Yeah, I did. But the question is pretty ridiculous.
A serious answer: Humans and dogs are different species with different developmental patterns and capabilities. Non-modern humans (and some modern humans) nurse their young until around two or three (sometimes longer). By that time a dog will have been able to have a litter of puppies on her own. Wild dogs can be independant at a year or younger, a one year old human cannot find his own food and sustain his own life. A dog matures much faster, dies much sooner (assuming a normal lifespan), and has a completely different intellectual capacity. The two cannot be compared meaningfully.
Hey, I’m 30 years old. I’m at the age where practically all my friends and coworkers are having kids. So I certainly don’t have a lack of knowledge about current parents…
Oh, shuddup and stop trying to introduce facts into this discussion!
My failure to make my 8 month-old daughter follow simple orders like “stay”, “roll over” and “play dead” means I am a terrible parent. I know. You may chastise me now.
Back to: Is it the parents’s fault or the boss’s fault that catsix is getting screwed?
How is the behavior of the parental co-workers screwing catsix? Do they set her work expectations? Do they diss her for not being a team player in reviews? Nope. It’s the boss. Your co-workers cannot screw you by not doing their work. (They could screw you by maliciously tampering with your work or spreading false rumors or something I suppose.) Am I screwing my co-workers because I take all my vacation AND because I have more than they do? It’s not fair, but that’s one of the benefits that keep me at my current job. And leaving early is now just as much a benefit to those parents as official vacation because the boss has authorized it by allowing them to take it.
Scenario - 4 parents out of 50 are allowed to leave early. All work they were expected to do is dumped on 1 or 2 other employees. That’s not a problem the boss needs to work out? Another poster has already noted that other workplaces where this problem existed have found other ways to share the load more equitably. (Sure, the individual solved it for themselves, but their boss really could and should have made the change.)
We didn’t get any of them to stay, but they got had “roll over” down pretty well.
I have never understood the parental need to make kids obey from an early age. I was perfectly willing to indulge toddler behavior. Why in the world would I keep them out of the bathroom when I was going? Why would I isolate them from me so that I can do “grownup” things? If I’d wanted to just do grownup things, I wouldn’t have had kids! Sure it gets old playing “babies” every day with my youngest. But I do, because she’s only three and Daddy time is the world to her.
You have to let your kids cry it out alone to sleep sometimes? The hell you do. We never did. We co-slept with all our kids, and they transitioned into sleeping solo just fine when they were ready (Well not all of them yet. The 3 year old still sleeps with Mommy.) We met (and continue to meet) all our children’s reasonable needs for their parents, and they did not turn out spoiled.
However, for kids over 2, tantrums are ignored. And you can always tell when it is a “I want to get my way” vs “I am really sad and abandoned and need comfort”. And tantrums in public places are greeted by picking the child up and immediately leaving that place, we can finish shopping another time (assuming the child is not screaming because they want to leave.)
I don’t know where you work, but that’s manifestly untrue at my job. If somene doesn’t do their job, it effects everyone. If someone is routinely shirking their job, and they know that doing so is fucking up everyone else in the office, they’re being a dick. Yes, it’s the boss’s job to be aware of this and to rectify it, but “because I can get away with it” does not excuse this behavior.
I presume you’ve do something of sufficient benefit to your employer to earn that extra vacation time? Do you take that extra vacation time whenever the whimsy strikes you, or do you schedule it so that you don’t have any critical tasks that need to be finished before you go? When you’re not on vacation, do you put in extra time and effort to make sure your job gets done in a timely fashion? I’m assuming the answers are yes, which makes you completely dissimiliar to catsix’s co-workers, as she has described the situation.
How does it affect everyone? Does it affect your pay? Your benefits?
Well, you’d assume wrong. I put in just as much time as I’m required to, and I do my work to the best of my ability in that time. But I don’t work extra hard preparing for vacation.
Precisely–that’s why I asked if the original comment were facetious. One might equally say, “Children can learn rudimentary language by the age of two; why can’t you teach the same thing to your dog?”
Humans are both much smarter and much stupider than dogs at the age of two. Analogies between the two species are completely irrelevant. WHile certain things can be taught to two-year-olds, it’s a different set from what can be taught to dogs.
I’m not going to read this thread beyond this. I think the behaviour of the mothers in question is intentional, and I think it’s the result of exhaustion. It’s not like how you feel after getting “off a 12 hour shift!”, it’s how you’d feel after getting off a 12 hour shift, being allowed a four hour break (interrupted repeatedly by a crying baby), starting another twelve hour shift, followed by a similarly unrestful “break”, repeat for one year. They do it to piss you off. Not because they consider their children the centre of the universe, but because they’re exhasted, pissed off, and the world is going to pay.
I always had the same question about this behaviour before my gal and I had a baby. After about 8 months with no real sleep I started doing it myself. On PURPOSE! If there isn’t a clinical name for it there should be.
[disclaimer] Sorry for a response which ignores 5 pages of other content. I need to get some sleep right now, I’m pissed off, and I’m really only doing it to piss off others. [/disclaimer]
You have a good point (except for the Sponge Bob bit, seriously if mummy’s programme is more important then kid’s programe then mummy has issues) yes, mum should be able to occupy the child so she can have a shower USUALLY. It is amazing how oft think this is where the problem lies. Could it be that these parents who duck out of work are not bad people because they are parents, but perhaps are inconsiderate because they aren’t following the golden rule?
To me faerieBeth said it best.
There’s a give-and-take mentality at my workplace (an elementary school). Most all of us are parents, but in varying stages from new mothers to new grandmothers. We all cover for each other. I cover for my teammate when she leaves early to go visit her handicapped son in long-term care. I’ve covered for another fellow teacher who had to skip the classes she had scheduled with me because of another project that got dumped on her. I’ve taught a double class before on days when a coworker who was a new mom had used up all her sick days, so they wouldn’t have to call a substitute and dock her pay. I’ve stayed late to work on grants when others had to leave to pick up kids because my husband picked up ours. This was done without the expectation of being paid back, and because we were all in this together.
Then, about three weeks ago, when my husband called in the middle of the day to tell me my youngest child was being taken to the hospital via ambulance*, I didn’t even have to ask. My principal said, “Go. We’ll handle everything here.” And they did. For two weeks. They covered my class that day, found subs, made lesson plans for the subs, ran off the work, and even administered the benchmark tests. They called to check on my son, sent flowers and goodies to the hospital, and called me the day before I went back to bring me up to speed on everything. Which is exactly what I would have done (and will if it’s ever required) for any one of the other people I work with…whether it was their child, parent, or spouse.
there are few emergencies on a par with “My child is really sick and must go to the doctor/hospital”, but, for childless people, they still have parents, spouses, and siblings who could be in an accident or very ill, suddenly. I also would have dropped everything and left if it were my mother or husband. Just as I expect anyone would.**
I work in a kindy/earlychildcare/daycare whatever you call it. Where I work there are eight teachers; three with school age children, three childless and two with adult children.
ONE of the school age children-types is a self serving type. She races off at the smallest excuse. One of the with-adult-children (children are 21-25) seems to have family emergencies often. One of the non-children types does her day BY THE CLOCK (she gets shitty if her morning tea, afternoon tea or lunch are late)
That is how the workplace is because that is how PEOPLE are, some people are more willing to be selfish, having kids can be the exuse they need.
I have a child and I have a job. My child is more important then my job and that is the way it SHOULD be. BUT as a parent I have to pick my moments. The child says he feels sick? HOW sick is he? IS he sick enough for me to take a sick day (is he sick enough to justify me having to go to work if he gets sicker or if I am sick?)should I jolly him into going to school (YES usually)
I work in an enviroment where we look after each other (all but one), recently I had to take off in the middle of the day because my father had severed a tendon at work. I had to go to the hospital with him. I left in the middle of the day - no questioned asked, I didn’t return that day because of his injury.
I have covered many, many times because people were ill OR their children were ill. I officially work 8:30 to 5:00 but I can’t remember the last time I left before 5:30. I do that happily.
I know when my child was young I may have left early.
Geez, maybe they should have thought about that before they decided to have kids. Having kids is a choice and others should not be made to suffer because of your choice.
Oh, you don’t know how much I wish you never, ever, ever had to deal with anyone else’s kids. No doctors born after 1990 for you! Or mechanics! Or pharmacists, physicists, teachers, farmers, grocery clerks, computer techs… they were all children who inconvenienced you when they were young, and it was their parents’ choice, and you shouldn’t have to suffer from it. Nor benefit.
As a note, I defy you to find one parent - ONE - who can say, after having had a kid, “Why, even in retrospect I can say that I knew exactly what I was doing when I decided to have children.”
I do have to mention in passing that as a child-hater, <b>nyctea</b> would probably be an outstanding parent. The people who go on about “the children, the children, everything for the children!” seem to be MOST likely to have insufferable brats.
Um, what the heck are you talking about? I never said the children inconvenienced me. I was responding to Quint who said that parents who act like assholes do it “to piss you off. Not because they consider their children the centre of the universe, but because they’re exhasted, pissed off, and the world is going to pay.” I said that if their job as a parent is so incredibly hard that they end up being so exhausted and pissed off that they want to piss everyone else off, that maybe they should have thought twice about having kids.
What the hell is this “child-hater” business? Where have I ever said I hate children? I like children a lot. It’s stupid parents (like the ones in the OP) that I do not like. A child’s behavior - good or bad - is usually reflection on their parents and their parenting skills/methods.
What I don’t think you’re taking into account is that it takes apprx. 2,445,982 repetitions for “lessons” to actually sink in. Some kids are more malleable, some lessons easier to take – but even with the best-behaved children, there are going to be unexpected moments when they just get a wild hair up their butts and refuse to cooperate. I have two 2-yr-olds at the moment, and it’s really something how mercurial they are.
It is absolutely the parents’ responsibility to log those 2,445,982 repetitions in order to turn little Junior into a civilized being. But many of those lessons are going to fail on first (and 18th, 235th, 886th, etc.) try.
And there are moments when a parent is too fried to make the effort for whatever reason. They might be raising spoiled brats (they ARE out there, no doubt about it), or they might be dealing with a burden you can’t imagine.
A friend of mine used to park her infant in front of CNN, which I thought was terrible (although I never said a word about it to her, just turned the TV off when I came over to babysit). Well, The Rest of the Story is that her husband, at age 35, had just been diagnosed with mesothelioma and may or may not have been expected to live out the year. So yeah, she wasn’t at her best.
Another friend’s son grabbed a toy away from my kid at the playgroup in a really obnoxious way, made my son cry — but her son had just started taking epilepsy medication to control his seizures, and they hadn’t yet found a working formula. He wasn’t at his best either.
And as a blanket statement, yes, we have an obligation to haul their butts out of even McDonald’s when the kid’s being a brat, and yes, we shouldn’t even try a “real adult” restaurant, movie, concert or museum until the child(ren) can do so without effecting others. The vast majority of mothers, at least of my acquaintance, are extremely conscientious about such things and, in fact, worry about it quite a bit.
BTW, the bathing thing (which apparently skeeved people out) – I actually HAVE ducked into the shower for 5 mins. while they were watching TV. Scares the crap out of me – no house is perfectly baby-proofed and their abilities (which are flowering every day) waaay exceed their judgement. You never know what new “trick” they might be ready to try out.
And there are other times when I could be taking care of my physical needs, but choose to spend time online instead. It’s strange to have to manage one’s time so closely. Actually, it’s a PITA. My point was that most people don’t have to make those choices and it’s likely foreign to them.
You choose to have children knowing it will be difficult. You do NOT choose to be permanently sleep deprived. You’ve never had a baby, so you’re in no position to judge. Sorry if that’s an over-used expression, it also happens to be true.
The original question is “what is it about having children that causes women to become inconsiderate monsters?”
Apologies if someone else has posted this, but what about Stockholm Syndrome? From the link (with standard Wikipedia disclaimer):
“According to the psychoanalytic view of the syndrome, the tendency might well be the result of employing the strategy evolved by newborn babies to form an emotional attachment to the nearest powerful adult in order to maximize the probability that this adult will enable - at the very least - the survival of the child, if not also prove to be a good parental figure.”
When a baby is born, it really has no concept of the outside world. It not only thinks of itself as the center of the universe, it literally thinks of itself as the universe. The baby begins to subject the parents to sleep deprivation a recognized form of torture which can result in “irritability, blurred vision, slurred speech, memory lapses, overall confusion, hallucinations, nausea, psychosis, and eventually death.” The parents, suffering from Stockholm syndrome, not only grow to love the child, they actually begin to come around to it’s point of view. The baby is the center of the universe. Since in the vast majority of cases the mother is the primary care-giver, the mother is most likely to be suffering from the syndrome.
So, the next time you notice this behaviour, don’t get angry. Just be grateful the mother in question isn’t wielding a machine gun and robbing banks for the Symbionese Liberation Army.
