Remind me to come back and blog about this piece.
Just for the record, I am NOT mad at Dad. MWH is wonderful.
I like being a Mom. I like being with the girls. I like keeping track of the minutiae of their lives. MWH would be very bad at that and if I expected him to do it, then, yea, I might be annoyed at him, but I don't expect that of him. We're a team. I do some things and he does other things. We benefit from having different strengths. I don't want him to do the same things I do.
Yea, I'm pretty sure that my life changed more than my husband's life after the girls came along, but why did I have kids if it wasn't to enjoy them and spend time with them?
I know I'm very lucky because MWH does so much around the house. He is much neater than me. He does dishes. I cook, and I do a lot of research about many health related topics.... I keep track of the girls' needs regarding clothes and school activities...
Anyway, I'd write more, but I am VERY sleepy. I do plan to come back to this....
In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you all on what you think of the piece.
5 comments:
I wonder if this is more an issue for families that have other stresses, like work stress (e.g., the mom works full time or almost full-time) or financial stress (whether the mom works or not, surveys I've seen show that most mom's are stressed about finances). The less OTHER stress you have, the more easy it is to do whatever you're doing and like it (and not begrudge others). You work hard, but you WANT to work (don't HAVE to) which means a lot (it's your choice--you still get stressed, but you have ultimate control, which is important). Just some possibilities :)
Very good point!
I'm posting this one so a friend stays anonymous... It's a very nice point.
One of my favorite commenters and friends, we'll call her FC, emailed me and told me she was angry with her husband when she had post-natal depression. FC didn't realize she was depressed because her symptom was anger. When FC was in counseling, one of the tools given to her by her counselor was a reflective one. Her counselor suggested FC make a list of all the things she expected of her husband. When FC made the list, she was able to see how her expectations were pretty impossible for her husband to achieve. Some of the things FC wrote were "I expect my husband to do things MY way."
FC summarizes the experience and the tool by saying, "I think this is an exercise many women of the women who are angry at their partners could benefit from."
One of my other perspectives is that our culture and the media don't prepare women what it will be like to have children. TV glamorizes it or makes it look so bad (comical) it's hard to believe. It's not glamorous. Some of it is boring. Some of it is messy. It is rewarding and it can be fun, but see above.
The other thing is that so many women are ALONE when they have children. I think that we should have LARGE AMOUNTS of extended family around to help. Grandmas and cousins and aunts... When I take the girls home to visit my family, it's great. The family entertains the girls so much and vice versa. Having kids can take away a woman's social network... If for example, the woman worked before having kids, and none of her friends at work have kids, she can find herself VERY LONELY suddenly. You can't do as much with kids as you can without kids. You can't work in the same way.
The other thing, kids are not very grateful and they can make you feel incompetent. All of mine do.... :-) These are just some thoughts I want to expand on in the future.
I swear I want one of those. I can't imagine taking it on now though, my life is so friggin' difficult as it is.
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