe skip the vacation to California and drive somewhere instead? Trade in the Jeep Cherokee for a Kia?
When we talk about professionals, is the drive as much about excelling at a trade as opposed to achieving the trappings of success? I have a lot less sympathy for that.
Don’t ‘ya just HATE whiners? CJM summed it up very nicely!
Here’s another interesting question – the commenters here seem to share my – distaste – for the attitudes shown in this piece. But if you read the comments there, and the general tone of links from feminist and progressive blogs (OK, Crooked Timber) – the overall tone is admiration.
Why the gap?
A.L.
_”Why the gap?”_
The libertarian in you rebels. The essay is rife with the implication of powerlessness over choices- i can’t not have the career I want, my husband cant not have his career, and by implication all the creature comforts the good jobs provide are nonnegotiable.
Obviously the idea that the children are best off spending the maximum amount of time with their parents has taken a backseat to all of this- but that isnt viewed as a choice but as an inevitability. A distillation of all the other nonchoice choices their parents have made.
Apparently society is at fault for allowing this dilemna to exist, as opposed to the author being responsible for her choices and priorities. The sense of helplessness is as palpable as it is ludicrious.
As to the gap- I honestly think there is a lot of guilt built into this. Nobody wants to contenence the idea that they have shortchanged their children out of selfishness, or even sheer tunnel vision. Better to lament the society that gave us the freedom to make these mistakes.
AL, in find this annoying as well. Primarily, because I find it at its heart dishonest. I find all kinds of people sharing this attitude of selfishness and being “owed.”
People shouldn’t have children if they can’t accept them as a gift, a gift that will give them all the meaning and purpose they ever need.
She conveys all kinds of resentment in the piece, while stressing all her sacrifices. My guess is, her kids know all about that resentment. I did, growing up with same.
I have never met two career families with kids who didn’t have enormous blind spots at the point of demarkation between needs and wants. Everything was a need, whether two cars, big house, trendy neighborhood, gadgets and toys, vacations, pools, paid in advance college educations for their “kids.” All enabled by parental neglect and paid day care.
These are the kinds of parents who abandon their kids to contracted parenthood, ignore what they consume, neglect all manner of socialization and education tasks (eat clothe communicate clean up serve, at home and in the community), the kids spend more time with their toys and TV then ever with either Mom or Dad.
We all pay the price for a generation or two of “in-home” abandoned children.
The only difference between this “inattentive” mother and those who opted for career first, is that she tried to have her cake and eat it too.
What did she do with all that time as a stay at home parent, indeed.
1) It sounds like most of the people writing are academics. Most of them are struggling through the same problems: trying to obtain tenure while starting a family. Although I’m surprised that people are as positive as they are, I think they’re looking for support that hey, things aren’t going to be perfect, but at least I’ll make it.
Academic research jobs are NOT the rose-pettled cake-wake they’re made out to be. They’re at least an 80-hour a week committment. You’re constantly reading, writing, watching over grad students and then (after all that) you’re still teaching one or two courses. Almost every research academic I know is single, divorced, has no kids, or has a spouse that is nearly a full time parent. There’s a reason for this…
2) I think the exact phrasing confuses when she did what. I took her writing to imply that after tenure she took a break, spent more time with the family, and did the bare minimum towards research and teaching. Some profs do it, but it’s not a good career move (as she also noted). After 5-10 years, she went back to hard core research again, and that’s when she struggled most with the kids. But it’s not crystal clear..
3) Mark Poling: I think anytime you start to become exceptional in an area, it’s sometimes difficult to transition into something new from the begining.
For example: After getting my pHD I had to wait for funding to come through for my next job. So I worked at Costco for awhile. Some of the managers knew who I was, and realized that I would pick things up no problems. Some others figured I was a high school drop out for the first two weeks. I imagine that having your first kid is a leveling experience for anyone, especially for people who have spent so much time excelling in a given area.
Look, this post is a venting 10-15 years of a high stress time. She probably recognizes that alot of what she says comes off as irresponsible, selfish or comes from impossible expectations. I think alot of it also highlights the worst moments of those 10 years, and she’s a better parent than she gives herself credit for.
However, she’s just trying to feel first, write whatever comes out, and get some of this frustration out of her system. Much of this is anger at herself as well. Are people here saying that you’re not ALLOWED to feel frustrated when you lose the job you want? Or you’re not allowed to be ANGRY when the plan changes?
Which is why this post shouldn’t be public. It’s like walking into a therapy session and cussing somebody out for having irresponsible “feelings.”
Mark Buehner mails it. He extracted precisely the quote which I think explains AL’s visceral dismay:
bq. I was furious that I had to make constrained choices and could not have the life I wanted
This person is angry at reality, and that’s never a good or rational thing. As soon as I read that, every other issue in the article became clear.
The admiration gap is probably explained by this same point, which is that the commentors here think being angry at reality is a personal issue that should be overcome, but the Crooked Timber folks are mostly people who are also angry at reality.
I basically agree that this person seems to be trying to absolve herself for being a bad parent. Yes, women certainly face unique and more difficult choices wrt balancing careers with family life, but many men make compromises as well.
But this is a gratuitous, unsubstantiated swipe at academics…
bq. But because many women (particularly intellectual, academic ones) do have a root belief that women have been historically subjugated, and that now they are finally given all the opportunities they deserve – turning down any of those opportunities must seem like betrayal.
Just read down in the comments to the post you link to to see that many academics don’t think like her, although they do voice support for her choice and predicament. This has more to do with recognizing that the author is coming to grips with her life/career trajectory, not necessarily as an endorsement of it (think AA meeting or something where the positive comments from members does not signify acceptance of the problem but rather progress toward understanding what brought people there to begin with).
dadmanly – I think your phrase sums up my own views on parenthood almost perfectly; having children is a gift. They have gifted me – not the other way around; the things I do for them are in partial repayment for what having them in my life means and has meant.
I’m privileged to be a parent.
A.L.
Alan – not a swipe at all.
A.L.
bq. We do joint birthdays and Thanksgiving dinners, sometimes joint Christmases, and manage to have some sense of being an extended family tied together by the boys …
The problem may be that our concept of marriage is just _too small._ The whole “one man, one woman, 2.8 kids” just doesn’t work any more. I’d suggest a minimum of four adults in a marriage that plans to raise kids, with each going out to earn income or staying home to nurture at various times. We’ve accepted that sometimes it just doesn’t work out, but with the larger group, the one person who hasn’t fit in can leave without destroying the family. It’s likely there’d be several turn-overs over 2-3 decades as the kids are growing, but the family would just go on.
I’m really curious what the reaction of the “defense of marriage” people would be to this. I suspect their gut reaction would be grudging approval if it’s one man and some number of women.
Also might justify those 5,000 sq ft minimansions that are littering the landscape.
Alchemist, no arguments about the effects of an academic life on other life skills. I married my ex immediately after college and was with her while she completed a Ph.D. in neuroscience and a post-doc fellowship at Yale. The system encourages monomania in its cogs. (The obvious corollary is that those who are prone to monomania may be drawn to academia.) A.L. is absolutely correct that one of the common fixations among ambitious young women is to be superwoman, to in fact have it all.
Been there, done that, hit the wall, bounced. (Thank god for metaphorical passenger-side airbags.) Contributing to the crackup were fertility issues, or we might be in pretty much exactly the same situation as the writer of the post, and my perspectives might now be quite different.
But as is I stand by my point about basic maturity and when and how it is found, to wit, learning the Golden Rule only when its forced on you by a resented parenthood isn’t the Optimal Method for any of the involved parties.
It sounds like a form of birth control for the academic set. To channel Ann Althouse, no wonder people don’t want to have babies when their parents write stuff like this. (“Before I had children, I liked my life a lot . . .”)
I had two reactions. One is that it seemed like the author’s second baby might have been colicky. She’s “exhausted” and “angry” and putting the children to bed crying with the veiled reference that her children’s safety is at issue. I know parents who have had very tough first years with their babies. I don’t think most parents do. My children were not and I don’t think there is anything we did or did not do to merit that.
So I probably read this a little differently, because I was picking up cues that the safety of the children was at risk. And I probably judge this a little differently, ’cause I think the dad taking a job that removed him from the support of his family in the first year of life was a dangerous thing. (I’m not talking about divorce; a divorced father could provide more support in shared custody than a loving, but absent, husband)
And how was this decision made?
bq. _[W]hile I was pregnant, my spouse accepted a job that would require a lot of travel with unpredictable and constantly shifting schedules. He took the job because it was a dream job for him, a chance to do something exciting, fun and interesting. *He was “owed”* in our relationship because he had already moved twice for my job. His first choice would have been for him to have the good job without the travel, but that wasn’t an option. To be honest, I’m selfish enough that I would have preferred that he keep his bad job and make my life easier, but I cared about him, agreed *he was owed,* and knew why he really wanted to do it, so I signed off._
I find that incredibly odd, a decision made on the basis of an accounting ledger. I find that about as sane as flipping a coin. I understand that relationships have a lot of horsetrading in them, but on the big things, there is planning and design. My impression here is that the couple had clear designs for career enhancement and a desire for children, but no plan for accommodating those two.
“But women can’t afford to specialise in things that can’t bring in money, because their husbands might divorce them and leave them without a way to make a living.”
_I’m not necessarilly disagreeing with this but somewhere in this argument the fact gets glossed over that the man NEVER really has a choice- he’s tasked to go out and maximize family income (then come home and share the household responsiblility as well)._
Sure. It isn’t anybody’s fault, everybody is stuck in roles they couldn’t get out of if they wanted to. A man who stayed home and took care of the family while his wife had the career would be considered an utter wimp.
Actually I’ve known two men who did that. One of them kept a bad job at the post office while his wife rise in management at the phone company. About the time his knees gave out he quit. Some years later she died of cancer and he scraped by with the life insurance money while he developed the contacts to get computer contracts.
The other was an older man with a much younger wife. She was a career counselor, and she saw that he couldn’t get a reasonable job at his age after he left his technical sales job to be with her. So she worked and he didn’t, and the last I heard he was taking care of his child and the one she had with her lover while she didn’t spent a lot of time at home.
The partner who brings in the money gets a lot of control. It isn’t that partner’s fault it’s that way. Easy for the one with less control to feel slighted.
_”The partner who brings in the money gets a lot of control. It isn’t that partner’s fault it’s that way. Easy for the one with less control to feel slighted.”_
Thats an interesting point that can’t be overlooked. On the other hand the partner with control of the children (almost invariably the female) has a level of power in the relationship no amount of money can equal. I mean if the bread winner said we’re moving across the country for my job, the ‘caregiver’ is hardly powerless to say no. She can stay with the kids and most of his money to boot. Obviously if this discussion ever actually takes place the couple has big problems, but that reality is always there if unspoken.
On the general subject of parenting, there is something else that sticks out to me about the piece and some of the comments here.
There is some sort of assumption that mommy needs to be there to entertain the kids or this will happen:
bq. _they watched television about 10 hours a day_
I was raised by a stay-at-home mom and most of my memories were of being kicked out of the house during the summer to entertain myself with my brother or kids in the neighborhood. I guess they would call that “unstructured time” now. What happened to it?
Mark, as with most negotiations the one who’s most ready to walk away has a degree of power, they can get what they want up to the point the other is ready to walk away too.
Women who’re ready to give up custody, and women who’re ready to keep custody and full financial responsibility, get to choose whatever they want.
Women who need more time and money for their children than they can provide by themselves and who care about that, have very little power.
Something has to give, and it’s usually the woman. I don’t think it’s useful to blame anybody for it. I don’t know how to improve it. An arrangement where more people are ready and competent to take care of the children would be good. Often two sets of grandparents could possibly help out, but they’re often living in an inconvenient state like florida and the current housing isn’t adequate for them.
Four-parent families might be good for some people but the cultural background is usually not there; people who can’t get along in pairs might not do well in larger groups either.
Businesses could do a lot to design jobs to fit people’s needs. But when there’s a labor surplus, why should they? Demand that the job comes first and promote the people who’re most dedicated, there are plenty of candidates to choose from.
_I was raised by a stay-at-home mom and most of my memories were of being kicked out of the house during the summer to entertain myself with my brother or kids in the neighborhood. I guess they would call that “unstructured time” now. What happened to it?_
Where I live now that’s essentially illegal.
Some of it is that evil people might kidnap children for sex and murder, or to harvest their glands or something. Some of it is the assumption that unsupervised kids might burn down the house or get hit by cars crossing the street.
The rule is, 7 years and below, a child must never be unsupervised for even 3 minutes.
8-10 Alone no more than 1.5 hours in safe environment.
11-12 3 hours in safe place but not at night.
13-15 May be unsupervised but not overnight.
If a neighbor observes an unsupervised child they may report the parents to CPS which may then investigate for six months before perhaps dropping the case. Any suspicious findings (bruises, a child who is withdrawn, angry, depressed or aggressive, a child who clings to parents and is reluctant to leave them with CPS worker, a house that is insufficiently clean, etc) can result in a longer observation period or an adverse finding.
The assessments are made by trained professionals who use careful judgement and won’t harass a family longer than 6 months unless they have solid reason to suspect problems. But you do not want them to hear that your 7-year-old son has been let out of the house where he can play in the nearby woods with friends for 4 hours. That would be inconvenient for all the parents involved.
_”Women who need more time and money for their children than they can provide by themselves and who care about that, have very little power.”
“Something has to give, and it’s usually the woman.”_
I know a lot of divorced fathers who would argue with that. Obviously the original circumstances matter a lot. For a low income family with little to split its destructive for both, but for middle class and upper class families the wife ends up with the kids and the money the vast majority of the time. I suspect we are envisioning two different social classes- but that being said a low income worker with child support and alimony is just as screwed as his family. Divorce is a majorly destructive force for the lower class, which is probably why holding off marriage is such a positive indicator of escaping poverty.
J Thomas (#34): I hope you’re exaggerating, because that seems a bit extreme. Still there has to be some midpoint between active parental involvement and ten hours of television a day. Is there something wrong with children playing in their backyard unsupervised? I mean so long as they don’t play near the pool or disrupt the landscaping design or put divots in the lawn. Oh wait a minute that’s not my backyard.
“I was furious that I had to make constrained choices and could not have the life I wanted.”
Life isn’t fair. Ask Jimmie Carter.
_I hope you’re exaggerating, because that seems a bit extreme._
I’m not exaggerating, but the trained social workers have a lot of latitude in their interpretations, provided they can show they’ve been adequately diligent. I think part of the problem is that around 4 years ago a family was reported to be abusive, and CPS did nothing after a quick inspection, and later a child died as a result. They got a whole lot of criticism for that, and now they want to prove that they aren’t negligent when they hear accusations.
If it’s children playing in a fenced back yard and the parent can claim to be 3 seconds away and checking on them often, there might not be any problem. At worst it would be a 6 month investigation. I have let my children play in the unfenced back yard with the babysitter on the patio and not in constant eye contact, but my back yard is not at all visible from the road.
“The assessments are made by trained professionals who use careful judgement and won’t harass a family longer than 6 months unless they have solid reason to suspect problems. But you do not want them to hear that your 7-year-old son has been let out of the house where he can play in the nearby woods with friends for 4 hours. That would be inconvenient for all the parents involved.”
This is another reason we have a nation full of pansies.
When I was 7 my friends and I stalked through the woods and fields with .22s hunting rabbits, wild turkey and such or rode horses down trails, hung out by the creek catching frogs and snakes, etc. My children did the same.
The only reason a 7 year old can’t be trusted to do these things is because the parents are moron slobs that don’t teach properly from day 1 because they themselves are irresponsible fools.
Trained professionals, my ass. Just more vaguely educated agents of the know-it-all nanny state looking to take away our freedom and insult our intelligence until we’re all castrated zombies. Liberalism at its worst.
_When I was 7 my friends and I stalked through the woods and fields with .22s hunting rabbits, wild turkey and such or rode horses down trails, hung out by the creek catching frogs and snakes, etc. My children did the same._
Ssame here, except we didn’t have horses.
And since there were a lot of houses within .22 range it took a whole lot of convincing before we got to carry them unsupervised.
_The only reason a 7 year old can’t be trusted to do these things is because the parents are moron slobs that don’t teach properly from day 1 because they themselves are irresponsible fools._
There’s a perceived risk from perverts etc. Not in places with real low population density, but many places. Some of my neighbors publicly announced in front of TV cameras that they’re afraid to go into the nearby “green space” because they’re afraid of the homeless people who live there. There are not actually any homeless people living there, or if there are they stop by rarely enough I haven’t found them or their campsites or latrines. What I have found is two places where somebody buys beer at the nearby 7/11 and takes it just out of sight into the woods to drink it. They add 2 to 3 six-packs each time, so I’d expect it’s 1 to 4 people, coming by every month or two. Anyway.
My daughters aren’t nearly as interested in spending time at the creek or the hills as I was, and I think it might be partly the air conditioning. I didn’t grow up with air conditioning so it didn’t seem all that hot outside in the summer. And there are the perceived dangers. I’d be a little scared for a son — it’s a lot harder to teach responsible behavior around a scary armed adult. The natural thing is to get out of sight and track him where you can hear him but he can’t hear you, but that could be risky or at least rude. Maybe if he had a cell phone…. We didn’t have cell phones when I was a kid. Nobody got upset at me if I got in the water and got my pocketknife wet. I take my kids on supervised walks a fair amount but they often don’t want to go. They like to walk on the sidewalk to the playground.
bq. I became less self-centered, less self-righteous, and more open to and forgiving of the struggles and disappointments of other imperfect people.
Mheh. Doesn’t really sound like it.
This person made my skin crawl.
The irritation you feel just might have something to do with wondering just who the hell this woman thinks she is, That’s how it struck me.
Apropos of A.L. [#9],
It seems to me that once children are involved, there is no such thing as divorce.
There’s only larger and larger families, made up of people who often don’t get along.