No offense, but it’s true. You may have lots of nieces and nephews, be a schoolteacher or have experience with children, but if you don’t have kids of your own, you really can’t truly relate to what exactly is involved in being a parent.
This point was made abundantly clear by a question posed by a reader to advice columnist, Carolyn Hax at the Washington Post. The reader asks, “Why don’t friends with kids have time?”
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Even though this column appeared in May 2007, it has somehow been resurrected and is becoming a viral email sensation among moms all over the country. Over the past couple days, I've received this email from a couple mom friends of mine who are equally exasperated by the question but thrilled with Hax’s response. If you haven’t yet seen it, take a gander and pass it along to all the friends in your life who may have wondered the same question and the moms and dads in your life who didn’t have the time to explain!
Here’s the interlude itself between Hax and clueless questioner “Tacoma”:
Dear Carolyn: Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): What'd you do today? Her: Park, play group ...
OK. I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners ... I do all those things, too. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events); I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy, but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a contest ("my life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks have the same questions.
— Tacoma, Wash.
Dear Tacoma: Relax and enjoy. You're funny.
Or, you're lying about having friends with kids.
Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.
I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.
So, because it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, cleaned, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces checkout-line screaming.
It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.
It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.
It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.
It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything — language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.
It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand, or keep your snit to yourself.
Comments
Ha! It's so true. Many of my friends are still childless and they are clueless too. But I was the same way before kids. You just have to experience it yourself to know...
I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy, but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth?" What a dummy.
"I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy, but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth?" What a dummy.
I think the levels of cluelessness vary. Some of my friends are childless, but are very much aware of what it takes to be a parent. But I agree that you can't really know until you have a kid.
I have my childless friends and family members who 'forget' what is like to have young children, ask us out for dinner. When we graciously decline, we get the pity stance from them. They say,"oh, go ahead bring them, we'll help watch them, you can't stay home forever." Clueless is not even close. I feel very unsupported when others don't recognize that we are not upset we can't dine out; we don't want to spend the whole evening chasing and exerting all our energy and not even taste the food.
So true! Sometimes I don't even think my husband understands it completely. I think I'll be passing this on to him as well.
It's the same for people post-kids. My MIL doesn't understand why I don't have time to call her and chat for half an hour every day. I have three kids, work 6 hours a day, volunteer at school and at scouts, and run a business from my home. I shower at 2AM. I can't believe how easily they forget, I sure hope I don't do that to my kids and remember what it's like enough to help out.
i don't agree. i think SAHM's make it seem much harder than it is. i've been a working mom and a SAHM and i've not had any trouble finding balance. i think it depends on what you teach your child(ren) you expect out of them. btw i have 3 children and at one point they were nursing infant, 20 months and 4. never had a continual problem of finding time for friends and myself.
i wanted to add that a lot of what tacoma said was just complete idiocy. i don't think parents use their child as an excuse to relax...that's nuts. raising kids is not an easy task, but you can teach your child to spend time on their own while you get things done, teach them to help pitch-in, etc.
I am a SAHM of twins. The columist is right, what would take a child free person 15min takes those of us with kids 45min. You can't run in and out of the grocery, the pharmacy, Costco, Target, etc... in 15min with kids. So whatever time it takes you to do things before or after work, multiply the time by 3 and then see if you have time for yourself, and if you do... then remember all the things in the house you need to do and multiply that time by 3 as well...then if you do have time to yourself, you probably just actually want time to yourself! I would not give up being a SAHM for the world!!!
I am not sure how that one commenter found balance so easily. My only guess is that she has family that lives in the same town and also a really supportive husband. Some of us don't have that luxury... and finding time without kids is near impossible.
why don't you folks just sometimes get a babysitter?
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