<p>Kid Crazy: Why We Exaggerate the Joys of Parenthood
"…Here’s how cognitive-dissonance theory works when applied to parenting: having kids is an economic and emotional drain. It should make those who have kids feel worse. Instead, parents glorify their lives. They believe that the financial and emotional benefits of having children are significantly higher than they really are.</p>
<p>…Once again, those who read only about how expensive kids are idealized parenthood far more than those who read about both the costs and the benefits of raising children (and far more than the control group did). They were also significantly more likely to believe that spending time with kids is more rewarding than other activities, even though researchers have found that when you measure how rewarding parents found any given day spent with their children, they rated that day worse than they had expected to…"</p>
<p>The issue that I have with that is that it’s completely untrue once the kids are already born. Parents negotiate all sorts of stuff, and it’s only a problem when one parent doesn’t keep up their end of the deal-- which happens all the time. And if one parent thinks the other is being unreasonable, then the other parent is stuck picking up all the slack because the kid needs what it needs-- which is a necessity, but it’s not fair to the parent doing all the work and it happens to women ALL THE TIME. </p>
<p>A common example that occurred in our household all the time was back to school clothes. My father did not believe we needed more than one outfit and flatly refused to pay for any other clothing and has /never/ taken us into a clothing store. Mom knows that we CAN’T wear the same t-shirt to class every single day when we can perfectly well afford to dress decently, and so she ends up doing all the shopping-- and in the end my mom actually got a work-from-home job to pay for these kinds of things. My dad refused to pay for any childcare related expenses. Another one? Dad thinks we don’t need to cook for the kids. When my mother worked outside the home, as a 6 year old I was making dinner for my younger sister because my dad wouldn’t do it and my mom got mad when she caught him bringing us to chuck e. cheese every day so he wouldn’t have to watch us. Mom had to quit her job and work from home and do ALL the cooking because dad didn’t think it needed to be done. Laundry? My dad sees no need to do laundry. He leaves it piled for my mom to do. If she won’t do it, he goes out and buys himself new clothes (after he yells at her). When the kids were too young to do their own laundry, my mom had to do it all because my dad wouldn’t do it. To this day she still does everything in the house even though she works, because my dad doesn’t feel it’s his job and SOMEBODY has to do it.</p>
<p>While maybe your husbands and the husbands you know don’t behave like this, there are lots of these kinds of men out there. I know dozens of men who think they are entitled to a well kept house and well raised kids just so long as they pay the bills, and if they do a little extra here and there then they are saintly for “helping out.” I mean hell, how often do you hear, “my husband is babysitting the kids?” There are still LOTS of men who think all there is to being a good father is showing up to tball and paying the mortgage, while being a good mother is to do EVERYTHING else. That kind of deal, where one party is ramrodded into being the sole provider of care because the other thinks its not their responsibility, is negotiated all the time, often times without the woman’s consent and after the kids have already come. And then what? Is she just supposed to grin and bear it? What if she /literally/ can’t? We have this expectation that women have to be superhuman and be the best mothers possible no matter what the circumstances, and while it feels REALLY icky to admit it, that is just not realistic. If the kids in these equations get screwed up it is not mom’s fault for not being able to defy all odds and pick up the pieces that dad broke in the first place. Without knowing the dynamic of the women in the OP’s situation, we can’t know what really went on here. We don’t know that she wasn’t in a marriage like this. She makes it sound like she was, at least in the article. Like I said, we’d have to read the book to really know.</p>
<p>Ema - I’m sorry your Dad is such a poor example for you and your unfortunate situation proves the point that I ineptly tried to make. The mother cannot look at the toddler and say “I’m sorry you’re not going to be taken care of today because before you were born your father agreed to 50% of the care and it is his turn.” Your mom stepped up as best she could. You do what you have to do. It’s not heroism.</p>
<p>What I would want every young woman and young man to consider is just this - think long and hard before you decide to be a parent with someone. It is a decision that will not just affect you and as soon as the baby is born, it should not be about you. You have got to think about this BEFORE the baby is in the picture.</p>
<p>You’re right that a woman can’t do that. My point, however, was that a woman’s strength to carry the entire weight of her family is not infinite, even if her responsibility is, and when there are failings I don’t think we can demonize her for them when we have no idea what familial situation her spouse created for her. There are women who murder their children when they get overwhelmed and this is not one of them. There are women that leave their kids on the street. This woman left them with her father, and we have no idea what led to that decision. A woman may not be able to say, “well, I am not going to care for you today because we had an agreement,” but people all the time say, “I am not going to care for you right now because you have a mother to do that.”</p>
<p>A few weeks ago my mom was taking my sister to school when sister realized she forgot her phone. Mom pulled up into the driveway so my sister could run in and get it, mom stayed in the car. Sister slipped and fell in the kitchen and got hurt. My dad didn’t even get up to see if she was okay, because he assumed my mom could hear her and that he would go to her. No one would ever know that about my family if they didn’t live with us. Everybody loves my dad. He’s lots of fun at parties, and he talks like he’s a real great dad. Given the experiences with my childhood, I can’t lambaste this woman without knowing more about her family life. I’d like to say my mother hasn’t cracked under the pressure, but that isn’t true. She didn’t leave, but she stopped parenting several years too soon. Mentally she could not take it anymore. Is that okay? No. But I don’t blame her, I blame the person that agreed to have a child with her and left her to deal with the consequences alone.</p>
<p>I not willing to lambast her either but I’m also not willing to give her a free pass.</p>
<p>She says that society expects this and society expects that. Well, screw what society says. A couple has to work at defining how their own marriage is going to be. I came from a long line of stay at home mothers. I work outside of the home and I learned early on that my house wouldn’t be as clean as theirs was and the evening meals wouldn’t be as good as what they prepared and they wouldn’t always be prepared by me either. Neither my in-laws or my own mother was ever OK with my low standards but so what? I don’t care what they think. It works well enough for us and it keeps me from going crazy.</p>
<p>The author says that her husband coaxed her into having kids. What is she, a lame duck? She certainly has found her voice now. There are ways of not getting consumed by being a mother that fall short of leaving the home. Your story is a sad one Emmaheevul07. I’d like to think these days that most husbands are not this unenlightened or oblivious or stubborn. I don’t see how a marriage can survive a husband’s refusal to help around the house when his wife works. It sounds like your mother did the best that she could and just as she doesn’t get any fault from you she won’t get any from me either.</p>
<p>I don’t think she gets a free pass, either. I don’t disagree with anything you said, Pea. I just don’t feel like I can say anything about the woman with any real conviction without more information, other than that it’s very unfortunate that she felt she needed to do this for whatever reason, and that the way she was quoted talking about it was very strange. I hope that, under the circumstances she had to work with, what she chose to do was doing the best she could. I am just glad that if she really felt she needed to get away so badly, she chose to do this instead of physically harming herself or her children. It’s not like I’m saying this isn’t a bad situation all around, it is, and I think something went terribly wrong in that family. I just won’t pretend to know what that something wrong was just because I don’t approve of how mom chose to deal with it. I didn’t really disagree with anything you wrote in this thread, I was more at odds with the people suggesting she was some kind of monster. She might be, but I don’t know that. </p>
<p>On a different track… personally, I always wished my dad had just left so we wouldn’t be continually disappointed by the expectation that he was going to be a dad when he obviously isn’t capable of doing that. We would have been better off without him. I love him, but he is not a parent or a husband. He’s just a man that lives in our house. If he had left and paid child support he’d have been a better dad than he had ever been in his marriage.</p>
<p>Hmm. I think I would have the same reaction if a man said he had to leave the full time parenting relationship as Rizzuto. If the person is leaving because they no longer want to be a full time parent, when they already became a parent, then I say shame on them. Yes, it is the best choice if it prevents psychosis, child abuse, severe depression etc. But it is still not great. However, if the marriage irritrievably breaks down and this is the result- then we have to accept it in this day and age. This is where society traditionally gives the non custodial parent a pass- whether male or female. I think if Rizzuto wrote that her marriage broke down, and she could not function as the primary care giver, then she would engender a much different reaction. It really does come off as self absorption and rationalization from the little bit in the excerpt. And DougBetsy, I am so sorry. That is just lousy. It is something that no child deserves to hear no matter their age.</p>
<p>I think the anti-tiger mom is not the worst person in the world, not even the worst mom in the world, but writing a book like this sure shows her kids where they rate in her life. No matter how right, wrong, or indifferent others may feel about this, it is most likely painful for her children. I have only read the excerpts here, so I may be getting the wrong idea, but what her kids are hearing is, "I didn’t really want you, but your dad talked me into it, so I left you with him, but hey, I showed up for your stuff, right? And you can come to my house all the time, right? I helped you with your homework, what more do you want? Besides, look how happy I am!</p>
<p>I don’t think she’s necessarily wrong for making her choices, but I do think writing a book about it is wrong, for her childrens’ sake. But then it doesn’t sound like she’s ever made choices based on what’s best for her children.</p>
<p>Ema, What an unfortunate family situation you have. I agree your dad should take up the position of this anti-tiger mom. It would be infinitely better for everyone.</p>
<p>Right at the same place the Tiger Mom’s kid’s rate in her life. Both of them just see their kids only as the kids relate to the Mom, not as fully formed human beings in their own right.</p>
<p>There’s no excuse for failing to figure this out before she had the first kid, never mind the second. That being said, it’s an opportunity for all of us to think about whether we’re contributing to the societal pressure to have children. I’ve been saying I didn’t plan to have kids since I was 12, and I’ve endured over twenty years of condescending statements that I didn’t know my own mind, doomsday scenarios about being alone in the nursing home, rose-colored descriptions of the ecstasy I was missing out on, etc. I’m living proof that it’s possible to resist that pressure, but realistically, some people are going to cave in, and then the children suffer. So it’s good to have this reminder that pushing anyone toward parenting is a huge mistake that can lead to a lot of misery.</p>
<p>I know that I only enjoy certain aspects of parenting – which for me includes helping teenagers figure out where they want to go in life and how to get there. So I get everything I need from being an aunt and a counselor.</p>