The Human Family
I’ve been reading some amazing writing from women all over the world this week. I am slowly adding to my blogroll.
I’ve been following mums and dads on Twitter as well and there is something from all this following and reading that really stands out. Something with no logic but it’s true anyway.
What strikes me is that we are all individuals but we are really just the same.
Dr Maya Angelou expresses beautifully in her poem written over 50 years ago
The Human Family
I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.
The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.
I’ve sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I’ve seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I’ve not seen any two
who really were the same.
Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.
We love and lose in China,
we weep on England’s moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we’re the same.
I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
Find more of Dr Maya’s poems here. http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/33281-Dr–Maya-Angelou-Human-Family
How did you choose?
How did you choose the resources that helped you to bring up your baby?
If you have a treasured list of internet resources- will you share them here?
Same for any parenting books that you couldn’t have lived without.
If you didn’t have any favourite books- how did you decide the value of any internet advice?
Finally, did you ask your parents or grandparents for parenting advice? If so did you take it? If not- why not? ( I didn’t initially but I did eventually)
Questions-I have questions and your answers will be useful to other parents, so I hope you’ll share.
Fathers do other things not mother things
Dads can do as much as they choose to do in child rearing, so they can see themselves as optional extras. No-one wins if this happens.
I know it’s not cool to tell people how to parent but here’s what I know from experience: Your biggest challenge in your first year as parents is deciding how to divide up the labour. In some households this turns into a crisis because becoming parents forces you both into gender specific roles.
The Structure of Work
Some work places are managed by men who make no room for fathers. They don’t hang a sign up saying no fathers allowed. Instead they make snide comments to work colleagues about the guy who leaves at 5pm sharp. They see a new dad struggling with his new responsibilities and they reign him in with some friendly advice like “don’t go home before 7.30 otherwise you’ll have to walk into all hell breaking loose.” All dads who buy into the culture of working long hours to make a good impression at work end up neglecting their kids. They walk the tightrope between leaving work at a respectable hour to keep their top performer image intact and arriving home at a reasonable hour to keep their partner happy.
Practical Matters
Practical matters can force a more equal division of labour. Many mothers work because they either want a break from the kids, the ability to go the bathroom on their own, to think their own thoughts, to feel better about themselves, or some financial freedom. When mothers work dads can suddenly be dragged kicking and screaming into taking on their parenting responsibilities. There is often a time lag before dads realise that they can use the time when their partner is not around to build relationships with their kids.
Psychological Matters
It’s tiring work being uncompromising in your expectations of your partner’s full physical and emotional support in bringing up your children. New mothers often feel lonely, overwhelmed and tired, while dads are burdened with money worries, job worries and watching all the fun being sucked out of their life.
If dads can stay loving, concerned and supportive and if mums have a clear understanding of the importance of separating themselves from the kids to be present for their partner, then odds are they will maintain their relationship through the demands and adjustment to being parents.
Often these resources are scarce and cobbled together from the scraps and remnants of a busy day, or week. That’s where your baby tribe is an essential tool for carving out some time to spend together.
My parenting advice bible was Penelope Leach’s Your Baby and Child from birth to age 5, which is uncompromising in its child centeredness. It doesn’t surprise me that I just turned my library copy inside out to find some reference to the simple truth of the challenge of division of labour and I came up with nothing.
Fathers are not mentioned in the index, or dads, or adjustment, or division of labour. It sucks to have learnt (the hard way) how to successfully divide up the household labour and stay talking to each other .
Practical advice for successfully dividing up the labour is great up to a point, but someone still has to be the household’s mental calendar. I’m writing a post on this very thing now so stay tuned.
In the meantime I recommend the following resources:
Baby Love by Robin Barker ( especially the chapter on preparing for parenthood-Fathers)
The AskMoxie.org website is excellent particularly this post and the many informative comments http://www.askmoxie.org/2008/06/scheduling-and-allotting-chores-around-the-house.html
What helped you get through your first year? Please share!
I wanted policies and procedures and I got Penelope Leach
It’s time to call in the (what?) toll the bell, count the winnings, weigh the purse.
2010 is the year of my son’s 21st birthday and I want to know whether Penelope Leach’s child and baby centred advice delivered.
How much had my choice of a (then) current bestseller influenced my experience of motherhood, our parenting, our first and subsequent child? I have never questioned whether my random choice of Penelope’s book was the right one. Until now that is.
When I found out I was pregnant I had no clue what parenting advice was best. All I knew was that I didn’t want to do things the way my parents did them.
Penelope’s book became my bible, my late night reference, and a prescription that if followed carefully enough would guarantee success. I wanted a guarantee where perhaps there was none.
I had full faith in Penelope because she made a hell of a lot of sense. In the first year of my son’s life her book was never far away. It travelled from bedside table to coffee table and into the kitchen and back again.
Without opening my own yellowing copy of this book, ( if I ever find it in the garage!) I test myself about what I remember about Penelope’s philosophy. It is crystal clear at once that she was hard on mothers. Here is what your baby needs and wants, don’t drink, don’t smoke, let’s not talk about you, but rather get down to the level of your baby.
I recall the first passage of her book as a blow by blow description of the birth process from the as yet unborn baby’s perspective. Good Lord!
