All Joy and No Fun

[PrincessFiona]

Emily, I used to be the same way ... then I decided I couldn't do it all without going crazy. Now I focus on the kids and hope the house cleans itself .... sort of.
Hugs
Kris

[SoonerTexan]

I was thinking about this randomly (tangent alert--I still haven't read the article or book) and thought about how much closer a relationship DH and I have with our parents than they seemed to have with theirs. In general, most of our friends seem to be pretty close to their parents at our age (mid 20s)

Obviously this isn't a scientific study or anything, but I wonder if maybe that is a positive (and occasionally negative) effect of being ridiculously kid focused?

[Ladybug]

I do think it's a positive outcome. I enjoy my kids so much more than my grandparents did. No question. The book discuss changes in our social relationships in the last several decades. Families don't "pop in" anymore because it would be rude and everyone is so busy. You need to schedule a visit, usually weeks in advance to not impose on another family's activities. This is a signficant and recent cultural change. Relationships and activies previously pivoted around adult activities. Now I'm more likely to enjoy catching up with my adult friends at kid's birthday parties, practices and games. The author thinks that these social changes have added pressure to marriage to be all things at all times because adults are interacting differently and less with other their peers. We talk about this phenomena frequently on this site. Some of us open up more here than IRL. Everything has it's positives and negatives. I would never go backwards, but the book is a thoughtful read and makes me feel less harsh with myself as a parent. It helps me step out of my micro-second of upper-middle class, American culture and realize we're all parenting pioneers at this point in time. We have *so much* information and we haven't exactly hashed out what is realistic to expect of ourselves. Some of our standards are fear/guilt driven by unprecedented global economic changes and a shrinking world (pie).