I completely disagree with this statement. Raising a child properly is not about subsuming your life to rear him or her; it’s about making him or her a part of your life. I want my daughter to learn responsibility from me, and the alphabet, and how to make a good apple garlic soup - but I also want her to learn, by watching me and my wife, that enjoying your life and doing the things that make you feel happy and fulfilled are important. My daughter is three, and I haven’t felt the need to leave behind the things I enjoyed before she was born - I’ve just introduced her to those things, too, and tried to show her that being a mommy or a daddy can be fun as well as work. And she’ll be making her first appearance in the theatre (onstage with daddy!) this weekend.
As for long ski weekends: I’m afraid to ski. But for our fifth anniversary, my wife and I spent a night alone in Washington, DC, and saw a baseball game, while our daughter spent the weekend with her grandparents. We enjoyed our couple time, Grammy and Gramps enjoyed being with their granddaughter, and my daughter learns to enjoy the company of a wide variety of people. Where’s the problem there?
Thank you both,** WhyNot** and storyteller. I am also a parent who has always struggled to NOT immolate myself on that particular altar. I think my kids are better people because I did not cater to them, because I gave them freedom to fuck up within parameters appropriate to their ages etc. I also refused to give up some of the stuff that makes me, me. I still read murder mysteries (my MIL, who has issues, once told me that the presence of such material in my home could damage my lil tykes. Murder mysteries tend to have dead bodies etc on the cover.) :rolleyes:
Not immolating yourself means setting limits and sticking to them. No, we are not going out in sleet to get you a new battery for your Nano–play with something else. No, the TV will not be on while you are doing homework or we are eating–as a matter of fact, let’s limit that idiot box quite strictly. No, just because Ashley has X doesn’t mean you get X. And on and on…
But it’s more than that–it’s also about saying, let’s get a sitter and go away for the weekend or out for the night. It’s about banning toys from your(parent’s) room and having places in the house that are not covered in toys and kid crap. It’s about indulging in adult behaviors such as drinking wine at dinner or renting R movies so that YOU, the adult, are fed adult things, not endless streams of Teletubbies, Wiggles and Barney.(I would ban the under 12 set from the R movies, myself)
My husband struggles with more than I do, because his mother is a smotherer–and alcoholic, emotionally retarded and manipulative as hell. But even he, on a family vaca will say: today we do a daughter thing, a #1 son thing, a #2 son thing and a parent thing. Or do you really want to eat dinner at McDonald’s playland as the default dining out experience?
It’s an attitude that our parents had–there is kid world and there is adult world. I don’t agree with a lot of the stuff my parents did–my kids hear “I love you” and I don’t dismiss their opinions/feelings out of hand etc, but I am NOT their best friend; I am their parent. I am NOT a kid hugely oversized; I am an adult.
It is not that way in the upper eastern seaboard, especially in the Boston area. There are some companies that promote a work-life balance. Most don’t even go that far and the ones that do don’t mean it. About four months ago, my boss called me out of the blue on a Saturday and asked me to spend a little extra time working on a project that was already going well over the weekend. I agreed and started working and he contacted me a couple of hours later by phone to see how things were going. I mentioned that I needed to run out for a minute to take my five year old to a birthday party and I would be back in half an hour. The next time I checked my e-mail there was one from my boss that was cruel and ended with “STOP USING YOUR KIDS AS AN EXCUSE!!!” Again, this was unscheduled work that I volunteered for and could be done any time during the weekend equally well.
My wife and I do tag team parenting and it is really hard because we are both single parents depending on the time of day. I pick them up after work and they are often in bed by the time she comes home.
Having kids was the most important goal in my life and I was prepared for just about anything and both of my daughters make me incredibly happy although I can see the point of the OP because some parents really do hate their children. Kids destroy the previous lifestyle and I don’t think the default should be having kids. It should a carefully reasoned decision. The concept of hating your kids isn’t completely foreign to me. I hate taking care of infants. Crying for hours on end with nothing that will calm them down really took a toll on me. Crawlers seemingly try to commit suicide every 3.2 milliseconds with whatever dangerous thing they can find. Young walkers latch onto your leg so that you lose the freedom of basic movement. I knew it would get better as they got older and it did but a year of stress at a time for each is a lot of mental stress.
To me, this is the key, and it should be the first part of the question:
Did you invest a lot in teaching your children manners, helpfulness and civilized behavior? Were you a loving, dependable, trustworthy adult all the time? Did you severely limit your children’s media exposure?
Now, do you secretly despise your children?
I’m betting that most people who answer Yes to 1 will answer No to 2. Of course, the world is far from perfect, and it’s not always a parent’s fault if he/she stumbles frequently raising the kids. And even the parents who don’t stumble sometimes get dealt a bad hand. I know a woman who did a great job raising her son, but she’s always been extremely disappointed in her husband, who never made it off the shop floor. Her son has picked up on this, sided with his father, and is now making his mom pay.
And there are always those parents who, despite having great kids, regret not having accomplished all they could have if only they’d had the freedom.
I hate like hell to ruin a good agreeable streak, but I can’t help it.
I don’t think that’s what it’s about at all. And I think this kind of thinking leads inevitably to this kind of thinking:
Which is to say, if you did not do it right as a parent, your kids will suck and you will hate them. Please note that subsequently the blame is laid, not at the feet of the “good” mother but at the feet of the “bad” father, narrowing responsibility again down to the actions of one individual who is held completely responsible for the “outcome” of a person who in all probability has not yet surpassed the age of twenty-two (and who therefore can hardly be said to have come out in any way unless it involved a closet).
I think it’s far more likely that people immolate themselves on the altar of parenting precisely because they don’t know how to do it and are afraid – but know damn well that every public tantrum is going to be their fault according to at least some of the people around them.
I think it’s about letting other people care about your kids and for your kids without making them use your boundaries. It’s a supervisory role, wherein crazy Uncle Marty probably won’t be allowed to watch the kids alone because of that drinking problem but crazy Uncle Joe will because all he will do is pump them full of junk food and spoil them rotten. It’s about not requiring that everybody responsible for your kids follow your rules.
Anyway, It’s about that stuff. Or so it seems to me.
In my experience, bad behavior on the part of the children is almost always laid at the mother’s feet. But your experience clearly differs. Regardless, I agree that it’s not a good idea to point fingers at one person without sufficient information.
I agree that some people are so ridiculously afraid of screwing up that they overdo the parenting thing. I also think some people get carried away with or forget that kids change - really quickly. Whatever worked last week - hell, even yesterday - isn’t guaranteed to work today. Example: my kid used to only go to sleep for me. He refused to sleep for anyone else. But one day that stopped without any warning. For a few days, I kept trying to put him to sleep while he screamed himself senseless. I would hold him, rock him, rub his back. It was what I had done for 13 months - at first, I couldn’t imagine why it didn’t work. What was I doing wrong? Was he uncomfortable the way I was holding him? Was he sick? Nope - he was maturing and didn’t want to sleep period. It had nothing to do with me or his dad. It was him. I think a lot of parents, especially of young children, forget that.
On a side note, another thing I think lots of parents forget to do is instill in kids the idea that work is work and everyone in the family needs to pitch in so resentment doesn’t take root. As stated earlier, it doesn’t have to be fun, but it does have to get done. And kids should start participating in that work as early as possible. If they’re able to understand how to put things away, they should be helping even if they immediately dump things out again.
Lots of parents I know wait until their kids go to sleep to avoid having it messed up again, then get really pissed when their kids get older and refuse to help them, even to the point where they never have anything good to say about their kids. If I need something to stay clean, I might do that, too, but whenever possible, my 18-month old puts away his own toys, washes his table and chair if he happened to accidentally draw on them and helps pick up gum balls in the yard. I would never force him to help if he were ill or something were wrong, but if he’s fine, he’ll help, at least as long as I can reasonably hold his attention. When he’s reached a good stopping point in his play and he’s ready to move on or it’s time to go to bed, things get picked up. End of story. Those limits and even rituals are a vital part of discipline - if kids are taught that cleaning up after you make a mess is just what you do (part of a ritual, like taking a bath before bed and reading a book), they’re more likely to continue doing it later on, which reduces stress all around.
No, I agree, I was referring to the quoted post in which that particular father was apparently responsible.
I think one of the inevitable results of a two- or one- parent model is that people think of parenting as a phenomenon that ends at a given time, when the kids have turned out (usually sometime in the early teens) rather than a relationship that endures.
Ahhhh. Thanks for the clarification. I agree - some people seem to look at having kids rather like making a batch of biscuits. They come out of the oven (or the parents’ home - not talking about birth!) and they’re done. They are who they will be for the rest of their lives. And this may be true of some characteristics. But everyone changes as they age (hopefully anyway) - sometimes they get nicer, sometimes they’re bigger assholes, usually a combination of the two peppered with experience.
I can’t imagine how horrible it must be to actively or secretly hate your kids, but I do know that my own parents probably would have been just as happy if they hadn’t had them. Not that they don’t love us tremendously, but they are both independent people who love traveling and doing their own thing together, and I don’t think either of them would have felt unfulfilled if we hadn’t come along.
This is why it irks me so much when I see parents whose lives revolve completely around their children, placing unrealistic expectations on them and neglecting their marriages for the sake of the kids.
I have rarely heard the Dad being blamed for kids’ misbehavior, period. What are you referring to with the closet reference? Is your Dad gay? Are you saying bad fathers are gay? (they’re not–there is couple at my son’s school whom I think are excellent parents–I’m sure there are bad gay parents out there somewhere; they’re only human after all). What come out? Who?
No-I disagree. I think some do it because they are that competitive and some others do it because they crave the martyrdom. If you think you’ll ever avoid nasty glances due to your kid’s tantrums in a store, you’re not ready to be a parent. It’s how you respond to that tantrum that most people will judge you by, IME.
What, Huh and What, again? I swear I am “speaking” English on this board, but I must not be–where did I say anything about fathers being absent or bad parents? My husband (who is overall an excellent parent) does struggle more with being firm and reasonable with the teens–he excelled at babies and toddlers. He was smothered, and I mean smothered by a terrible mother. Frankly, both uncles seem to be not the best candidates for sitters, period. But of the two–the drinking problem one is NOT safe (I speak from experience here); the other one–ok as an occasional thing.
I have no idea what you got from my post or how you got whatever you got.
I’m the lone voice of dissent again. Don’t bother flaming me, because on this topic I am immune…I already know I was a crap parent.
I wish I’d never had my kids. I care about my kids, and I like my oldest daughter as a person now that she’s 24; that was a hard row to hoe considering some of the crap she pulled as a teenager. I do not like my younger daughter, who is 23 and has a kid of her own now. She is just an unpleasant individual.
I resent missed chances, but realize that the chances I missed where due to choices I made…I don’t blame my kids for the piss-poor decision-making process I used in my youth. I shoulder the blame for all that.
I’ve never really liked kids in general. I didn’t want kids to begin with. I did not enjoy raising my kids. I put forth my best effort, because I believe in doing a good job. My kids know that I didn’t plan to have them (because not very many plan to have kids when they are 16/17), but if they know that I never really liked being a parent it’s not because I told them “I hate you and wish I’d never had you”. Rather it would be because they, like most people, can figure out when someone isn’t enjoying a project, and parenthood is one long project.
I’m not saying there weren’t any good times. We had a couple of enjoyable vacations, the kids participated in activities they enjoyed, sometimes my kids cracked me up. But if I could have convinced myself that their father would have been a better parent than I, he would have got the kids and I would have walked away and been the absent parent that sends cards and swooshes in with the cool gifts at Christmas.
Now I have a grandson. I love this kid. I don’t know why. Unfortunately, his mom is not a good parent. She treats him like a pet or accessory. And I feel responsible for her bad parenting and the crappy life I think that my grandson may end up having.
I think it takes more work to raise a kid than many people are actually willing to put in. I think that even though I did the best I could at the time, I was a shitty parent. I’m trying to be a better grandparent.
If I had it to do over again, I would have more kids (2 currently). Maybe 1 or 2 more.
Of course, my wife may want a vote.
Sometimes they are a huge pain in the butt, yes. They’ve ruined my life of leasure and travel, they have given me grey hair and they have sucked my wallet and cupboards bare. What thing in life worth doing is easy?
I wouldn’t say my mother despised my brother and me, but she did resent the obligations we imposed upon her. After my father left, she was completely overwhelmed. We were really young (2 and 4) and more or less completely incapable of helping her in any significant way. One of my earliest memories is of her cursing God for having damned her with us, but I think that was just her frustration and exhaustion expressing itself in the only way she had. She was capable of great anger and of terrible screaming fits.
Mom never had a good template for parenting. Her mother was an emotionally distant alcoholic and her father died when she was just 3 months old. When her mother remarried, it was to a man who worked for General Dynamics and therefore moved them all over the country, so she never set down roots anywhere and never had steady friendships as a child.
She was never good with giving compliments and praising, and to this day I still don’t really believe deep down that I am worth any sort of praise whatsoever. I’m terrible at taking compliments and I tend to believe that those around me secretly dislike me even when I know better.
As we got older, I was able to step in as a backup parent. By the time I was 8, I was the cook and housekeeper, and I could sew simple repairs and take care of small home-repair tasks. I also had to keep up with school, obviously, and take care of making sure my brother did his homework too. I know that he still keeps some resentment of my role in his upbringing, and it has continued to inform our relationship to this day.
Today (at 28, 26, and 61), the three of us have what I would call a generally positive relationship, as Mom is clearly more comfortable relating to us as adults as opposed to as children. I love my mother, and I see a lot of her in myself – but the her in me is tempered by my experiences as a child. My brother is less forgiving of her difficulties when we were very young, but he doesn’t remember the circumstances as well as I. Two years of age makes a big difference in what you remember. Mom has mellowed out a great deal and I think she’s generally happy with how we turned out – of course, if you ask her about our youth she will definitely have a different view of the circumstances. She won’t even think about the emotional ramifications of her anger on us; her primary point of pride is that we never went without (and we didn’t) and that she never asked for nor received help from outside the family.
I’m not really sure if any of this is directly relevant, but to definitely link it to the OP, let me say this: It is (IME) completely impossible to hide your true feelings from your children. Even if you never say it out loud, and even if they never consciously are aware of your feelings, your words and actions in their parenting will forever be with them. If you hate your kids, they know.
If I’m reading this correctly, you’re alluding to what overlyverbose said, that people aren’t done developing at 18 or 21 or whenever we as a culture decide their parents’ primary responsibility is done, correct? Nothing about gay fathers.
I think this is A reason that SOME people immolate themselves, sure. Like I noted in passing, each step up to the altar seems reasonable at the time, and each bit of micromanaging is something that, if you don’t do it, people will call you to task for it in the extremely unlikely event that something bad happens.
I don’t think, however, that we all do the same thing for the same reason. There are probably a dozen reasons to crawl up on that altar, and we needn’t argue either/or.
I absolutely agree that it is important to let other people make their own boundaries and decisions when entrusted with your children. Kids who learn that there is more than one way to do things and that’s okay grow up, IMHO, to be more tolerant, flexible and people-skilled adults. On the other hand, the way you quoted **eleanorigby **makes it read like you’re disagreeing with her. She never said everyone in her children’s lives must follow her rules and procedures, only that she herself should be consistent, and not make rules that make her kids happiest in the moment, but make rules or agreements that also take her own happiness (or safety) into account, and serve the child’s long term good over present happiness.
In other words, I don’t think there’s disagreement here, just discussion of different things. **eleanorigby **is focused on her role as a parent, and you’re focused on the role of the wider community. Both are valuable discussions, but there was a bit of cross-talk there that was unclear on both your parts, at least to me.
Please, correct me if I’ve deciphered any of this incorrectly. I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouths, and I want to make sure I’m understanding everyone, especially **Marienee **and eleanorigby, before I continue.
stretch, no flames here, because I completely understand where you’re coming from. From the other side of the page, I’ve never understood exactly why it is that we’re “supposed to” love people we’re related to simply because we’re related to them. I’m grateful to my mother for all that she’s done for me, I acknowledge that for many years she was a good mother (until I become a teen, and then she sucked), and I feel legitimate filial respect for her. But if I were to meet her for the first time in my life right now at a dinner party, she’d be someone I’d exchange a few pleasantries with around the spinach dip and never think of again. We just don’t have much in common as people, and we wouldn’t become bosom buddies, and the fact that we share DNA has nothing to do with our emotions.
I find it unfortunate that your totally understandable lack of parenting skills has been passed down to your daughter, but that ship has sailed. As you’re trying to be a better grandparent, you’re doing all you can to rectify that. If she’s the sort of person who will not take it amiss, you might want to consider sticking a copy of Parenting With Love and Logic in her stocking this year; it might provide her with some skills and strategies she didn’t learn by observing you.
Thank you very much. I couldn’t figure out why that was happening. Someday I too will figure out how to quote properly.
As you might imagine coff I have more to say but it will have to wait until this evening. But thank you for clearing that up. And my apologies for the confusion, all. My bad, entirely.
Blessings to you, WhyNot for clarifying! And kudos to Marienee for owning up to the confusion.
I’ll go farther and say that I wish I had NOT put my kids first as much as I did when they were little. I wish I had done smaller things for me more consistently–I got a few whole weekends away and one huge trip to UK and Europe without them, but in a way, I wish I’d taken one night a week to take a class or go out to dinner, that sort of thing. But overall, I am glad that it was me who read to them almost every night, me that tucked them in and talked and sang to them at bedtime. Me who fed them and bathed them and paid attention; entered into their little worlds with respect and kindness (most of the time). I also allowed their world to open up to include other adult caregivers and different cultures (as much as can be done in Yuppyland). That is a source of satisfaction to me, although there were many, many days when I longed for relief. Parenting is one huge, scary never-ending responsibility that can seem at times a burden and at others a great gift.
In one way I feel I am blessed: each age (for me) is interesting in its own way. I want to know my teens, like I wanted to know my elementary schoolers, kindergartners and preschoolers, toddlers and babies. If any, baby was the hardest for me. I’ll take a 2 year old any day over a 4 month old…
A friend has a saying re parenthood: the days are long, but the years are short. All too true.
No way do I hate my kids. I have 6 and another, G-d willing, on the way. Can’t get enough of parenthood.
They’re not always easy to deal with. But hey, they’re kids. They’re not born with manners or empathy, it’s our job as parents to take the inherently selfish baby and turn them into socially functional adults. I’m sure my parents had their moments with me, too. But they never stopped loving me (or they do a darned good job of faking it), and I’ll never stop loving mine.
As for the “missed opportunities” thing - sorry, that’s your problem, not the kids’s. My wife and I have travelled extensively, always with our kids. Sure, now our trips include more childrens’ museums than they used to, but we make sure we get what we want as well. Once the kids are in bed, we watch our South Park. We get babysitters for nights out. Intelligent parents can figure out ways to take care of their adult needs while still being completely engaged parents.
Oh, congratulations, cmkeller! Hope it all goes well.
On the whole, parenting is like any other difficult, worthwhile life project. You don’t get a great life without effort, and the best things are also the ones that require the most work. Kids are lots of work, and also lots of reward.
I swear I am “speaking” English on this board, but I must not be–where did I say anything about fathers being absent or bad parents? My husband (who is overall an excellent parent) does struggle more with being firm and reasonable with the teens–he excelled at babies and toddlers. He was smothered, and I mean smothered by a terrible mother. Frankly, both uncles seem to be not the best candidates for sitters, period. But of the two–the drinking problem one is NOT safe (I speak from experience here); the other one–ok as an occasional thing.
