Working and raising children at the same time is really tough. I admire women who can do both. I knew that was not me.

I was lucky in that I had a great career from 20 to 40; raised my only child from 40 to 60 as a SAHM.

I did not have kids after realizing this. I am in my early fifties and I have no regrets. I do act as a village member for nieces and nephews and my closest friends children. I have no friends around my age who are happily married with no kids, but a fair number of friends who are about 40 who have made this choice.

The baby years are extremely hard especially if you have a non-sleeper. Sleep deprivation impacts everyone and everything. My kids are 9 and 11 now. They are the best. We've had ups and downs, job loss, grief etc. but our little family is comprised of my favorite people on earth. We have each other and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like most USA women, I did not have a village. My husband worked a very time intensive job when the children were very young. So it all pretty much fell to me. And I worked full time and juggled everything. Since they were in daycare all day, I felt guilty to even think about leaving them to go out to dinner or out on the weekends. I wanted to treasure anytime I had with them.
Now that they are older – college & high school – life is much easier. My husband took a less time intensive job so we have a much better balance of household responsibility. (note, we had to move away from DC for this to happen)
If/when I have grandkids, I’m going to be the village that I didn’t have. Need me to watch a sick kid? I’ll be there! Need me so you can go on date night? I’ll be there! Want a second set of hands to help with a project on the weekend? I’ll be there! Maybe it will be Saturday afternoons with grandma and the parents can do whatever they want – maybe it’s going on a date, maybe it’s just cleaning the house, maybe it’s shopping without the hassle of taking the children along, or maybe it’s a nap.
I understand grandparents not wanting to raise their grandchildren. I think there needs to be a balance between helping our children not be a stressed out mess in parenthood like we were, but not taking on the responsibility for raising the child.

I feel this way exactly. My own mother made my having kids be all about her, and added to my stress rather than helped. Now, she doesn’t understand why the kids don’t call her more.

Yeah! You sound like a piece of work.

Anonymous wrote:I went to stay with my sister for a week to help out as she just had her second child. I don’t have any kids yet, but honestly it seemed like her life is hellish. As is a lot of my friends in the same phase of life. They have high friction relationships with their partners, are trying to juggle too much on their own, and are squeezed financially.

It made me wonder if there’s something wrong with how we do the family thing America. Is there a better way? Or is this just life for a lot people with kids?

IMHO - basically something is very wrong with America. But, it has been wrong for a long, long time. The basic unit of society - family - is broken for everybody. No one is having a good time. Not the kids, not the mom and not even the dad. Elderly grandparents are also in a limbo though they may also share some blame for being hedonistic aholes when they were parenting.

Karma is kicking your backside - in a big way. Young people should not have kids. You should look after yourself and live a small and frugal life.

Anonymous wrote:Like most USA women, I did not have a village. My husband worked a very time intensive job when the children were very young. So it all pretty much fell to me. And I worked full time and juggled everything. Since they were in daycare all day, I felt guilty to even think about leaving them to go out to dinner or out on the weekends. I wanted to treasure anytime I had with them.
Now that they are older – college & high school – life is much easier. My husband took a less time intensive job so we have a much better balance of household responsibility. (note, we had to move away from DC for this to happen)
If/when I have grandkids, I’m going to be the village that I didn’t have. Need me to watch a sick kid? I’ll be there! Need me so you can go on date night? I’ll be there! Want a second set of hands to help with a project on the weekend? I’ll be there! Maybe it will be Saturday afternoons with grandma and the parents can do whatever they want – maybe it’s going on a date, maybe it’s just cleaning the house, maybe it’s shopping without the hassle of taking the children along, or maybe it’s a nap.
I understand grandparents not wanting to raise their grandchildren. I think there needs to be a balance between helping our children not be a stressed out mess in parenthood like we were, but not taking on the responsibility for raising the child.

I feel this way exactly. My own mother made my having kids be all about her, and added to my stress rather than helped. Now, she doesn’t understand why the kids don’t call her more.

Anonymous wrote:Babies are horrible. I mean they are sweet and adorable and wonderful to be an aunt or uncle or grandparent to, but for the parents they are a nightmare. I guess some parents handle sleep deprivation better than me and my DH but we could not have done it again. Our marriage barely survived our only child's infancy. DC is 7 now though, and our life is pretty great. She has some special needs so it is not all sunshine and rainbows but she brings us immense joy.

+1

I truly understood why sleep deprivation is a torture technique during the infant stage. And I don’t think my baby was such an awful sleeper/didn’t cry a lot/ etc. But I was in shambles for the first 8 months as a human being. It’s been several years and I think my kid is fantastic now. Not perfect, but love having them around.

didn’t have a village and realized too late I was married to a hunter type who wanted to go off to get meat for weeks at a time. He also had some characteristics that would have probably gotten him killed off in a farm or factory accident 100 years ago, or shot dead on the frontier 150 years ago.

This will sound harsh but along with the isolation of modern life, modernity has also allowed the survival of some characteristics and genes that otherwise wouldn’t make it to reproduction and family life and caregiving duties even a couple generations ago. Only in a society focused on academic achievement and computer-based white collar work could my exDH have made it to the point of meeting me, let alone marrying and having a child.

I think back to my grandparents cousin’s and some random great uncles when I was very small and they were kind of off in their own exile and always had been, and no one expected much from them. Back then there was room for these types to just do their thing and survive at a low-level pensioned job or in a cottage on the back acres of a small family farm. Now there’s a lot more pressure to play along to find a place on society even if it’s a bad fit. (And obviously some don’t and become homeless or addicts or otherwise never find their role)

I wouldn't judge parenting in general by watching your sister in the first few days and weeks of being a parent to two kids. That is a rough period of adjustment. But, you get through it and not all of parenting looks like the brief period when you have multiple little kids. I have three who are each two years apart. The youngest is now 7 and life is running pretty smoothly. It is really a very short period of your life. It doesn't feel like that when you are in the thick of it, but it does actually feel brief in hindsight.

My kids were easy and cheap. It was my partner who had no business having kids.
They dropped dead and with it disappeared problems we had. They did not wish to be the problem, but nature did them in.

Anonymous wrote:Babies are horrible. I mean they are sweet and adorable and wonderful to be an aunt or uncle or grandparent to, but for the parents they are a nightmare. I guess some parents handle sleep deprivation better than me and my DH but we could not have done it again. Our marriage barely survived our only child's infancy. DC is 7 now though, and our life is pretty great. She has some special needs so it is not all sunshine and rainbows but she brings us immense joy.

Part of why I'm freezing embryos at 30 is so that I can afford a night nurse when I have a child. I do NOT handle sleep deprivation well at all.

Like most USA women, I did not have a village. My husband worked a very time intensive job when the children were very young. So it all pretty much fell to me. And I worked full time and juggled everything. Since they were in daycare all day, I felt guilty to even think about leaving them to go out to dinner or out on the weekends. I wanted to treasure anytime I had with them.
Now that they are older – college & high school – life is much easier. My husband took a less time intensive job so we have a much better balance of household responsibility. (note, we had to move away from DC for this to happen)
If/when I have grandkids, I’m going to be the village that I didn’t have. Need me to watch a sick kid? I’ll be there! Need me so you can go on date night? I’ll be there! Want a second set of hands to help with a project on the weekend? I’ll be there! Maybe it will be Saturday afternoons with grandma and the parents can do whatever they want – maybe it’s going on a date, maybe it’s just cleaning the house, maybe it’s shopping without the hassle of taking the children along, or maybe it’s a nap.
I understand grandparents not wanting to raise their grandchildren. I think there needs to be a balance between helping our children not be a stressed out mess in parenthood like we were, but not taking on the responsibility for raising the child.

Babies are horrible. I mean they are sweet and adorable and wonderful to be an aunt or uncle or grandparent to, but for the parents they are a nightmare. I guess some parents handle sleep deprivation better than me and my DH but we could not have done it again. Our marriage barely survived our only child's infancy. DC is 7 now though, and our life is pretty great. She has some special needs so it is not all sunshine and rainbows but she brings us immense joy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to stay with my sister for a week to help out as she just had her second child. I don’t have any kids yet, but honestly it seemed like her life is hellish. As is a lot of my friends in the same phase of life. They have high friction relationships with their partners, are trying to juggle too much on their own, and are squeezed financially.

It made me wonder if there’s something wrong with how we do the family thing America. Is there a better way? Or is this just life for a lot people with kids?

Yes! There is a better way. We need to stop expecting moms to do it all. Go to work and also be the mom from the 1950's. During WWII the government had daycares because women were needed when men went to war. They closed them when men came back.

To be fair, there are times where family life is really bad like after the birth of children so it isn't a fair snapshot of life. Like if you came over when you were puking every 20 minutes you would think life isn't worth living but, miss the sunsets.

Poor women and especially non-white women usually worked - well before during and after WWII.
The notion that women stay home and cook and clean and raise the kids is a uniquely 1950s to 1970s portrayal.
My mom was born in 1937. Her dad was a farmer, and her mom was a school teacher.

Anonymous wrote:I think part of the problem is that as we become more economically stable, there is the expectation that you will hire help instead of rely on friends and neighbors. Some people are lucky that they have supportive families (good for you for helping out your sister), some of us are not so lucky. But beyond family, it would seem odd these days to just ask a neighbor or even a good friend to randomly babysit for free. In the old days, kids could just play together in the neighborhood, and whichever parent was around would take them in and not think too much of it. People helped each other out more.

Yeah you’re right. I wonder what made that all go away? I think a part of it is our increased societal awareness around child sexual abuse. An important topic to be aware of and combat of course. We trust each other less though as an unintended consequence.