10 ms·

American parenting is killing the American marriage (2014)

168 points by kareemm 11y ago

yason 11y ago
Being a foreigner I do recognize the dynamic described in the article on some level, merely by observing the American culture from the outside, but I hadn't realized it's such a serious and pervasive sentiment——or is it? Maybe there's a bias such as the overmothering behaviour being overpresented in the media yet most families and mothers are absolutely regular people as parents, and possibly feeling bad themselves about never reaching the impossible expectations set in the media? I'd happily read personal experiences here to figure out how much truth there is in it.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Most of this article reads to me like a description of a foreign country, or an alternate universe. Maybe it is my own experience which is not representative, rather than the article, but I don't see parents having trouble criticizing their children when there's cause for it or admitting that they sometimes want to do things without their children. Most of the article is handwaving. The one part of it that's actually based on a specific event is the writer who got persecuted after saying she loved her husband more than her children. But this is the standard sort of nonsense that happens any time anything catches the attention of fringe crazies. Do something with national reach, and if 0.01% of your audience thinks you're a scumbag for it, you will suffer even if their opinion is not representative. You could write an essay about how chocolate is delicious and you'd still end up getting hated on, no doubt with lots of references to Indonesian fires and such. But there is no American chocolate crisis.
Vexs 11y ago
While I think his insights on how we treat our children is amazingly insightful, and I love how it's described as a religion (the point that children are our sacred cows is very good in particular) his attempt to relate it to marriages seems shoehorned at best. There's a lot of problems with the way we treat children, but I think it's relation to marriage is the least of our issues. But seriously, the whole "children as a religion" point is great. I mean, think of some of the bills and laws that get passed because "think of the children". It's not too different from religious laws.
- saeranv 11y ago
  Yes. I instinctively expect the worst when I see the words 'concerned parents' in the news.
- sakopov 11y ago
  I don't think it's shoehorned at all. The author makes it clear that marriage should come first and children second because if you lose touch with your husband/wife while focusing solely on your children you will inevitably become miserable with each other and it will rub off not only on your kids but also your marriage. I've heard the same thing from just about any married couple I know.
- tinalumfoil 11y ago
  I don't think he's being insightful at all. All his observations seem to be shallow and his conclusions are weak. > parenthood became a religion in America...Nothing in life is allowed to be more important than our children...a human achieves its peak value at birth and declines thereafter Most Americans tend to believe their children come first. This isn't a religion, it's an evolutionary instinct. A species can't continue if its organisms don't put enough effort into their offspring if their offspring are completely defenseless for the first decade of their life and only 3 are born to every female. If I kick a 40-year-old out of my house he'll find a hotel to stay at temporarily and be fine. If I dump a 2-year-old on the street, they'll be roadkill within the hour. Caring more about children isn't any more unique to this time period than it is to this species. > Another sign of the parenthood religion is that it has become totally unacceptable in our culture to say anything bad about our children, let alone admit that we don’t like them all of the time. I grew up in a household where my parents weren't afraid to tell the truth to me and it was pretty brutal. There's enough negativity at school that it feels like people are surrounding you at all sides with insecurities. Honesty isn't bad but if your kid goes to public school he already knows where he falls short. Also, saying things behind your kid's back isn't any better. It'll come back around to them. > Mothers are also holy in a way that fathers are not expected to be. Mothers live in a clean, cheerful world filled with primary colors and children’s songs, and they don’t think about sex. I don't know where this is coming from. Maybe this was Jesus' ideal for a mom, but nowadays the ideal mom seems to be one that argues over who's carpooling next week and buys their 16-year-old birth control just in case. I think anyone who can could and do laundry probably automatically counts as a good mother nowadays. I think the problem is the author treats kids more like a car than a living being. Your car's muffler isn't going to get fixed until you admit it's broken. You don't fix your kid by bringing him into the shop one day after work. Being a parent requires being a teacher, boss and friend at the same time. In no way is "owner" ever part of that definition.
__david__ 11y ago
It's just anecdotal, I've found that my siblings and friends with kids are pretty up front about the negative attributes of their kids. So the "parenthood religion" isn't necessarily universal. I think it's still a good article. It comes down to balance in the end, I think. Kids are just another thing in your life that you have to balance—more plates to spin. If you're only spinning your children's plates, it seems obvious that your job and relationship plates are going to eventually fall...
sdegutis 11y ago
He's generalizing way too much. There are so many different subcultures, which each have their own style of parenting, and even within them parenting varies person to person too much to generalize like this.
curuinor 11y ago
A. Teller is probably more interesting to HN folks because he's head of Google X. This seems incongruous a little bit and then you see how people in Palo Alto parent...
- jessaustin 11y ago
  This is related to the "obnoxious Little League Dad" phenomenon. Most of us have some disappointments about our lives. The way that some parents deal with those is to imagine that their children will succeed where they have failed. Once parents pay more attention to the image of a child than to the actual child, craziness ensues.
ajmurmann 11y ago
I never understood the sentiment of valuing babies over all else. To me it always seemed obvious that fresh college graduates are most valuable to society, since we just finished investing a ton of money into them. Babies on the other hand are easily replaced. I get this is mainly an emotional argument, but it's still startling to me how opposite it is to the purely economic argument I made above. In fact usually people think I'm just trolling when I'm stating my opinion on the matter but I'm dead serious.
- philwelch 11y ago
  Babies are full of potential. Fresh college graduates...let's be honest...are less so.
  - tomp 11y ago
    Well, most babies will become fresh college graduates (or not even that), so I'm not sure I really follow your line of thought.
    - philwelch 11y ago
      Yeah, but a baby hasn't chosen a major, developed any mental illnesses, experienced any crippling trauma, or really done anything at all yet. A fresh college graduate is very often set for life when it comes to their career, brand preferences, political beliefs, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, etc. but babies have a lot more variability in terms of possible outcome.
      - tertius 11y ago
        Thought the sample of college graduates vs. all 22 year olds are a little different. All babies will turn into all 22 year olds. Only some babies will turn into college graduates. Therefore some of a population, if selected artificially (i.e. college graduates) will always be better than the whole population (i.e. all babies.)
codinghorror 11y ago
This does seem a little extreme. I don't know many parents that are so child centric that they "have nothing left to say to each other". On the other hand if you compare parenting in th 1970s there does seem to be something to the argument that parenting went from an occupation to a professional sport, where people compete at it. I object more to the tiger parenting where kids have to be at the top of their class, get in to MIT or Stanford, all that pressure. It's not healthy.
gonyea 11y ago
I don't understand this at all. Blame divorce on kids? What? If anything, the American spending habits are killing the American marriage. Financial issues are the source of countless divorces.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Not every day you see a major publication questioning natalism. See also Judith Rich Harris' The Nurture Assumption: http://www.amazon.com/The-Nurture-Assumption-Children-Revised/dp/1439101655 http://www.amazon.com/The-Nurture-Assumption-Children-Revise...
unabst 11y ago
1) This comparison to me says more about religion than it does about parenting. Unconditional love and devotion to your baby? The feeling is physical, and the baby is real. To be able to invoke the same feelings for a deity appears more magical to me than parenting, especially for those who have never experienced having a child. 2) American parenting isn't killing marriage. Marriages are killed one at a time by the unique parents that choose to do so. And that's the problem with statistical conceptualizations. It rarely applies to you for those dealing with it at the present. Only in hindsight do the numbers compile anyway, so it really isn't all that helpful. Anyone in a marriage knows that the will to be together is sacrosanct. Once two capable independent adults decide to part ways, nothing could be easier. The past could have been wonderful, and it's easy to feel good about what was good. But for many couples, divorce is the choice, and often a good choice for them. In other cultures, there are more bonds holding couples together. In the US, it's far easier to be independent or marry again. It's easier to live your life on your terms than on that of social perception or social dogma. Is this a good thing? Who are we to judge? If you feel the stats are tilted in the wrong direction, then we can try and tip it the other way with our own marriages. But "for the stats" is not usually what crosses our minds when we're not getting along. This is a classic case of "is as does". Nothing is killing anything. This is the shape of the new American marriage.
- douche 11y ago
  I'm not so sure that "Once two capable independent adults decide to part ways, nothing could be easier." Particularly when children are involved, it can be very messy, very ugly, and ruinous for one or both parties, mentally and financially. Even in an ideal DINK relationship, depending on the state you live in, it can be difficult to come to a clean, amicable break, without ongoing obligations. It certainly is easier to live one's life on one's own terms. Indeed, that might be the only way to live one's life, in the long term. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance when choosing a partner to make sure that both parties have compatible terms.
  - unabst 11y ago
    It's true that having kids does make everything more complicated, and they provide a reason to stick together. But it isn't stopping parents from divorcing completely, just less than if they didn't have children. And seeing all of those divorced with children, it makes it more difficult, but not difficult enough. For better or for worse, we do it anyway. Of course, the opposite is also true. When two capable independent adults decide to stick together, there really isn't anything that could keep them apart. Isn't that the beauty of it? This has been at the heart of the western philosophy of marriage.
martin1975 11y ago
We've spared the rod for too long, IMHO. Not saying we should abuse our kids or even reprimand them physically necessarily, however seeing a two year old as anything more than a terrorist whom cannot be negotiated with, can have detrimental consequences in their adulthood. Boundaries must be drawn early on or else....
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Your statement is a performative contradiction. Your proposition is that a two-year old is akin to a terrorist who cannot be negotiated with, but your suggesting boundaries be drawn as a resolution presupposes that in fact they can be negotiated with (negotiation necessarily implying the setting of boundaries), hence negating your point.
  - cwbrandsma 11y ago
    Wait, are you saying you can negotiate with terrorist or with 2 year olds? I have no experience with terrorists, but I have five kids. There are absolutely times when a two year cannot be negotiated with. And there are times children have to be taught that under no uncertain times their current behavior is acceptable. And that time is a temper tantrum.
    - martin1975 11y ago
      I've 2 kids... and you catch my drift - they act (sometimes) like terrorists, and that is when you cannot negotiate, meaning, your word is absolute. Otherwise, any negotiation when they are acting like terrorists usually would end at their peril (yours too, probably), for they not know what they do. This is what I mean, "don't negotiate with terrorists". Of course, at other times you can negotiate, and they get the tradeoffs rather than being absolute in their attitude, sticking to their guns, without thinking. It is an ongoing commitment, a 'battle' of staying present, guiding them, drawing a line when necessary, and letting them win too... It is absolutely through contradictinction they will learn the most - what worked once, may or may not work again, behavior wise.... of course, there are absolutes - don't kill or hurt others, don't lie, cheat or steal...those are usually easier to teach. And then there's wisdom...that's lifetime learning.
such_a_casual 11y ago
For anyone who's interested in the rise in divorce rates, I highly recommend the book "The Two Income Trap". It basically tries to prove that the transition to dual income households damaged the financial security of many families. Pair this with the fact that the number one cause of fighting and divorce is money, and you have a better explanation than what this article provides.
- jseliger 11y ago
  I highly recommend the book "The Two Income Trap". It basically tries to prove that the transition to dual income households damaged the financial security of many families A great book. It can also be read profitably in conjunction with Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High. School districts are weirdly tied to real estate in the U.S.; many places with good districts also have severe land-use control laws that prevent the creation of new housing units on a given parcel land; and, consequently, people will pay a lot of money for scarce housing that comes bundled with good school districts. Two-earner households make paying for the housing easier, but two-earner households are often also more economically fragile (especially considering the prevalence of divorce).
  - UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
    > School districts are weirdly tied to real estate in the U.S. Rich people want nicer schools. These same people have a lot of influence and or control in our society, so they dictate how the money was divvied up, to make sure their kids got the best. In many other countries the money is put into a large "pot" and then redistributed from that. So most schools per student budget is similar but with adjustments for cost of living. The US is actually the odd duck for how monied some public schools are, while depriving almost impoverishing others. Charter schools only make the situation worse, since many utilise public funds while also charging parents (so effectively a private school that keeps poor kids out, but gets to utilise public money to do so).
    - pradn 11y ago
      Everyone wants nicer schools. Wealthier people are more likely to be able to live in areas with good schools; they can pay for the rents and mortgages necessary to do so.
chefkoch 11y ago
An article about american parenting and a picture of new born babies in munich, germany?
rustynails 11y ago
This is both a great article and a mediocre article. I agree with others that the marriage aspect is the weakest part. As a parent, I constantly think back to the 70s as a benchmark for open mindedness and freedom with my children. In my honest opinion, we've lost a lot of perspective and become much less tolerant. In Australia, someone called the police because children walked a short distance to the local park by themselves. Taking a photo at a swimming carnival is taboo. None of these attitudes were around in the 70s. I felt the relationship aspects between adults missed the mark. Not only the relationship breakdown aspects, but the women and sex. That reminds me of the woman who runs she++ (a sexist business name that no one calls out) who said in a Forbes interview that sex was bad and a man thing. There is a social stigma in admitting that women can like sex. Even Sam Mechkovich from Ars commented about bond women not falling for bond in his Spectre review, because that's not a woman thing to like sex. My response to these people is "what's wrong with it?" Most of the women I know and respect are open about sex. That doesn't mean free sex, it means being open minded and confident in yourself to be free to speak your mind. My sort of people... Ultimately, I lump all these social and parental problems down to Political Correctness. For the nay sayers, you can treat people with respect and not be PC. PC is a set of perverted rules that bully people into what to think.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  >> Ultimately, I lump all these social and parental problems down to Political Correctness. For the nay sayers, you can treat people with respect and not be PC. PC is a set of perverted rules that bully people into what to think. I have been told, "You can't say that, we have to be open minded here" when expressing the belief that political correctness does more to damage discourse than almost any other idea in western society. Way to provide a demonstration of my point!
  - disantlor 11y ago
    Isn't the perverse fairness of giving equal time to clearly unequal opinions (/science/facts/etc) worse discourse than political correctness? Of course PC can and does wade into over sensitivity but it also includes the idea that you should err on the side of safety when using words that can be terribly hurtful to some people. It's not our place to decide that it's not in fact hurtful.
munin 11y ago
> child-centric lives can lose touch with one another to the point where they have nothing left to say to one another when the kids leave home. there are couples like this because the way they made kids + 2 careers work on middle class salaries is by dividing the day in half and each parent spends one half the day with the children and the other works. after ten years of this, you don't actually know your spouse any more - they've been living some life, but not one that you've had time to be a part of between your own career and your children. this seems like an equally plausible explanation for this phenomenon, because when you sacrifice that much it must be for something and when someone else insinuates that maybe the sacrifice wasn't worth it, well, that would really piss you off...
- nommm-nommm 11y ago
  There's actually some evidence that shared earning/shared parenting marriages are less likely to end in divorce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_earning/shared_parenting_marriage#Marriage_stability_and_fertility_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_earning/shared_parentin... I guess the hypothesis is you start to feel alone in your responsibilities and you lose touch with your spouse's life.
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  > the way they made kids + 2 careers work on middle class salaries is by dividing the day in half and each parent spends one half the day with the children and the other works. Who sets up their schedules like that in the middle class? Middle class jobs don't (typically) allow that one parent could work from 7-4 and another from 4-1am.
  - munin 11y ago
    one parent does shift work and the other doesn't, i.e. medical residency / EMT or something in network operations that does a swing shift.
    - sokoloff 11y ago
      That situation exists, but it seems far from the majority situation for 2-income middle-class households.
draw_down 11y ago
Being a parent today seems so awful, especially if you are expected to make the household income on top of doing 50% of the parenting.
hosh 11y ago
This isn't a bad train of thought, though I wonder if this says more about Millennial narcissism than it does about the "religion of parenting". I think this has more to do with a kind of ethical posturing ("I am holier than thou") than it is about a sacred cow. There are parents who will give up their own interests for the sake of their children's interest, and not because there is peer-pressure to do so, or as a way to gain status within the community, or to be tyrannized by a cultural myth. So thinking about it more, I think this article is BS -- not because the issues it raises are not true, but because it focused on the wrong thing. There is also a spiritual and psychological transformation that takes place with becoming a parent. Philosopher Ken Wilber had written extensively about modernity, and the way it throws pre-modern ideas such as the Great Chain of Being out the window, leaving members of modernity disconnected with their place in the universe. That's not to say that pre-modern ideas where they just told you where your place is a good idea. On the other hand, existential angst and a constant wondering of your place in society, in the world, in the universe as a whole is a constant them in the cultures of modernity. What does this have to do with parenting? The idea of the Great Chain of Being is a kind of stand-in, or abstractions, that Ken Wilber claims ties the pre-modern religion together. They disagree on a lot of things, but one thing that is present in the religious teachings is putting the human experience in context of the cosmos as a whole. The search for the meaning of life was a search for your origins, of where you came from -- a search for who you were "born" from. It might seem obvious that your body was born from the DNA of both of your parents; however, where did they come from? If you trace things up your lineage, you still come to the question, "Where did life originate from?" To use the mythic language in the context of the Great Chain of Being, you were "born" from the universe. To become a parent is to experience -- just a little bit -- of what it is like for the universe to give life and creation. It might be accidental or intentional. Someone might enter this stage with naivete or with great wisdom. There are a lot of things you might have railed against growing up, but now as a parent, it makes you think and wonder. My point is that, if you were to strip away the ethical posturing and political correctness, what you are left with is not a re-examination of parenting, that there is a sacred cow to be slaughtered. Parenting is an re-examination of your self and your place and purpose within the universe. Your growth does not stop there. You might gain a better appreciation of how things come together.
josephjrobison 11y ago
"Ayelet Waldman, where the author explained that she loved her husband more than her four children." Recently did some pre-marital counseling where they recommend that you put your spouse above your children. Seemed really strange to me and counter-intuitive. I don't know much about marriage at all, but if you think about it, the trickle-down effect does seem to make sense as setting an example is a good lesson for kids. I think the takeaway is to keep a balance. Also, it's not like Ayelet Waldman is a revolutionary, as other old-school practitioners seem to have been recommending that advice for years.
- icanhackit 11y ago
  counseling where they recommend that you put your spouse above your children I believe this is incredibly important for a lasting, loving relationship. I've observed a few relationships where one partner's priority shifts so much to the children that the other partner is left with little love or consideration and their bond quickly degrades. I could understand this behavior in a place where there's a shortage of food and resources, but in developed countries with an abundance of food and relative safety people are sabotaging their happiness and adult bonds by elevating developing humans above the person they originally committed to. Additionally, some adults infantilize their household culture to the point where adult activities become a sort of taboo. I think we short-change children by not exposing them to regular adult behaviors and conversations. Certainly there are some things children should not be exposed to but the household should be as accommodating for old and young as possible. A healthy balance needs to be struck.
- seansmccullough 11y ago
  I think this attitude makes sense.
- jamra 11y ago
  To me, parenting is like Atlas lifting up the world. It may seem logical to focus entirely on the object of importance (the world), but if Atlas doesn't eat right he will start to wane. His bones will lose their density and he'll start to lose muscle mass. Eventually, he won't be able to lift the world. My relationship with my wife is just that. The more we put into each other, the stronger we become individually and as a pair. Your kids will adjust to the lifestyle you set for them and happy parents have more to give.
pravka 11y ago
This is extreme. I read this article when it made the rounds last year, and I hated it just as much this time around. Disclaimer: I'm a parent, and I love it. I also love being in a relationship with someone I trust and with whom I can talk about 'grown-up' shit. Granted, there are definitely parents who hover, worry, or interfere with their kids', but, at least in the circles I run in, these are the exception more than the rule and most certainly don't represent parents (or marriages) at large.
swagv 11y ago
"Think of the children" is a cliché
vlehto 11y ago
>The origins of the parenthood religion are obscure "The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex. It was ratified on 1920." Womens suffrage has to reverb through political sphere. As a whole it's not good or bad, just different. Another thing coming from there: time passed since women gained vote seems to correlate with welfare spending. I don't think religious fervor can be avoided in a society. It's just a matter of where it is directed.
bsder 11y ago
Hmm, wouldn't have expected "But think of the chiiiiildren" to be a shitty argument even when applied to marriage.
eximius 11y ago
Interestingly, I've asked many of my female friends, including my last few girlfriends, given the hypothetical choice of saving their husband or their child, who would they save? Almost all of them said their children. Ask the men, however, and it is almost always the wife. And none of these folks were married or had kids yet. It is something ingrained from before that occurs.
- jpfed 11y ago
  Dad here. I would save the kids, for several reasons: 1. They have more life-years ahead of them. 2. If I saved my wife, she would hate the choice I made and be plagued by survivor guilt or resentment. It's not clear that my marriage would survive this. But the kids are young enough that they would probably accept the choice, to the extent that they could comprehend it.
ryanmarsh 11y ago
I would like to understand the relevance of this article to Hacker News. Perhaps it would be helpful if I could see a demographic breakdown of visitors: marital status, age, and number of offspring. "Once our gods have left us, we try to pick up the pieces of our long neglected marriages and find new purpose. Is it surprising that divorce rates are rising fastest for new empty nesters? Perhaps it is time that we gave the parenthood religion a second thought." So divorce rates for empty nesters are the kids fault or kids are holding together marriages that were doomed before they left the nest? This article is garbage.
- serge2k 11y ago
  Anything is relevant to Hacker News. It's in the rules.
clockworkelf 11y ago
What a dumb article. Seriously, it's simply trolling the late 20-something females who feel a pang of guilt of choosing a career path over kids. And it trolls the late 20-something females who believe they can "have it all" and don't have enough guilt for compromising child-rearing for career-rearing. They're fucking with our heads people.
brazzledazzle 11y ago
I love my kids and I think they each have unique things about them that make them great. I also think they can be amazingly compassionate and caring little people. But let's be real: By and large kids are at least a little bit sociopathic assholes. It's that behavior that you spend the better part of their early lives trying to excise from them. Does anyone remember being a kid? Regardless of whether you were the victim, perpetrator, instigator or bystander just think back on how cruel bullies could be both verbally and physically.
ausjke 11y ago
read history boys at 18 or even younger can be generals and nowadays they're still treated like toddlers, our parenting method is wrong in my opinion, the key is that we babysit them too much for too long.
sakopov 11y ago
Marriage first, children second. If you and your wife/husband make a happy couple, you will likely raise a happy offspring by creating warm, healthy and balanced environment.
leroy_masochist 11y ago
I agreed with pretty much everything until the following: "Mothers are also holy in a way that fathers are not expected to be. Mothers live in a clean, cheerful world filled with primary colors and children’s songs, and they don’t think about sex. A father could admit to desiring his wife without seeming like a distracted parent, but society is not as willing to cut Ms. Waldman that same slack. It is unseemly for a mother to enjoy pleasures that don’t involve her children." Uh, are we living in the same society? Moms are more sexualized today than they ever have been. Have you ever been to a daytime CrossFit class? Lisa Ann has been the most popular adult film actress for years, for God's sake. I agree there is much progress yet to be made in resolving a variety of gender-equality issues....but the argument that society's increasing valuation of children is driving a newfound societal demand for Victorian prudishness in mothers seems to fly in the face of all available evidence.
- deciplex 11y ago
  I'm not sure your observation is at odds with the assertion made here. We could sexualize mothers while keeping the taboo on mothers themselves being sexual i.e. desiring sex. In fact, the sexualization could even feed off that very taboo.
  - leroy_masochist 11y ago
    I see what you're saying in theory, but by my reading of the article it's clear that the authors are saying that societal expectations around mothering are effectively inhibiting women from existing both as mothers and as sexual beings -- and this assertion does not square with what I observe in the real world.
nommm-nommm 11y ago
Call me callous but I always thought one of the most important lessons a child should learn is "its not all about you." I am so amazed when I see parents nowadays devoting their entire life to making sure their children are spared of any tiny little inconvenience. These children will be very poorly adjusted and these parents are rarely happy.
- x5n1 11y ago
  Could it be that these parents are providing their kids what they wanted when they were children? That they are living vicariously through their parenting.
- javajosh 11y ago
  What if you were to engineer a situation with your kids where you a) teach them how to do something useful, and then b) put them in a situation where that useful thing needs to be done. If they don't take the cue, no problem. If they miss it, maybe have a 3rd party (like an aunt or an uncle) pitch in. Then maybe have that 3rd party ask the child if they know how to do that thing - and get the kid to get in the habit of volunteering their effort if it's helpful to those around them. (It's important that the prompts not come from the parent since the action becomes "acquiescing to authority" instead of "pitching in for the common good".) Of course, there's an unfortunate prisoner's dilemma in that if two kids are involved, and one is volunteering all the time, the lazy one thinks, "Ha, sweet, I'm so clever I never do any work and things still get done!" Not really sure how to get around this - perhaps develop a turn-based cooperation game where two siblings take turns helping, effectively coopting the helpfulness of one to blunt the selfishness of the other. If they both defect, then I suppose you have to create an "existential baseline" that they don't want to endure, involving a) no toys, b) no freedom, c) bland food. But that's problematic because it turns you into a jailor, and it turns cooperation into "that thing you do to satisfy authority" again.
  - prawn 11y ago
    Always going to great lengths to teach your children important lessons like this is another form of putting them first (or at least up there). I don't put loads of time into my kids to save them every inconvenience, but to give them a thirst for knowledge, etc.
HillaryBriss 11y ago
I always thought "Baby On Board" caution signs were placed on cars and minivans as a courtesy to other drivers. These signs let other motorists know that the sign-toting car will swerve wildly, stop unexpectedly and misbehave drastically because a self-centered, totally implacable baby is present inside, jealously and continuously demanding the driver's attention by screaming, vomiting and pretending to fatally gag on nothing in particular. Now I know I was wrong. Thanks HN!
dba7dba 11y ago
If this article were true, how can you explain lower divorce rate in Asian countries? China? S Korea? Japan?
- ryuker16 11y ago
  Divorce rates skyrocketed when they started having dual incomes like ours. The reason for less is cultural....plus, it's a bit easier to cheat and still stay married....most places aren't so hung up on "he cheated, let's divorce!" thing like the USA.
  - dba7dba 11y ago
    So it wasn't because of over parenting in Asia?
doctorstupid 11y ago
I have a suspicion that these parents are using children as mirrors for their self-obsessions. The self is the true religion here.
programminggeek 11y ago
Perhaps replacing real religion with a false one is unwise.

168 points by kareemm 11y ago

yason 11y ago

Being a foreigner I do recognize the dynamic described in the article on some level, merely by observing the American culture from the outside, but I hadn't realized it's such a serious and pervasive sentiment——or is it? Maybe there's a bias such as the overmothering behaviour being overpresented in the media yet most families and mothers are absolutely regular people as parents, and possibly feeling bad themselves about never reaching the impossible expectations set in the media? I'd happily read personal experiences here to figure out how much truth there is in it.

mikeash 11y ago
Most of this article reads to me like a description of a foreign country, or an alternate universe. Maybe it is my own experience which is not representative, rather than the article, but I don't see parents having trouble criticizing their children when there's cause for it or admitting that they sometimes want to do things without their children. Most of the article is handwaving. The one part of it that's actually based on a specific event is the writer who got persecuted after saying she loved her husband more than her children. But this is the standard sort of nonsense that happens any time anything catches the attention of fringe crazies. Do something with national reach, and if 0.01% of your audience thinks you're a scumbag for it, you will suffer even if their opinion is not representative. You could write an essay about how chocolate is delicious and you'd still end up getting hated on, no doubt with lots of references to Indonesian fires and such. But there is no American chocolate crisis.

Vexs 11y ago

While I think his insights on how we treat our children is amazingly insightful, and I love how it's described as a religion (the point that children are our sacred cows is very good in particular) his attempt to relate it to marriages seems shoehorned at best. There's a lot of problems with the way we treat children, but I think it's relation to marriage is the least of our issues. But seriously, the whole "children as a religion" point is great. I mean, think of some of the bills and laws that get passed because "think of the children". It's not too different from religious laws.

saeranv 11y ago
Yes. I instinctively expect the worst when I see the words 'concerned parents' in the news.
sakopov 11y ago
I don't think it's shoehorned at all. The author makes it clear that marriage should come first and children second because if you lose touch with your husband/wife while focusing solely on your children you will inevitably become miserable with each other and it will rub off not only on your kids but also your marriage. I've heard the same thing from just about any married couple I know.
tinalumfoil 11y ago
I don't think he's being insightful at all. All his observations seem to be shallow and his conclusions are weak. > parenthood became a religion in America...Nothing in life is allowed to be more important than our children...a human achieves its peak value at birth and declines thereafter Most Americans tend to believe their children come first. This isn't a religion, it's an evolutionary instinct. A species can't continue if its organisms don't put enough effort into their offspring if their offspring are completely defenseless for the first decade of their life and only 3 are born to every female. If I kick a 40-year-old out of my house he'll find a hotel to stay at temporarily and be fine. If I dump a 2-year-old on the street, they'll be roadkill within the hour. Caring more about children isn't any more unique to this time period than it is to this species. > Another sign of the parenthood religion is that it has become totally unacceptable in our culture to say anything bad about our children, let alone admit that we don’t like them all of the time. I grew up in a household where my parents weren't afraid to tell the truth to me and it was pretty brutal. There's enough negativity at school that it feels like people are surrounding you at all sides with insecurities. Honesty isn't bad but if your kid goes to public school he already knows where he falls short. Also, saying things behind your kid's back isn't any better. It'll come back around to them. > Mothers are also holy in a way that fathers are not expected to be. Mothers live in a clean, cheerful world filled with primary colors and children’s songs, and they don’t think about sex. I don't know where this is coming from. Maybe this was Jesus' ideal for a mom, but nowadays the ideal mom seems to be one that argues over who's carpooling next week and buys their 16-year-old birth control just in case. I think anyone who can could and do laundry probably automatically counts as a good mother nowadays. I think the problem is the author treats kids more like a car than a living being. Your car's muffler isn't going to get fixed until you admit it's broken. You don't fix your kid by bringing him into the shop one day after work. Being a parent requires being a teacher, boss and friend at the same time. In no way is "owner" ever part of that definition.

__david__ 11y ago

It's just anecdotal, I've found that my siblings and friends with kids are pretty up front about the negative attributes of their kids. So the "parenthood religion" isn't necessarily universal. I think it's still a good article. It comes down to balance in the end, I think. Kids are just another thing in your life that you have to balance—more plates to spin. If you're only spinning your children's plates, it seems obvious that your job and relationship plates are going to eventually fall...

sdegutis 11y ago

He's generalizing way too much. There are so many different subcultures, which each have their own style of parenting, and even within them parenting varies person to person too much to generalize like this.

curuinor 11y ago

A. Teller is probably more interesting to HN folks because he's head of Google X. This seems incongruous a little bit and then you see how people in Palo Alto parent...

jessaustin 11y ago
This is related to the "obnoxious Little League Dad" phenomenon. Most of us have some disappointments about our lives. The way that some parents deal with those is to imagine that their children will succeed where they have failed. Once parents pay more attention to the image of a child than to the actual child, craziness ensues.

ajmurmann 11y ago

I never understood the sentiment of valuing babies over all else. To me it always seemed obvious that fresh college graduates are most valuable to society, since we just finished investing a ton of money into them. Babies on the other hand are easily replaced. I get this is mainly an emotional argument, but it's still startling to me how opposite it is to the purely economic argument I made above. In fact usually people think I'm just trolling when I'm stating my opinion on the matter but I'm dead serious.

philwelch 11y ago
Babies are full of potential. Fresh college graduates...let's be honest...are less so.
- tomp 11y ago
  Well, most babies will become fresh college graduates (or not even that), so I'm not sure I really follow your line of thought.
  - philwelch 11y ago
    Yeah, but a baby hasn't chosen a major, developed any mental illnesses, experienced any crippling trauma, or really done anything at all yet. A fresh college graduate is very often set for life when it comes to their career, brand preferences, political beliefs, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, etc. but babies have a lot more variability in terms of possible outcome.
    - tertius 11y ago
      Thought the sample of college graduates vs. all 22 year olds are a little different. All babies will turn into all 22 year olds. Only some babies will turn into college graduates. Therefore some of a population, if selected artificially (i.e. college graduates) will always be better than the whole population (i.e. all babies.)

codinghorror 11y ago

This does seem a little extreme. I don't know many parents that are so child centric that they "have nothing left to say to each other". On the other hand if you compare parenting in th 1970s there does seem to be something to the argument that parenting went from an occupation to a professional sport, where people compete at it. I object more to the tiger parenting where kids have to be at the top of their class, get in to MIT or Stanford, all that pressure. It's not healthy.

gonyea 11y ago

I don't understand this at all. Blame divorce on kids? What? If anything, the American spending habits are killing the American marriage. Financial issues are the source of countless divorces.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

Not every day you see a major publication questioning natalism. See also Judith Rich Harris' The Nurture Assumption: http://www.amazon.com/The-Nurture-Assumption-Children-Revised/dp/1439101655 http://www.amazon.com/The-Nurture-Assumption-Children-Revise...

unabst 11y ago

1) This comparison to me says more about religion than it does about parenting. Unconditional love and devotion to your baby? The feeling is physical, and the baby is real. To be able to invoke the same feelings for a deity appears more magical to me than parenting, especially for those who have never experienced having a child. 2) American parenting isn't killing marriage. Marriages are killed one at a time by the unique parents that choose to do so. And that's the problem with statistical conceptualizations. It rarely applies to you for those dealing with it at the present. Only in hindsight do the numbers compile anyway, so it really isn't all that helpful. Anyone in a marriage knows that the will to be together is sacrosanct. Once two capable independent adults decide to part ways, nothing could be easier. The past could have been wonderful, and it's easy to feel good about what was good. But for many couples, divorce is the choice, and often a good choice for them. In other cultures, there are more bonds holding couples together. In the US, it's far easier to be independent or marry again. It's easier to live your life on your terms than on that of social perception or social dogma. Is this a good thing? Who are we to judge? If you feel the stats are tilted in the wrong direction, then we can try and tip it the other way with our own marriages. But "for the stats" is not usually what crosses our minds when we're not getting along. This is a classic case of "is as does". Nothing is killing anything. This is the shape of the new American marriage.

douche 11y ago
I'm not so sure that "Once two capable independent adults decide to part ways, nothing could be easier." Particularly when children are involved, it can be very messy, very ugly, and ruinous for one or both parties, mentally and financially. Even in an ideal DINK relationship, depending on the state you live in, it can be difficult to come to a clean, amicable break, without ongoing obligations. It certainly is easier to live one's life on one's own terms. Indeed, that might be the only way to live one's life, in the long term. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance when choosing a partner to make sure that both parties have compatible terms.
- unabst 11y ago
  It's true that having kids does make everything more complicated, and they provide a reason to stick together. But it isn't stopping parents from divorcing completely, just less than if they didn't have children. And seeing all of those divorced with children, it makes it more difficult, but not difficult enough. For better or for worse, we do it anyway. Of course, the opposite is also true. When two capable independent adults decide to stick together, there really isn't anything that could keep them apart. Isn't that the beauty of it? This has been at the heart of the western philosophy of marriage.

martin1975 11y ago

We've spared the rod for too long, IMHO. Not saying we should abuse our kids or even reprimand them physically necessarily, however seeing a two year old as anything more than a terrorist whom cannot be negotiated with, can have detrimental consequences in their adulthood. Boundaries must be drawn early on or else....

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Your statement is a performative contradiction. Your proposition is that a two-year old is akin to a terrorist who cannot be negotiated with, but your suggesting boundaries be drawn as a resolution presupposes that in fact they can be negotiated with (negotiation necessarily implying the setting of boundaries), hence negating your point.
- cwbrandsma 11y ago
  Wait, are you saying you can negotiate with terrorist or with 2 year olds? I have no experience with terrorists, but I have five kids. There are absolutely times when a two year cannot be negotiated with. And there are times children have to be taught that under no uncertain times their current behavior is acceptable. And that time is a temper tantrum.
  - martin1975 11y ago
    I've 2 kids... and you catch my drift - they act (sometimes) like terrorists, and that is when you cannot negotiate, meaning, your word is absolute. Otherwise, any negotiation when they are acting like terrorists usually would end at their peril (yours too, probably), for they not know what they do. This is what I mean, "don't negotiate with terrorists". Of course, at other times you can negotiate, and they get the tradeoffs rather than being absolute in their attitude, sticking to their guns, without thinking. It is an ongoing commitment, a 'battle' of staying present, guiding them, drawing a line when necessary, and letting them win too... It is absolutely through contradictinction they will learn the most - what worked once, may or may not work again, behavior wise.... of course, there are absolutes - don't kill or hurt others, don't lie, cheat or steal...those are usually easier to teach. And then there's wisdom...that's lifetime learning.

such_a_casual 11y ago

For anyone who's interested in the rise in divorce rates, I highly recommend the book "The Two Income Trap". It basically tries to prove that the transition to dual income households damaged the financial security of many families. Pair this with the fact that the number one cause of fighting and divorce is money, and you have a better explanation than what this article provides.

jseliger 11y ago
I highly recommend the book "The Two Income Trap". It basically tries to prove that the transition to dual income households damaged the financial security of many families A great book. It can also be read profitably in conjunction with Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High. School districts are weirdly tied to real estate in the U.S.; many places with good districts also have severe land-use control laws that prevent the creation of new housing units on a given parcel land; and, consequently, people will pay a lot of money for scarce housing that comes bundled with good school districts. Two-earner households make paying for the housing easier, but two-earner households are often also more economically fragile (especially considering the prevalence of divorce).
- UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
  > School districts are weirdly tied to real estate in the U.S. Rich people want nicer schools. These same people have a lot of influence and or control in our society, so they dictate how the money was divvied up, to make sure their kids got the best. In many other countries the money is put into a large "pot" and then redistributed from that. So most schools per student budget is similar but with adjustments for cost of living. The US is actually the odd duck for how monied some public schools are, while depriving almost impoverishing others. Charter schools only make the situation worse, since many utilise public funds while also charging parents (so effectively a private school that keeps poor kids out, but gets to utilise public money to do so).
  - pradn 11y ago
    Everyone wants nicer schools. Wealthier people are more likely to be able to live in areas with good schools; they can pay for the rents and mortgages necessary to do so.

chefkoch 11y ago

An article about american parenting and a picture of new born babies in munich, germany?

rustynails 11y ago

This is both a great article and a mediocre article. I agree with others that the marriage aspect is the weakest part. As a parent, I constantly think back to the 70s as a benchmark for open mindedness and freedom with my children. In my honest opinion, we've lost a lot of perspective and become much less tolerant. In Australia, someone called the police because children walked a short distance to the local park by themselves. Taking a photo at a swimming carnival is taboo. None of these attitudes were around in the 70s. I felt the relationship aspects between adults missed the mark. Not only the relationship breakdown aspects, but the women and sex. That reminds me of the woman who runs she++ (a sexist business name that no one calls out) who said in a Forbes interview that sex was bad and a man thing. There is a social stigma in admitting that women can like sex. Even Sam Mechkovich from Ars commented about bond women not falling for bond in his Spectre review, because that's not a woman thing to like sex. My response to these people is "what's wrong with it?" Most of the women I know and respect are open about sex. That doesn't mean free sex, it means being open minded and confident in yourself to be free to speak your mind. My sort of people... Ultimately, I lump all these social and parental problems down to Political Correctness. For the nay sayers, you can treat people with respect and not be PC. PC is a set of perverted rules that bully people into what to think.

engi_nerd 11y ago
>> Ultimately, I lump all these social and parental problems down to Political Correctness. For the nay sayers, you can treat people with respect and not be PC. PC is a set of perverted rules that bully people into what to think. I have been told, "You can't say that, we have to be open minded here" when expressing the belief that political correctness does more to damage discourse than almost any other idea in western society. Way to provide a demonstration of my point!
- disantlor 11y ago
  Isn't the perverse fairness of giving equal time to clearly unequal opinions (/science/facts/etc) worse discourse than political correctness? Of course PC can and does wade into over sensitivity but it also includes the idea that you should err on the side of safety when using words that can be terribly hurtful to some people. It's not our place to decide that it's not in fact hurtful.

munin 11y ago

> child-centric lives can lose touch with one another to the point where they have nothing left to say to one another when the kids leave home. there are couples like this because the way they made kids + 2 careers work on middle class salaries is by dividing the day in half and each parent spends one half the day with the children and the other works. after ten years of this, you don't actually know your spouse any more - they've been living some life, but not one that you've had time to be a part of between your own career and your children. this seems like an equally plausible explanation for this phenomenon, because when you sacrifice that much it must be for something and when someone else insinuates that maybe the sacrifice wasn't worth it, well, that would really piss you off...

nommm-nommm 11y ago
There's actually some evidence that shared earning/shared parenting marriages are less likely to end in divorce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_earning/shared_parenting_marriage#Marriage_stability_and_fertility_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_earning/shared_parentin... I guess the hypothesis is you start to feel alone in your responsibilities and you lose touch with your spouse's life.
Jtsummers 11y ago
> the way they made kids + 2 careers work on middle class salaries is by dividing the day in half and each parent spends one half the day with the children and the other works. Who sets up their schedules like that in the middle class? Middle class jobs don't (typically) allow that one parent could work from 7-4 and another from 4-1am.
- munin 11y ago
  one parent does shift work and the other doesn't, i.e. medical residency / EMT or something in network operations that does a swing shift.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    That situation exists, but it seems far from the majority situation for 2-income middle-class households.

draw_down 11y ago

Being a parent today seems so awful, especially if you are expected to make the household income on top of doing 50% of the parenting.

hosh 11y ago

This isn't a bad train of thought, though I wonder if this says more about Millennial narcissism than it does about the "religion of parenting". I think this has more to do with a kind of ethical posturing ("I am holier than thou") than it is about a sacred cow. There are parents who will give up their own interests for the sake of their children's interest, and not because there is peer-pressure to do so, or as a way to gain status within the community, or to be tyrannized by a cultural myth. So thinking about it more, I think this article is BS -- not because the issues it raises are not true, but because it focused on the wrong thing. There is also a spiritual and psychological transformation that takes place with becoming a parent. Philosopher Ken Wilber had written extensively about modernity, and the way it throws pre-modern ideas such as the Great Chain of Being out the window, leaving members of modernity disconnected with their place in the universe. That's not to say that pre-modern ideas where they just told you where your place is a good idea. On the other hand, existential angst and a constant wondering of your place in society, in the world, in the universe as a whole is a constant them in the cultures of modernity. What does this have to do with parenting? The idea of the Great Chain of Being is a kind of stand-in, or abstractions, that Ken Wilber claims ties the pre-modern religion together. They disagree on a lot of things, but one thing that is present in the religious teachings is putting the human experience in context of the cosmos as a whole. The search for the meaning of life was a search for your origins, of where you came from -- a search for who you were "born" from. It might seem obvious that your body was born from the DNA of both of your parents; however, where did they come from? If you trace things up your lineage, you still come to the question, "Where did life originate from?" To use the mythic language in the context of the Great Chain of Being, you were "born" from the universe. To become a parent is to experience -- just a little bit -- of what it is like for the universe to give life and creation. It might be accidental or intentional. Someone might enter this stage with naivete or with great wisdom. There are a lot of things you might have railed against growing up, but now as a parent, it makes you think and wonder. My point is that, if you were to strip away the ethical posturing and political correctness, what you are left with is not a re-examination of parenting, that there is a sacred cow to be slaughtered. Parenting is an re-examination of your self and your place and purpose within the universe. Your growth does not stop there. You might gain a better appreciation of how things come together.

josephjrobison 11y ago

"Ayelet Waldman, where the author explained that she loved her husband more than her four children." Recently did some pre-marital counseling where they recommend that you put your spouse above your children. Seemed really strange to me and counter-intuitive. I don't know much about marriage at all, but if you think about it, the trickle-down effect does seem to make sense as setting an example is a good lesson for kids. I think the takeaway is to keep a balance. Also, it's not like Ayelet Waldman is a revolutionary, as other old-school practitioners seem to have been recommending that advice for years.

icanhackit 11y ago
counseling where they recommend that you put your spouse above your children I believe this is incredibly important for a lasting, loving relationship. I've observed a few relationships where one partner's priority shifts so much to the children that the other partner is left with little love or consideration and their bond quickly degrades. I could understand this behavior in a place where there's a shortage of food and resources, but in developed countries with an abundance of food and relative safety people are sabotaging their happiness and adult bonds by elevating developing humans above the person they originally committed to. Additionally, some adults infantilize their household culture to the point where adult activities become a sort of taboo. I think we short-change children by not exposing them to regular adult behaviors and conversations. Certainly there are some things children should not be exposed to but the household should be as accommodating for old and young as possible. A healthy balance needs to be struck.
seansmccullough 11y ago
I think this attitude makes sense.
jamra 11y ago
To me, parenting is like Atlas lifting up the world. It may seem logical to focus entirely on the object of importance (the world), but if Atlas doesn't eat right he will start to wane. His bones will lose their density and he'll start to lose muscle mass. Eventually, he won't be able to lift the world. My relationship with my wife is just that. The more we put into each other, the stronger we become individually and as a pair. Your kids will adjust to the lifestyle you set for them and happy parents have more to give.

pravka 11y ago

This is extreme. I read this article when it made the rounds last year, and I hated it just as much this time around. Disclaimer: I'm a parent, and I love it. I also love being in a relationship with someone I trust and with whom I can talk about 'grown-up' shit. Granted, there are definitely parents who hover, worry, or interfere with their kids', but, at least in the circles I run in, these are the exception more than the rule and most certainly don't represent parents (or marriages) at large.

swagv 11y ago

"Think of the children" is a cliché

vlehto 11y ago

>The origins of the parenthood religion are obscure "The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex. It was ratified on 1920." Womens suffrage has to reverb through political sphere. As a whole it's not good or bad, just different. Another thing coming from there: time passed since women gained vote seems to correlate with welfare spending. I don't think religious fervor can be avoided in a society. It's just a matter of where it is directed.

bsder 11y ago

Hmm, wouldn't have expected "But think of the chiiiiildren" to be a shitty argument even when applied to marriage.

eximius 11y ago

Interestingly, I've asked many of my female friends, including my last few girlfriends, given the hypothetical choice of saving their husband or their child, who would they save? Almost all of them said their children. Ask the men, however, and it is almost always the wife. And none of these folks were married or had kids yet. It is something ingrained from before that occurs.

jpfed 11y ago
Dad here. I would save the kids, for several reasons: 1. They have more life-years ahead of them. 2. If I saved my wife, she would hate the choice I made and be plagued by survivor guilt or resentment. It's not clear that my marriage would survive this. But the kids are young enough that they would probably accept the choice, to the extent that they could comprehend it.

ryanmarsh 11y ago

I would like to understand the relevance of this article to Hacker News. Perhaps it would be helpful if I could see a demographic breakdown of visitors: marital status, age, and number of offspring. "Once our gods have left us, we try to pick up the pieces of our long neglected marriages and find new purpose. Is it surprising that divorce rates are rising fastest for new empty nesters? Perhaps it is time that we gave the parenthood religion a second thought." So divorce rates for empty nesters are the kids fault or kids are holding together marriages that were doomed before they left the nest? This article is garbage.

serge2k 11y ago
Anything is relevant to Hacker News. It's in the rules.

clockworkelf 11y ago

What a dumb article. Seriously, it's simply trolling the late 20-something females who feel a pang of guilt of choosing a career path over kids. And it trolls the late 20-something females who believe they can "have it all" and don't have enough guilt for compromising child-rearing for career-rearing. They're fucking with our heads people.

brazzledazzle 11y ago

I love my kids and I think they each have unique things about them that make them great. I also think they can be amazingly compassionate and caring little people. But let's be real: By and large kids are at least a little bit sociopathic assholes. It's that behavior that you spend the better part of their early lives trying to excise from them. Does anyone remember being a kid? Regardless of whether you were the victim, perpetrator, instigator or bystander just think back on how cruel bullies could be both verbally and physically.

ausjke 11y ago

read history boys at 18 or even younger can be generals and nowadays they're still treated like toddlers, our parenting method is wrong in my opinion, the key is that we babysit them too much for too long.

sakopov 11y ago

Marriage first, children second. If you and your wife/husband make a happy couple, you will likely raise a happy offspring by creating warm, healthy and balanced environment.

leroy_masochist 11y ago

I agreed with pretty much everything until the following: "Mothers are also holy in a way that fathers are not expected to be. Mothers live in a clean, cheerful world filled with primary colors and children’s songs, and they don’t think about sex. A father could admit to desiring his wife without seeming like a distracted parent, but society is not as willing to cut Ms. Waldman that same slack. It is unseemly for a mother to enjoy pleasures that don’t involve her children." Uh, are we living in the same society? Moms are more sexualized today than they ever have been. Have you ever been to a daytime CrossFit class? Lisa Ann has been the most popular adult film actress for years, for God's sake. I agree there is much progress yet to be made in resolving a variety of gender-equality issues....but the argument that society's increasing valuation of children is driving a newfound societal demand for Victorian prudishness in mothers seems to fly in the face of all available evidence.

deciplex 11y ago
I'm not sure your observation is at odds with the assertion made here. We could sexualize mothers while keeping the taboo on mothers themselves being sexual i.e. desiring sex. In fact, the sexualization could even feed off that very taboo.
- leroy_masochist 11y ago
  I see what you're saying in theory, but by my reading of the article it's clear that the authors are saying that societal expectations around mothering are effectively inhibiting women from existing both as mothers and as sexual beings -- and this assertion does not square with what I observe in the real world.

nommm-nommm 11y ago

Call me callous but I always thought one of the most important lessons a child should learn is "its not all about you." I am so amazed when I see parents nowadays devoting their entire life to making sure their children are spared of any tiny little inconvenience. These children will be very poorly adjusted and these parents are rarely happy.

x5n1 11y ago
Could it be that these parents are providing their kids what they wanted when they were children? That they are living vicariously through their parenting.
javajosh 11y ago
What if you were to engineer a situation with your kids where you a) teach them how to do something useful, and then b) put them in a situation where that useful thing needs to be done. If they don't take the cue, no problem. If they miss it, maybe have a 3rd party (like an aunt or an uncle) pitch in. Then maybe have that 3rd party ask the child if they know how to do that thing - and get the kid to get in the habit of volunteering their effort if it's helpful to those around them. (It's important that the prompts not come from the parent since the action becomes "acquiescing to authority" instead of "pitching in for the common good".) Of course, there's an unfortunate prisoner's dilemma in that if two kids are involved, and one is volunteering all the time, the lazy one thinks, "Ha, sweet, I'm so clever I never do any work and things still get done!" Not really sure how to get around this - perhaps develop a turn-based cooperation game where two siblings take turns helping, effectively coopting the helpfulness of one to blunt the selfishness of the other. If they both defect, then I suppose you have to create an "existential baseline" that they don't want to endure, involving a) no toys, b) no freedom, c) bland food. But that's problematic because it turns you into a jailor, and it turns cooperation into "that thing you do to satisfy authority" again.
- prawn 11y ago
  Always going to great lengths to teach your children important lessons like this is another form of putting them first (or at least up there). I don't put loads of time into my kids to save them every inconvenience, but to give them a thirst for knowledge, etc.

HillaryBriss 11y ago

I always thought "Baby On Board" caution signs were placed on cars and minivans as a courtesy to other drivers. These signs let other motorists know that the sign-toting car will swerve wildly, stop unexpectedly and misbehave drastically because a self-centered, totally implacable baby is present inside, jealously and continuously demanding the driver's attention by screaming, vomiting and pretending to fatally gag on nothing in particular. Now I know I was wrong. Thanks HN!

dba7dba 11y ago

If this article were true, how can you explain lower divorce rate in Asian countries? China? S Korea? Japan?

ryuker16 11y ago
Divorce rates skyrocketed when they started having dual incomes like ours. The reason for less is cultural....plus, it's a bit easier to cheat and still stay married....most places aren't so hung up on "he cheated, let's divorce!" thing like the USA.
- dba7dba 11y ago
  So it wasn't because of over parenting in Asia?

doctorstupid 11y ago

I have a suspicion that these parents are using children as mirrors for their self-obsessions. The self is the true religion here.

programminggeek 11y ago

Perhaps replacing real religion with a false one is unwise.