I'm not sure this is is the assignment! (?) the summary is in there somewhere. hopefully it's clear where the article is being cited. I have editing like grammar/ spelling/ etc to do still. Thanks for any comments, critiques, suggestions!
"Life would be a
lot easier if you didn't have him." my friend says of my infant son. I am
appalled and give the mother of four an exaggerated frown in defense of my
baby. I tell her I love my children and would never want to give them up.
" Of course you wouldn't", my friend says, "but you have to
admit it would be easier!"
It's
true it's not easy being a parent. In
her article, All Joy and No Fun- Why Parents Hate Parenting, Jennifer Senior
notes "From the perspective of the
individual, it's a mystery (why people have children)." Senior
cites a number of studies wherein the general consensus is that parents are
less happy than their childless peers.The studies found many reasons for this
"hatred" of parenting. For instance the pressures of parenting are
very different from what they used to be. One study claimed the dissatisfaction
was due to the transition of children from workers and helpers to subjects of privilege.
As one sociologist said, (they are) "economically worthless but
emotionally priceless." The author also states that parents today spend
great amounts of energy helping their children to succeed, perhaps, feeling more pressure than the child does to
become successful.
The article contains parental upsets such
as guilt over their own absences, loss of freedom, trouble defining a course of
action for parenting and also plain disappointment in the role. The author says
that although parents today spend more time with their children than parents in
past generations, they still feel that
they don't spend enough time. Also,
having children is one of the biggest changes a person can experience and for
modern couples having a child is a great loss of "freedom...(and)...autonomy."
Furthermore, Senior tells that for modern people there is already experience of
professional discipline where there exists a right and wrong way. Child rearing
is not so black and white so parents have trouble figuring out why their old
method of operation isn't working. And then there is the issue of parental
expectations, notes Senior. Couples who wait to have children often see them as
a "reward" and can be surprised to find how difficult and unrewarding
the "reward" is.
Senior does provide that the results of
these studies "violate a parent's deepest intuition" that they will
fall in love with parenting. So why would studies prove dissatisfaction when
parents obviously want to be happy with the role? The author goes on to say that
some believe it is the lack of strong welfare systems. If government took off
some of the pressures of living, parenting would be less stressful and more
enjoyable. Senior also relates that none of the studies showed "the love (a) mother feels for her
son" or the little, pleasurable moments parenting may provide. One study
that Senior cited stated that the most depressed people were absentee parents,
making the point that, "Technically, if parenting makes you unhappy, you
should feel better if you're spared the task of doing it." One of the last
points the author makes is this: The things that in the moment lower our moods
can later be a great source of nostalgia and delight. In other words, parenting
may be difficult now, but once the stress is forgotten, parents will look
back on these times with joy.
Senior says that most studies show people
are unhappy, or at least less happy, as parents
and there are a lot of reasons why they could be. Then she tells us
perhaps these studies are inaccurate for their inability to see the bigger
picture. So, is the author's point that parents do hate parenting or that what
seems to be a dislike of parenting is simply outside stresses taking their toll
on the parent-child relationship? Is Senior's defense of parenting that studies
are just incomplete?
Maybe it is Senior's article itself
that's incomplete. Senior cites studies and the opinions of
"experts", which makes me wonder where all the real parents are. Had Senior sat in
on a Mommy-and-Me class or just stopped parents on the street to ask them how
they felt about parenting, I'm sure she would have seen for herself how many
people enjoy their role. I know if she were to ask me how I felt about being a
parent, I certainly wouldn't give the impression that I "hate" it.
Maybe Senior would recite findings from studies and I would have to tell her I
agree that parenting is stressful. I do feel pressure and there is a loss of
freedom and I don't mind. I love being a parent regardless of those things and
I know plenty of people who would echo that sentiment. The closest Senior gets
to this idea is when she offers that a psychologist suggested that the question
of parental happiness comes down to how you define happiness and perhaps in retrospective evaluations of one's
life they find that there actually was joy there. But I think there is joy
there now. Senior forgets to observe the look on a mother's face when she's
coming down a slide with her son. Senior forgets to account for the thrill a
father feels letting go of his daughter's bicycle as she rides on her own for
the first time. Senior fails to capture any of this joy, this fun, these
moments of... happiness!
Expert opinions and study results have a
value, but they cannot validate the emotion of everyday life of a mother or
father. There is more to the life of a
parent than the minor stresses and disappointments Senior's studies describe.
So parenting isn't all joy but most parents still have fun. Even if, as Senior
states, "moment to moment happiness is elusive" in parenthood, most
of us aren't miserable. Ultimately,
Senior’s sources came down to charted responses; studies with fill in the blank
sentences that cannot possibly describe what it means to live a life with your
children. I don't blame her. I can't describe it either. Parenting isn't
"no fun" and it isn't "all joy". It is in between and
changes from day-to-day, parent-to-parent. So, if we as parents can hardly
describe it, the experts can't tell us how it feels. Jennifer Senior can't tell
us either. Each parent must describe it for themselves. But I like to think a
lot of parents feel like I do. "It" would be easy if if I didn't have
children. "It" would be free. But that freedom and ease couldn’t buy
me the pleasure I find with my children. No, "it" wouldn't be much of
a life at all.
