Ah, it’s your New York Post equivalent. Please tell me that it is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
She can claim all she wants. I want cites. If she’s talking about overscheduling your child, she probably has a point. If she’s claiming you can treat your child like a pet and they’ll still turn out to be well-adjusted adults capable of real, functioning relationships, I’ll call bullshit on that one.
This is why the jerks who claim that “Oh, it’s different when it’s your own kid!” should be shot.
Because for some people, it isn’t different when it’s your own kid, and then there’s a kid that you don’t want and don’t like.
We have a culture that expects people to have kids, to want kids, to love kids, and it would be very easy to buy into it, to believe the jerks who push push push push the idea.
Gah. Sorry. Pet peeve.
I have – or should I say, had – a female friend who runs megadeals well into the triple digits. She travels out of state 3 weeks out of every month; the 4th week she’s in her home office with the door closed, her 2 little sons safely ensconced with their nanny.
During that one week home, she only sees them at suppertime. She’ll roughhouse with them for about an hour so so afterward, give them both their baths, then has her husband read to them/tuck them into bed while she returns phone calls and/or does computer work until well after midnight. She’ll make them breakfast the next morning, but once the nanny arrives, that’s it.
Don’t you EVER dare criticize her “lack of caring”. Don’t you EVER suggest that perhaps she should cool her career a bit and actually BE A MOTHER to these boys. She and I ended up in what could’ve been a knock-down-drag-out fight over her not puinishing her older boy for something he certainly should’ve been punished for. Her excuse? “How can I punish him if he never sees me? He’s Mama’s Boy, aren’t you?”
This all happened 3-4 years ago. My jaw still aches every time I think back on it.
Lots of men have had the same relationship with their children and caught no flak over it.
Whoops, I forgot my other reply to this…
I’m considerd the “weird aunt” to my husband’s nieces and nephews because we don’t have children. My SILs, OTOH, are pregnant every time you turn around. They’re all SAHMs because they married men whose professions can afford them the luxury. They take rearing their kids very seriously because that’s how my MIL raised them. They’re wonderful kids, if a bit sheltered…argh, don’t get me ranting about that.
I’ve always been on the fence regarding having children for the very same reason, Ferret Herder. My reasoning is that if I cannot reconcile my general attitude within myself first, then I have no business becoming pregnant. There are too many neglected kids in this world already, and I’m certainly not going to contribute.
It seems to me that the article made it seem like there is no happy middle between over-indulging/spoiling your child and not giving two shits about their lives. I’d guess a good majority of families fit in that middle ground between the doofus mom in the article and the horrors described by the psychologists.
Shit, my kids are charming for maybe 10 seconds at a time. And that’s only when they’re sleeping.
That’s a very good point. Even in these allegedly-enlightened times, our expectations of parental duties still seem to have a rather dramatic gender imbalance. Like in some other areas of life, behaviour that elicits scorn and derision when practiced by a woman gets little attention when a man does the same thing.
I can’t get too worked up about it. This is how most women probably feel about raising their kids. Granted, most of us suck it up and do it anyway, but I think a lot of us wouldn’t mind having a nanny do some of the mundane shit.
Well, frankly, that sounds like every single or working mother who works her ass off for a lot less than triple digits. Except without the stability of a nanny.
Heck, 50 years ago it was the standard relationship.
Yes! Thank you. Not to mention that people who don’t have kids are called selfish by a lot of people (just look up the “your pets are not your kids” thead from a while back and you’ll see what I mean). Because when we get old, their little pweciouses are going to be the ones who take care of us. Seriously, for people who don’t want/like kids, it’s kind of a no-win situation. You either choose not to have them and are pressured to contantly by society, grandparents, friends, etc., or you have them and take the risk of finding out that it’s not “different when it’s your own kid.”
I also agree with the article in that in many circles motherhood has come to be synonymous with martyrdon. When you become a mother, you’re expected to give up everything and give it all to your kids, or you’re just not a good mommy. There’s a lot of pressure on moms to be “the perfect mother.” I’m just trying to say that there are two extremes here. Neglecting one’s child in favor of your own needs is obviously not acceptable, so why is always putting your children’s needs above the needs of yourself and everyone else?
Gah. Stupid typos, and I previewed too. I do know how to spell “constantly” and “martyrdom,” I promise.
I’m only 10 months into being a mom, it can be tedious, but to not get any joy? eesh.
I have a friend I work with who is constantly sick, she is Desperate To Have Kids. She even made her boyfriend promise to have kids with her, hell, he isn’t ready to propose to her, much less breed. She has a horrid diet and eats no vegetables, only fried foods, drinks only coke. She spends more money than she has on cute clothes and leaves her boyfriend to cover the rent.
Her mother is her “BEST FRIEND.”
My babybeast may not utter those words, but she will eat vegetables, learn responsibility and have manners. Even if she prefers to eat books and smear jello now.
Well yes, but you have to take the rough with the smooth. I mean, if the marriage broke up and she wanted the kids, she’d have to be a fifty-cent crack whore before the courts wouldn’t give them to her. <–mild hyperbole.
You get the societal expectation that you are the better parent, you’re stuck with the societal expectation that you’ll be the better parent.
I call trollery, anyhow. (On the mother/columnist, not the OP). And it’s had the desired effect - a big flaming in today’s edition.
Of course, that might have read better if I’d said “assumption” instead of “expectation” the first time round, but who wants an edit function anyway?
It is true that due to work constraints, most dads don’t have a lot of time to spend with the kids. The thing is, it’s the attitude that bugs. My husband travels for work a lot. I don’t like it, and I don’t think it’s the best thing for our daughter, but his RELATIONSHIP with her is a different story. When he is home, he plays with her, reads to her, etc. If I heard him saying that he wasn’t going to do this stuff because it’s boring, and that someone else should do it, I would be furious with him.
In which Malacandra outs himself as a Mail reader and thus loses the respect of the teeming millions. Tut.
A smiley might be appropriate here but it simply isn’t cricket, so you’ll have to infer any joviality you feel appropriate. Perhaps “Harmison: 13-7-19-6” will convey the mood adequately.
Meh, the Daily Mail comes out with all sorts of crap. Before I stopped reading the copies my parents bought, their big thing was “no to gay marriage!” An article for which they found possibly the only gay man against gay marriage and asked him to do a full page spread on the subject.
Oh and they backed the Nazi’s before WWII proper started but after everyone guessed they were shits.
Well, except for not being home at all but for 7 days out of every 28.