Enjoy Every Moment

At least once a week, I see a blog post making the rounds about the joys of motherhood and how, despite all the crappy moments in parenting young children, mothers should try to enjoy it. Two things jump out at me when I read these, and both have to do with the dynamics of work-life balance, equality of parenting, and the realities of having young children. One is that this message pulls women further into the double shift trap. The other is that it lays all the responsibility (and guilt) on mothers with no message for fathers.

Motherhood is often not fun, and it isn't supposed to be, but that fact is emphasized by its contrast with professional work. Modern mothers, especially anyone who has ever worked a career job, realize how under-appreciated and difficult the job of raising children is. Not only is it hard work, but nobody is giving you an annual review or raise to reward your effort. So, yes, these women need to be reminded that their self-worth isn’t tied to their children, and that children are an integral part of society. They also need to be reminded to appreciate the good moments, as fleeting as they may be, because it’s too easy to get lost in just getting through the days.

The other thing that strikes me is the point that it’s okay, or even preferable, for a mother to step back from her career in order to appreciate the joys of motherhood. Sure, those babies grow up quickly, but a missed promotion may never come back either. Where are the droves of blog posts addressing fathers and telling them to work less? Reminding them that their children will not need them someday? Reminding them that nobody regrets having spent too little time at the office on their death bed? The double standard is especially apparent in the low number of “daddy” blogs relative to their “mommy” counterparts.

In a dual-parent, heterosexual household, it's usually beneficial for a father to be involved with his wife and children. Both parents should be able to take a step back from their careers while their kids are young so that they can enjoy the transcendent moments of joy amidst the pervasive sticky messes. In fact, the drudge factor would be lessened simply by having another responsible adult around to share the load. As a society, it seems like a no-brainer to improve everyone’s quality of life by encouraging this.

Instead, we are chastising women for putting their work ahead of their children. We are scorning men who take time off to care for a sick child. We are effectively punishing people who support feminism with these attitudes. Combine that with our culture of overwork, and you have a perfect recipe for low or negative population growth. That might be fine once we’re all post-human and immortal, but for now we need to make more human beings. In order to do that, we, as a society, need to support both parents so they can support each other...and enjoy their children.

Handy Tips for New Parents

The internet is full of these lists, and obviously I haven't read them all, but here are some ideas that I don't see often. I've found them especially useful during the early years of being a parent. 

1. Do what works for you, your family, and your baby. If you're taking the time to read up on parenting, you're already doing a great job. Okay, this one is more of a disclaimer than a tip, but it needs to be said. Often. Really, you're not going to screw up as badly as you might feel.

2. A Bottle A Day: if you want to be attached to your baby at all times, that's awesome. Go with it (see #1). If you don't, I would suggest a bottle of something once a day, be it pumped breast milk or formula, starting as early as you are comfortable. I'm not guaranteeing that this will prevent your baby from going on a bottle strike three days before you're due back at work, but it should improve the odds in your favor. [Aside: if you're breast feeding, try to time the bottle feed with the first middle of the night feeding and have someone else do it, if possible, to get yourself a longer stretch of sleep.]

3. Command Central: set up a spot for the new Mother/Father where the parent can sleep, feed the baby, change a diaper, and have the following in arms reach: TV remote (if near the TV), laptop/tablet, phone, large bottle of water, and snacks. For the first few weeks after bringing a new baby home, expect to spend a lot of time at command central, especially if you're a breast feeding Mother. If you're a breast feeding Father, I know some news outlets and biologists who would really like to talk to you.

4. Sleep Training: if you're going to do it, I suggest you do it before the baby is trying to do back flips over the crib wall, i.e. between 4 and 8 months. If you fail spectacularly at training your baby to sleep through the night, do not despair. They all figure it out...eventually.

5. The Sheet Parfait: have at least two layers of sheet + waterproof mattress pad on any surface where the baby/child will be sleeping, be it a crib or bed. This ensures minimal disruption in the middle of the night when any kind of accident might occur. I've found this to be extremely useful even in later years to deal with pee accidents and random cough-induced vomiting. If you live in a place with cold winters, keeping an extra blanket or two on hand is a good idea, too. Fluids can be...challenging to contain.

6. The Link Collection:

http://kellymom.com/ (breastfeeding issues/support; sometimes a little too "rah rah" breast-is-best, but the information is sound)

http://askmoxie.org/ (everything...lots of good ideas in the comments; will make you feel a lot less alone about whatever problem you're dealing with)

http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/ (various topics; many useful personal stories and suggestions)

Everyone Wins

I’m aware that the purpose of many of The Atlantic’s opinion pieces are intended to provoke commentary and generate traffic. In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing. The world needs more analytical thinking, and if even a fraction of that traffic engages in some critical thought, society will benefit. I do wish, however, that they would steer the conversation in directions that are controversial in a more positive manner. This article is a case in point.

The article’s main thesis questions a basic assumption about paid leave for new Mothers versus Fathers and addresses the potential fallacy, especially in modern times, that one is more useful than the other. This seems sufficiently controversial and socially progressive by itself. Unfortunately, it stumbles by trying to make the benefits of paternity leave into a competition:

“While paid paternity leave may feel like an unexpected gift, the biggest beneficiaries aren’t men, or even babies. In the long run, the true beneficiaries of paternity leave are women, and the companies and nations that benefit when women advance.”

First of all, don’t “companies and nations” include men and children? Second, how exactly are they going to accurately measure a fuzzy word like “benefit” to the point that they can rank who receives the most? Instead of wasting time picking a fight about this, our focus should be on the fact that this policy should improve everyone’s lives in some way. Men will feel less pressure to return to the workplace, women will face less discrimination by being “baby tracked,” and even those without babies will reap the benefit of retaining a greater percentage of female talent. The policy would especially help the lower socioeconomic levels that are sometimes overlooked by feminist policy making. When both parents are working to make ends meet, giving paid paternity leave is a financial boon which defers day care costs without reducing the net household income.

The article then goes on to say this:

“paternity leave [...] is a brilliant and ambitious form of social engineering: a behavior-modification tool that has been shown to boost male participation in the household, enhance female participation in the labor force, and promote gender equity in both domains”

All of those results sound great, but quite a few men don’t need to be engineered or psyched into spending more time with their children. Many are already frustrated with their work-life balance, and their numbers are increasing. Was it really necessary to use words that, dare I say, patronises men and possibly alienates the women who are partnered with these men, never mind gay male parents who adopt. The rest of the article presents a sound, cogent, and sometimes impassioned argument in favor of paternity leave, but I nearly missed it all because I was so irritated by these two passages.

We cannot avoid biology (until someone invents a reliable artificial womb), and that means women are the baby makers and need time off work after giving birth. What we can change is the attitude that women are more naturally suited to the raising of children than men are. Women are socially conditioned to the role just as men are led away from it, but that needs to stop if we are to achieve gender equality in all spheres of life: home, career, and child care. Antagonising men by making social change into a competition isn’t going to help bring it about. Emphasizing the point that all of society, including the men, will benefit tremendously just might sway some opinions.