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Welcome to familywisdom.com, a website dedicated to informing and inspiring couples and families. Each week you will find a new article, story or essay about parenting, marriage or life. Suggestions for articles and questions to Ellen Terich are welcome. You can contact her at e.terich1@verizon.net |
MARRIAGE, MEN AND MOTHERHOOD 2004-03-11 I watch my daughter caring for her two children 24 hours a day and always marvel at how she does it. I know as well as anyone how difficult it can be to stay home with small children. When my first three were toddling around, I was there around the clock, feeding them, changing diapers, picking up after them, trying to get them to sleep, taking them to the doctor, soothing them, sitting up all night with them when they were sick and listening to them cry, whine, and fight with each other. I have often said it was the hardest job I ever had, and watching my daughter tackle the job of full time mommy only reminds me of that. My daughter only has two children, but she has a friend with three: a four year old girl and three month old twin boys who just came home from the hospital a few weeks ago. She visited them the other day and said she got tired just watching her friend hold a bottle for one in a baby carrier while she fed the other on her lap, then burp one on her lap and the other over her shoulder. She told my daughter that in addition to caring around the clock for two tiny infants, she sends a lot of time worrying about her four year old who doesn't get nearly the attention she needs. Being a mother of small children truly is one of the hardest jobs any woman can have. While you're doing the work of parenting infants and toddlers you have no time to think, rest, or eat without interruption. You can't watch a television program or read a magazine article all the way through. Forget trying to read a book. You can't even go to the bathroom without somebody following you in or calling to you from outside the bathroom door. There certainly is no time for yourself, at least not until children get past the age of about three and can entertain themselves for a few minutes. In fact, studies show that women who stay home with children under the age of six are more depressed than other women. In my book, they're also heroic. Then, of course, there are the women who must return to work when their children are small. They may be able to escape the constant demands of round the clock childcare, but only for eight or nine hours, after which their second job begins. In addition to that, they often feel guilty and deprived of time with their children. Sometimes they exhaust themselves trying to be supermoms when they are home to make up for the time they are gone. They, too, are heroines. This time period of raising small children can be one of the most difficult times in a marriage, too. Whether a woman stays home or returns to work, her marriage is likely to experience strain. Many couples who divorce can trace the start of their problems back to the weeks and months after their children were born. Why is this? Why is it that the miracle of birth could ultimately lead the two people who created that miracle to become estranged from each other? I think the answer lies in the amount of work mothers are expected to do with their young children, what that does to their ability to do anything else, the responses of the fathers to the changes in their wives, and the lack of understanding of both to what is happening and what they can do to make things a little better. First of all, no new mother is really prepared for what will be expected of her when she comes home from the hospital. I think the anticipation of bringing the baby home, loving it, holding it, and watching it grow, prevents both parents from understanding the enormity of the task they are undertaking. Aside from all the physical discomfort after childbirth, and the lack of sleep in the first few months, mothers also are confronted with a never-ending series of responsibilities. For women who stay home with children, this can be a 24 hour job. Unless a woman has a nearby relative or is lucky enough to find reliable babysitters, she may have the child with her every minute. Most husbands, even the ones who are the best fathers, don't understand how much this demands of a mother. When, instead of pitching in and helping, they also complain that they aren't getting much attention, they put even more pressure on their wives. I have noticed a series of articles and books recently that encourage women not to ignore their husbands when they are pregnant and after babies are born, and there is some value in that advice. But I fear that it doesn't take into account the woman's reality and it returns us to the days when women were expected to be the sole caretakers of the relationship. Yesterday, quite by accident (I was a passenger in someone else's car) I happened to hear a famous female radio "doctor" admonish a pregnant woman who was raising a 21 month old. She told her she needed to attend more to her husband and stop complaining about being tired. "I was pregnant, I know how it feels" she said. I beg to differ with her. She may know how it was for her to be pregnant (although it was many years ago and memory does fade) but she doesn't know how it is for every woman to be pregnant. Some women, for instance, have morning sickness for months. Some, like my daughter, are anemic when they're pregnant and as a result are constantly fatigued. Some have to be put on bed rest to stop premature contractions. Some even die from complications. Pregnancy is not a cake walk for all women and I believe it is a time when husbands can help by being extra attentive. Telling a woman to buck up and take care of her man when she can barely care for herself is just insensitive, to say the least. This radio personality also doesn't know what it's like to care for more than one child, or to be pregnant while caring for a baby. Another thing she said to the woman was "your husband isn't free to do what he wants when he goes to work. You have the freedom to do what you want all day." I would have laughed if I wasn't so incensed by her comments. Obviously this woman has never experienced the time and energy demands of caring for more than one child. A friend of mine once said "Having one child is sometimes like having no children, while having two can be like having ten." Or as my mother-in-law who raised six children says "When you have kids, all you have is kids." You certainly don't have freedom. When a young woman is caring for an infant, or an infant and a toddler, she doesn't even have time for herself. If we were to imagine that every woman has a certain amount of energy and time for relationships, let's call it "relationship space," which she must divide among all her significant relationships, it might be reasonable to assume, all things being equal, that she could give time to children, husband, parents, friends, etc. But all things aren't equal when you have small children. These little beings can easily use up all your relationship space and even intrude on your personal "time for me" space. In fact, many young mothers have told me they don't understand why their husbands are so upset by not getting any of their attention, as they don't even have time to attend to themselves. My other concern about this new trend to worry about husbands while forgetting about wives is that it implies that men somehow need taking care of. In a seminar I attended recently on helping those involved in domestic violence I heard the presenter talk about how it is normal for men not to be in touch with their emotions, and how it is important for their wives to help them with this. I thought about how society trains men to fly F-16's, program computers, build skyscrapers, profile criminals, drive race cars, run corporations etc. but somehow neglected to help them figure out normal human emotions. Or perhaps the implication is that men are biologically incapable of handling emotions. If I were a man, I would feel very demeaned by all of this. Certainly men are capable of feeling their emotions and of expressing them. How many athletes have we seen on television, after having been caught in some scandal, crying uncontrollably on television as they apologize? And on a more positive note, how many men cry with joy at the birth of their children, or express their fears when someone they love is ill? Men are perfectly capable of expressing their emotions and we have to stop telling them they are deficient in this respect. To return to my daughter for a minute, she is doing a fantastic job of raising a little boy who can express feelings as well as empathy and compassion. Sean has learned to use feeling words from her as well as from playing with Thomas the tank engine, who, he frequently tells us, is either happy or sad. Yesterday, with his 9 month old sister screaming in the car seat next to him as we were driving home from an outing, Sean reached over to Grace, held her hand and said "It's okay Acy. You don't need to scream." The day before, when a little girl had pushed him and he fell, he told her mother who was scolding her for doing it, "She didn't mean to do it; it was just an accident." Sean is already off to a good start in his journey towards manhood. He will, should things continue in this direction, become a good husband to someone, a husband who doesn't expect just to be taken care of but who is also willing to be a caretaker. It is hard to be a man and the sole breadwinner in a family. But it is also hard to be a woman taking care of small children. It is even harder when she is pregnant. And when she has to join her husband as breadwinner, she has two full time jobs. Giving her one more task, to be a caretaker of the grown man that is her husband and feel sorry for him because he works hard and can't deal with his own feelings, not only burdens an already overburdened woman, but demeans the adult man that she married. Perhaps we who are in the position of advising others ought to be compassionate to both genders, realize that marital problems are rarely the fault of only one person, and encourage BOTH spouses to be patient, understanding, appreciative and generous with each other. |