You know, I'm often deeply annoyed when I hear people make arguments about why certain segments of the population aren't mature, and this thread is helping crystallize why. MoreCow pretty much got to the heart of what bothers me, but he didn't ramble enough or use any profanity, so fuck that guy in the back of his knees. Domesticity is not the same thing as maturity. It's bullshit. There's greater intellectual depth in casually browsing Wikipedia than there is in wandering around a farmer's market on a Saturday morning, discussing the relative benefits of switching from rice to quinoa, but one of those things is seen as an "adult" choice. I really, really don't see how having an opinion about dust ruffles is any more substantial than having an opinion about the use of Ken in SFIV, but I know a lot of people who treat anything household related as some proof positive that a partner is all grown up. Look, if you want kids, and want to feed them people food, you're going to need to think about how to make that happen. But I get unreasonably bothered when arbitrary distinctions are used to judge people as "not good enough." Because I know a fuckton of interesting, interested people who don't happen to want to play house in their early twenties, and a whole bunch more who think that a few Pottery Barn catalogues mean a goddamn thing in the grand scheme of anything.
I've been travelling the last few days so I haven't been able to respond properly, but this sentence irked the shit out of me. I quote from the very excellent book Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Seriously, most pregnant women can't sit at a fucking desk all day for four weeks prior and several months after giving birth? They are physically incapable of that? Jesus. Some people have complications or work certain jobs which make doing so either extremely difficult, dangerous or impossible, yes, and it is often desirable to take time off before and for a significant amount of time after for various valid reasons, but to claim physical incapacity in most cases is ridiculous.
You're assuming a desk job in her example, and even with a desk job, there's also the chance of a tough commute (one shitty hour one way, in my case), and in the end it all depends (the particular pregnancy, stresses of the job, aftermath of the birth ((incontinence, surgical complications, needs of the baby, etc))) but I agree that the OP was probably overstating the physical limitations of pregnancy/birth on an average white collar job. However, postnatal job leave based on physical/emotional needs of the child/mother, that's a whole nother ball of meconium (look it up, it's fun!).
Did you seriously just use the "Women in developing countries give birth in the rice paddy, then get right back to work with the baby in a sling over their shoulder!" example as a reason for your argument? Yes, some women are fortunate enough that the pregnancy is without complications, the birth is straightforward, and they are able to function within a day of dropping the kid. Some people can play the piano with their toes; that doesn't mean it's how it should be done. Particularly in Western countries, where the ability to birth a child naturally and without medical intervention is being lost (know many women who didn't have an epidural/IV/petosin/etc?), the odds of having a simple birth and being able to work within 24 hours are smaller than they've ever been. Nor is it something I would wish for. I'd wish for a healthy baby and no complications, but my goal isn't to have the easiest pregnancy possible so that I can get back to work that same week. Frankly, I think that's a sad circumstance. I'm really surprised that a woman's desire to stay at home with her kid is being attacked here. Like I said before: how it works out is an individual choice within each family. Sometimes it's the guy. Sometimes there's family involved that can step up and allow both parents to work. Some women are perfectly at ease with the idea of daycare. None of those options are inherently wrong; they all can work quite well. But I don't think I - or any other woman who feels the same way - am a horrible, unenlightened person for wanting to stop working outside of the home so that I can focus on the baby while it's very young.
So, this is completely off topic for the current tangent, but I came across this on the internet and immediately thought of this thread. Courtney Stodden. Who married a 51 year old Doug Hitchison at the age of 16 with her mother's written consent. And now posts disturbing videos of herself in hooker heels acting like a rabbit or fawning over phallic vegetables.
Agreed. Physical incapacity? Even after a c-section? Nah. Serious case of do-not-want-to? Damn right. There's nothing wrong with a woman's desire to stay home and raise her child - hell, that is the agreement if I have another one, I understand and embrace the idea because it's best for the kiddo...but there's no reason I CAN'T go back to work.
Nom's. Pottery Barn catalogues are meaningless. Williams-Sonoma catalogues are the telltale sign of maturity. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to order a new $2000 espresso maker, right after I finish this new X-Men comic.
Why in this neverending debate is nobody questioning this recurring theme....how do we know what is "best" for the kiddo? I am not saying one way or the other here (I think it depends on the situation), but I just want this to not be stated as a "fact" as it has been so many times in this thread. Working moms (who have no choice but to work) often feel lots of guilt because of this "fact". Actually there is research that shows that day care kids are better socialized and have a stronger immune system than kids raised at home. Maybe there is an implicit clause here that isn't typed out "in my situation", but I just want to toss one more point for debate out there.
There is something deeply wrong with both of these people. Doug Hutchison is a fuckin pervert for marrying a 16 year old when he's 51. Shes a fucking joke and I'm guessing has some serious developmental/emotional issues, evident from the fact that her parents were perfectly cool with her marrying someone older than themselves. She's basically a caricature pretending to be a women that would appear in cartoons and really has no idea how to behave or act since she's so fucked up.
I think I may have had it best with a mom who ran a daycare out of our home when me and my siblings were >5 years old. It was like all of my best friends came over to our place daily, and Mom could watch us kids and still pull in some income.
I think in terms of a generational shift, we are learning from the mistakes our parents made. Most of my friends have divorced or separated parents, and I've watched most families in my area seriously struggle with the "traditional American lifestyle". Also, I think a lot of the reasons and conditions that propelled people into that lifestyle aren't as pressing for my generation. When you add the economical difficulty of achieving that for your average 20-something, most of my generation is seriously saying "Why bother?" We are the cohort of Americans that have not ever imagined "happily married" or "domestic bliss" and avoid it until we reach 100% certainty. How that got entangled with "immaturity" is, to me, the complaint of a series of women who want to be married, but can't find anyone willing to take the plunge: He won't marry me because he's too immature. The reality of an unwillingness to commit is that we are from divorced and broken homes, we have been beaten over the head with statistics about divorce rates, alimony payments and life-ruining family courts, we have seen the married men on tv as idiotic, unhappy, bumbling morons with no control over their lives in an endless struggle to satisfy a wife, and there's no shortage of options for sex, companionship and cohabitation outside of a committed relationship.
In my experience - daycare taught some exceptionally bad habits and made my children CONSTANTLY sick. Snotty nasty noses and wheezes, biting, screaming, hitting. No thank you. I'd rather have my kids play with friends or at the YMCA in the daycare in measured doses. I'm all about teaching my kids manners - please, thank you, yes ma'am/sir no ma'am/sir, etc. I'm not about having my kids exposed to the shoddy "parenting" the majority of random people employ. Should there be guilt? I think not...it's doing what needs to be done. There should NEVER be guilt for doing what one must do.
Isn't that a HUGE part of growing up, though? In my opinion, learning how to deal with shitty people being shitty is one of the most formative aspects of childhood development. It's a huge part of what makes people successful adolescents and adults.
There's backlash because of the way our society has devalued fatherhood, especially in the context of a traditional marriage. Everyone talks about the sacrifices to their careers women make if they choose to stay at home and raise their kids, but no one talks about the sacrifices men make to their relationship to their kids in order to provide for them. Is there no value to a father spending as much time as possible with his own child? Because what traditional marriage implies. The reality of the situation is that (at least in the US) work culture is very unfriendly to the needs of new parents, but as long as it's thought that it's better for the man to continue working the implicit justification to that thought is that it's better for the man to work because his contribution as a parent isn't worth as much. And that's fucking insulting.
In order to handle shitty people one has to har a frame of reference. Small children have no frame of reference. Remember. Daycare isn't used to RAISE a child. Daycare is in place to keep them alive and reasonably unharmed until the parent can pick them up.
I mean if you're going to phrase it like that, duh. It's pretty hard to take any sort of exception to "Daycare isn't used to RAISE a child" (who the fuck would suggest that it is?) However, healthy development does require a certain degree of socialization with peer group members outside the family, and daycare can often provide that. It's obviously not the only way, but describing daycare as a mere storage facility is selling it short.