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Are All Moms Mad at Dad?
This story, first in parenting.com and then in the New York Times, is getting a lot of attention. It resonates with a lot of people. With the moms who know they have been seething for the past few years, and for the dads, who, as they are often depicted in cartoons, are clueless why mom is so angry at them.
We often warn on GreatDad.com that the first years of parenting are a minefield. Moms and dads need to get used to completely new routines, dads miss out on the full attention of mom, there are new money and responsibility issues. It’s not surprising to anyone who has gone through it that a lot of marriages pull apart due to all the stress. A lot of the problem is that we create a Hallmark card version of marriage and parenthood in our mind and few people talk about the ups and downs of life after kids. Like a lot of stuff in the carrousel of life, as we change and evolve through our 20′s, 30′s, 40′s and beyond, awareness of the universality of these issues is key to survival. Too often, we shy away from family therapy or even just frank discussion, afraid to admit that our marriages aren’t perfect.
Are All Moms Mad at Dad?
By LISA BELKIN
The most read story on parenting.com today is “Mad at Dad,” a 4,000-word look at how very angry mothers of young children are at their husbands.Based on a what author Martha Brockenbrough describes as a survey of 1,000 “nationally representative” mothers from MomConnection, an online opinion panel, the article is a disturbing portrait of motherhood.
“We love our husbands,” she writes, “but we’re mad that we spend more mental energy on the details of parenting. We’re mad that having children has turned our lives upside down much more than theirs. We’re mad that these guys, who can manage businesses or keep track of thousands of pieces of sports trivia, can be clueless when it comes to what our kids are eating and what supplies they need for school. And more than anything else, we’re mad that they get more time to themselves than we do.”
[From Are All Moms Mad at Dad? - Motherlode Blog - NYTimes.com]
Hopefully, this article will be more than just a chance to say, “Aha, all women are angry during ten years after having babies,” and will instead fuel conversations between parents who are going through these same cahnges.
Paul Nyhan, over at the Seattle Post has been writing good stories on the changing roles of moms and dads, especially faced with an economy in turmoil that will accelerate a lot of social change.
At its core, (the Parenting.com story) raises fundamental questions about how the modern family will evolve and run.
Traditionally, many moms set the pace for their families. As dads take on greater roles in parenting, and the data bears that shift out, how we run our families is likely to change.
Maybe I am an optimist, but I think the change may be moms and dads moving toward a middle ground, and their kids could benefit from that shift.
[From Moms are angry about dad's role; maybe both need to change]
