Thoughts on parenting
Jul. 7th, 2010 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamagotchaSo FaceBook has been all atwitter about that article about why parenting sucks, and I have some thoughts about it.
I think a lot of the problem isn't just having kids, it's the WAY Americans raise their kids that's causing so much strife and agony.
The example of the homework battle used in the article? Looked pretty simple to me... cooperatively set up an agreement about the homework before the TV viewing started, along with a consequence for failing to meet the expectation. Or, let the kid take the natural consequence for not finishing the homework. But the prevailing attitude of "kids need parents to make them do the right thing" is the same mentality as "kids need schools to tell them what to learn," which I fundamentally disagree with.
And even though both of those attitudes have caused HUGE family disharmony in our culture, people still cling to them as if they were the laws of physics.
It makes me really sad, because I think people are causing a lot of their own problems with their kids... unconsciously, or unintentionally, because they don't know there is another way to approach parenting.
The decay of the nuclear family and surrounding community breakdowns are also huge factors in why parents (especially mothers) feel so isolated and frustrated. If you met up with the same group of moms each day to let the kids run around together, only a couple of moms would need to be on top of the kids at any given time... the others could be pursuing their own interests.
There was a statistic in the article, about how married couples spend so much less time with each other than they did in 1975. That's because elementary-school-aged kids were expected to pretty much take care of themselves, and with the crazy-ass environment of fear (along with the plan-every-minute-of-the-day parenting style) of today, there's very little time for kids to just run around and be kids. I often jokingly say that I raised my kids via benign neglect, and while that's somewhat of an overstatement... there's a goodly bit of truth in it, too. I let Linc play in the front and back yards by himself often, and I never see other kids his age on our street do the same thing... it's just NOT DONE anymore. I don't think there are any more rapists or murderers out there than there were when I was a kid... they're just feared more today.
Keeping kids scheduled or locked up indoors to prevent abduction makes me think of the campaign to make babies sleep on their backs to avoid SIDS... that has resulted in a huge number of kids with flat head syndrome, or the rising number of allergies might be a result of withholding foods instead of early exposure, or the medicalization of birth that has resulted in a 30%+ cesarean rate. If there was a large-scale study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children, I'd be willing to bet that there would be a large number of chronic diseases and conditions associated with fully vaccinated children, too... but the PTB that would be damaged by such a revelation certainly are doing their best to make sure such a study never happens. And even if such connections were proven, there would STILL be a huge push to continue vaxing as prevention, that the lesser evils of the risk of contracting Crohns, eczema, asthma, or diabetes are worth it.
In other words... from where I sit, the problems caused by the solutions are often worse (and certainly affect far more individuals) than the initial conditions. Like our acceptance of the PITA rules for air travel, we each meekly accept many small indignities and problems to offset the tiny chance of being hit by a big one. I'm not sure how we turned into such a society, how our risk assessment and management got so skewed... but I know I'm in the minority by turning away from it.
TL;DR: No, I don't think parenting is supposed to make us deliriously happy. But I don't think it has to make us miserable, either.
I think a lot of the problem isn't just having kids, it's the WAY Americans raise their kids that's causing so much strife and agony.
The example of the homework battle used in the article? Looked pretty simple to me... cooperatively set up an agreement about the homework before the TV viewing started, along with a consequence for failing to meet the expectation. Or, let the kid take the natural consequence for not finishing the homework. But the prevailing attitude of "kids need parents to make them do the right thing" is the same mentality as "kids need schools to tell them what to learn," which I fundamentally disagree with.
And even though both of those attitudes have caused HUGE family disharmony in our culture, people still cling to them as if they were the laws of physics.
It makes me really sad, because I think people are causing a lot of their own problems with their kids... unconsciously, or unintentionally, because they don't know there is another way to approach parenting.
The decay of the nuclear family and surrounding community breakdowns are also huge factors in why parents (especially mothers) feel so isolated and frustrated. If you met up with the same group of moms each day to let the kids run around together, only a couple of moms would need to be on top of the kids at any given time... the others could be pursuing their own interests.
There was a statistic in the article, about how married couples spend so much less time with each other than they did in 1975. That's because elementary-school-aged kids were expected to pretty much take care of themselves, and with the crazy-ass environment of fear (along with the plan-every-minute-of-the-day parenting style) of today, there's very little time for kids to just run around and be kids. I often jokingly say that I raised my kids via benign neglect, and while that's somewhat of an overstatement... there's a goodly bit of truth in it, too. I let Linc play in the front and back yards by himself often, and I never see other kids his age on our street do the same thing... it's just NOT DONE anymore. I don't think there are any more rapists or murderers out there than there were when I was a kid... they're just feared more today.
Keeping kids scheduled or locked up indoors to prevent abduction makes me think of the campaign to make babies sleep on their backs to avoid SIDS... that has resulted in a huge number of kids with flat head syndrome, or the rising number of allergies might be a result of withholding foods instead of early exposure, or the medicalization of birth that has resulted in a 30%+ cesarean rate. If there was a large-scale study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children, I'd be willing to bet that there would be a large number of chronic diseases and conditions associated with fully vaccinated children, too... but the PTB that would be damaged by such a revelation certainly are doing their best to make sure such a study never happens. And even if such connections were proven, there would STILL be a huge push to continue vaxing as prevention, that the lesser evils of the risk of contracting Crohns, eczema, asthma, or diabetes are worth it.
In other words... from where I sit, the problems caused by the solutions are often worse (and certainly affect far more individuals) than the initial conditions. Like our acceptance of the PITA rules for air travel, we each meekly accept many small indignities and problems to offset the tiny chance of being hit by a big one. I'm not sure how we turned into such a society, how our risk assessment and management got so skewed... but I know I'm in the minority by turning away from it.
TL;DR: No, I don't think parenting is supposed to make us deliriously happy. But I don't think it has to make us miserable, either.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-08 03:27 am (UTC)At least, it was from the point of view of the one receiving said parenting.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-08 05:38 am (UTC)I don't think this is because i'm avoiding modern 'solutions', but i will admit to some lucky things that help. One certainly is my wonderful community of friends. One is that i believe strong that i'm a better parent, and a better wife, and a better just about everything if i take care of myself.
I do think parenting is really really hard. Hard, of course, is not the same thing as undesirable.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-08 05:14 pm (UTC)http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448377/
They found a small but statistically significant association of vaccinated kids getting asthma. However, that group was also highly correlated with a very low incidence of doctors visits. When that factor was regressed out, the association with vaccination went away.
The discussion also summarizes 12 other studies that have been done looking at associations of vaccination and allergies. There was, at worst, very weak association -- which could be accounted for by ascertainment biases.
"In summary, although our results in an observational cohort study demonstrated a positive association between vaccination and allergic disease, this association can be explained by ascertainment bias. These data, together with other published evidence, suggest that current vaccination practices do not have an adverse effect on the incidence of allergic disease."
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Date: 2010-07-09 05:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-09 03:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-11 09:13 pm (UTC)I also think in general folks are not so happy, kids or no kids.