But
what does the modern family look like?
I
recently read an article about a “modern parenting crisis.” The article describes the author’s childhood
and the “benign neglect” he experienced.
His afternoons spent blissfully entertaining himself while his parents
spent their time engaged in their own interests and experiences. The article then highlights a surprising fact;
mothers who spend more time working spend MORE time with their children than
did our stay at home parents.
Additionally, as a whole, contemporary fathers spend more time with their
children than did previous generations.
The article’s author then spends the remainder of the article arguing
for how parents should be more involved in self-care and teach their children
to be more self-sufficient.
With
that being said, the idea of working parents spending more one on one or more
focused time with their children stuck with me.
I’ve spent many hours now thinking on this, maybe for my own comfort or
maybe because I am delusional; I am finding some merit in the argument. As a working mother, I feel as if the time in
which I am not at work belongs to my children, for better or for worse (better
in my opinion but my eternal need for a manicure may speak against that). Chores, shopping ect are reserved for when my
children are sleeping. I will run an
errand or two during the week on my lunch break, half of the contents of my
house come from Amazon but when I am home my focus is on my children.
I
am not arguing that stay at home parents do not show their children love or
affection. Nor am I arguing they are lesser
parents at all however I feel as though when you have the entire cake you don’t
savor every bite the same as you do when you only have a slice. I’m as guilty as the next person of spending
too much time on social media and recently I have noticed a trend. My stay at home mommy friends are some of the
most frequent posters on my feeds however a lot of what they post is not
centered on their children. They are not
checking in at the local play area but rather at Starbucks. They comment on how this is the 4th
time they were at Target this week or how they left the kids with daddy and spent
an hour sitting in the car before actually going into the grocery store to do
their shopping. I agree working parents
get out and get to socialize at work and stay at home parents do not but I
wonder if their days are actually filled with the same level of focused time
with their children we working parents envision and envy.
I
do wonder, however, if this overall trend of focusing primarily on our children
is also contributing to the mounting rate of divorce. Is my habit of pushing all of the household
responsibilities off until the children are asleep hurting my marriage? Would
it be better for my children to lose 15 minutes with me and spend that time
later focusing on my husband?
I think there has to be a compromise somewhere along the way. Maybe 1 night a
week we leave the dirty dishes in the sink and spend that time together? Maybe the entire family has a cleaning party
(my toddler loves getting his spray bottle of water and cleaning like mommy) on
Saturday morning? Maybe the key is
making activities that are not traditionally “family activities” into family
activities.
I
plan on still spending every moment that I can with my children. I feel like I keep blinking and they are
brand new kids. I do however plan on
letting go a little bit (I’m so stereo typically type A it’s going to be a challenge)
and embrace the fact that I’m making memories with my husband the same way I am
with my children when I’m leaving those dirty dishes in the sink. One day I will be really sad when I don’t
have to walk through a mind field of toys but the one person who will still be
by my side is my husband so right now he’s important too.
