Mommy madness

[pegkerr]

Boy, this article hit the nail on the head for me.

She discusses what I first started thinking about when I read Penelope Leach's books on parenting: that the problem for American parents (and especially American mothers) is that they think that all the problems they're encountering are just their individual faults, when really the reasons they're suffering are systemic, because they are not getting the support for their role that they deserve--that all the vaunted support that America gives their parents, and especially mothers, is little more than lip service.

Comments

[naomikritzer]

There was an article I saw this week -- yesterday in the Strib, maybe? -- about someone who was proposing that restaurants create "no children" sections now that the smoking sections are being eliminated by legislative fiat. Better still, the article suggested, there should be No Child restaurants. The most absurd proposal in the article was that the Children's Theater should do child-free performances for the adults who want to enjoy Lily's Purple Plastic Purse or whatever without any irritating youngsters nearby to distract them.

The article talked about having to step over crawling toddlers to get to your restaurant table. I don't know if I just eat in different places, but I've never had to step over a crawling toddler at a restaurant -- certainly not at a fancy one. The only children I've encountered at upscale restaurants have been impeccably behaved, and the worst-behaved kid I've ever seen in a restaurant (a tantruming two-year-old in a Red Lobster) was removed by his father within five minutes. Ed and I used to eat out a lot, at a wide variety of restaurants (from upscale to ethnic to "family style"), so it's not just that I don't get out much.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Having four kids (now 21, 21, 18, and 14, so generally accepted everywhere), we've had a lot of experience with this. Some people apparently do not like the tone of children's voices, even when their volume is less than the adults' voices around them. Some people apparently do not like the sight of children, the very presence of children in a room with them.

My sincere hope is that one day, when everyone who feels that way discovers that they have to depend on these very former-children for their care, when these former-children are their doctors, nurses, health aides, lawyers, investment brokers, handypersons, transportation drivers, and so on, these former-children will not like the dependent adults any more than those adults now like the children, and will let them know it.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Oh, lord, yes. More than once I've wanted to say to some childfree-by-choice person who's been demanding to know why they should have to pay for taxes, policies, and so forth that go to benefit other people's children, "Because when you're 85 years old and lying on the kitchen floor of your fancy apartment with a broken hip, it's going to be other people's children who show up with the ambulance and take you to the hospital and take care of you once you get there -- that's why."

But there are some arguments you can't use unless you're at the point where you don't care if you ever exchange a civil word with the other person afterward, and I suspect the abovementioned is probably one of them.

Thesis statement: YMMV.

[cedarlibrarian.livejournal.com]

But by the time these children are old enough to be doctors, nurses, health aides, etc., they'll be adults. I realize my perspective is not the norm on this, because I grew up around adults and prefer the company of people older than I, but to me age doesn't matter so much. I serve my parents' generation and my grandparents' generation every day, and I like them not because they treated me well as a child (some don't like children), but because they treat me like the adult that I am. To me, adults are adults. YMMV.

I'm one of those people who generally don't care for children. I would never, NEVER harm one, but anyone under the age of ten makes me extremely nervous unless they prove themselves capable of carrying on adult conversation. I don't know what to say to a small child, or how to talk to them, or handle them, and years of experience raising my youngest sister didn't make a difference. I'm always afraid of maiming them in some way. I also have very sensitive hearing and am impatient and high-strung, so I don't deal well around children. (I do, however, enjoy teenagers very much.) Some people don't like dogs. Some people don't like children. To some, this comparison is apples and pineapples, but to others, there is no difference. Children are just another thing to have an opinion on.

Regarding the article (Hi, Peg!): I see this in my day-to-day work, the worn-out mothers and overprotected teenagers. I am not one to speak on child raising, as I have chosen not to have children of my own, but it made me think, peripherally, of this article on children's self-esteem and this one in the New York Times on how having children changes marital relationships. I see this stress every day at work, especially because it filters down to my teen patrons, whose parents are so worried about their kids getting into an Ivy League school that they do their high-schoolers' homework for them.

I have to disagree with malkingrey, however: It seems to me that our society is getting more child-friendly and child-oriented, and that people with children are entitled to many things that unchilded people are not. Read cavyherder's LJ for one perspective.

Re: Thesis statement: YMMV.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying what I wanted to say, but much more civilly then I could have managed. I'm really one of those vocal, frustrated childfrees.

I'm thinking expecting to go to a children's theatre without children is a bit ridiculous. But if I'm (on my tiny, tiny budget) going to go out to eat, even just to Coral Gables or Ruby Tuesday's, I'd love to be able to do it in quiet -- especially at 8 or 9 PM at night! I understand parents need to go out and do their thing. I do. But there are times and places when a four-year-old just doesn't belong, and responsible parents dig that.... it's the idiots that you have to make no-child rules for.

A friend of mine who WANTS kids went to a showing of Phantom of the Opera late (9 or 10, I'm not sure exactly how, but it was the last show of the day) and she had a young kid, young enough to be scared, screaming at the movie when she was scared, whining when she was bored, and the parents REFUSED to take the child out even when politely asked by the usher. She was fuming. THOSE are the people and THOSE are the kids these rules are for... not the decent parents with two slightly caffienated eight-year-olds at McDonalds at 1PM. (Gave my kids meal toys to a couple of said kids yesterday)

Re: Thesis statement: YMMV.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

But if I'm (on my tiny, tiny budget) going to go out to eat, even just to Coral Gables or Ruby Tuesday's, I'd love to be able to do it in quiet -- especially at 8 or 9 PM at night!

You do, then, certainly have the same objections to adults who disturb your quiet? To the drunks, the angry, the elderly who won't wear their hearing aids, and those who just naturally talk loudly enough to be heard across a room? (I've never been to a Ruby Tuesday's at any time of day or night and found it to be what I'd consider "quiet," though of course YMMV.)

There's a big difference between a screaming child in a movie and a child talking in a normal child-tone in a restaurant, even at 9 p.m. One is the equivalent of an adult talking aloud during the movie (just plain rude) and the other is the equivalent of an adult talking in a normal adult-tone. If you happen not to like normal child-tones, that's no different from someone else not liking, for example, hearing an adult across the aisle talking in a foreign language.

it's the idiots that you have to make no-child rules for.

You have no objection, then, to the same being true for adults--for you to live under rules made for idiot adults?

Re: Thesis statement: YMMV.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

You do, then, certainly have the same objections to adults who disturb your quiet?

Generally, sure. Through life experience I have a certain amount of extra patience for folks with disabilities, so the hearing aid thing doesn't bother me unless theres some deliberate jackassery going on.

There's a big difference between a screaming child in a movie and a child talking in a normal child-tone in a restaurant, even at 9 p.m.

Define a 'normal child-tone'? If you're talking about a kid talking in a normal, indoor voice, sure. I don't mind kids voices if they're talking to their parents without shouting them down or being rude. But I also don't have any patience for, for example, a kid standing on the seat behind me and saying 'hi' to me over and over, even in a normal voice. Kids need to behave, and if they aren't behaving parents shouldn't be ignoring them and forcing ME to deal with them.

And in movies, there's a difference between an adult whispering once and a kid whispering constantly because he doesn't want to be there/doesn't understand the movie.

I've had experiences (in Denny's, granted) where a kid threw crayons at me until I turned around and told him to stop throwing things at me, please, I'm trying to eat... and then had the 'parent' yell at ME for daring to talk to their kid because the kid is 'just playing'.

Play away, but keep your crayons out of my salad, thanks.

You have no objection, then, to the same being true for adults--for you to live under rules made for idiot adults?

We do, actually, or at least one where the laws are enforced in favor of the idiots (I'm assuming you're American.)

Re: Thesis statement: YMMV.

[demarazare.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing the two other links!

Actually, funny, the valentine's article was written by the same lady who wrote the article cited in the original entry.

I really needed these to cheer me up, though... I actually DO think I want children some day, but I'd rather have none than live like the people in the original article. :P

Re: Thesis statement: YMMV.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but how do they get to be adults who are doctors, nurses, health care aides, accountants, financial planners, etc? They don't hatch out of eggs fully grown. They don't spring from the forehead of Zeus. They have to be fed and educated. We have to invest in children if we want responsible adults. There is just no way you can get one without the other.

Re: Thesis statement: YMMV.

[cedarlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for others, but these are the ideas I've collected through my membership in online childfree communities.

I absolutely see what you're talking about, and as a product of good public schools I understand that my taxes need to be spent. (Ugh, but could they please spend more on repairing the roads so I can get to work to make the money for the taxes easier?) A lot of people aren't interested in anything having to do with children and the way they see it, other people made the choice to have the kids, so why are their tax dollars going to support them? They don't see it as "I'm funding the people who might take care of me later," they see it as "Why am I forced to feed and educate kids I didn't sign up to have?" These feelings may be amplified if the person is of the "No one should have children ever and I will never meet a child I like" variety. (Me, I'm more "Kids are okay as long as they go home at the end of the day.")

Other people's tax dollars paid my disability when I couldn't work for a year, and taxes fund public libraries. I know the value of tax dollars in the development of society, including public schools. But I also understand the people who would rather their taxes go to animal shelters or elder care, something they have vested interests in.

Re: Thesis statement: YMMV.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

something they have vested interests in.

But of course--as you point out--everyone who hopes to live beyond the next very few years has a vested interest in today's children. Who, after all, is going to run the animal shelters or (more to the point) provide the elder care 20, 30, 40 years from now. Today's children, of course.

Re: Thesis statement: YMMV.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

To me, adults are adults.

What about physical adults who have the mental age of a child? What about elders with Alzheimer's? What about adults who are not "capable of carrying on adult conversation"? And what the heck constitutes "adult conversation," anyway? Is it really your experience that all people over a certain age are capable of--or interested in having--some particular type of conversation?

Children are just another thing to have an opinion on.

Yep, just like black people, gays, women . . . Nothing wrong with lumping together every single person who has a single aspect in common and saying, "I'm one of those people who generally don't care for them. "

Re: Thesis statement: YMMV.

[cedarlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Okay. You win. I'm a bigot. I generally don't care for children. That's my opinion. We all have our prejudices, I suppose.