2011 - Talk Birth

3. http://talkbirth.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/img_1456.jpg
4. http://store.americangirl.com/agshop/html/item/id/177460/ctc/XSYMAL
Glass Half Full (2011-10-11 12:37)
Written by Katy Read, the article ”Glass Half Full” in the fall issue of [1]Brain, Child magazine, explores
the questions: ”Have mothers complained too much, already … or not enough?” In it, she references a book
I hadn’t yet heard of by Bryan Caplan, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent Is
Less Work and More Fun Than You’d Think
...Caplan argues that parents make their own job unnecessarily difficult. If they’d cut themselves
some slack, he insists, raising kids would be more enjoyable—so much so that couples
should consider having more children than they’d planned.
At the same time, however, other observers contend that it’s still rare and socially risky for
mothers to admit any discontent...
So which are we: A culture in which mothers hesitate to voice misgivings for fear of social
reprisal? Or one so inundated with maternal kvetching that onlookers are understandably tired
of it?...
[2]Glass Half Full in Brain, Child magazine.
She later returns to Caplan’s ideas about nature vs. nurture (i.e. that nurture carries less weight than we
often assume):
Why do moms “self-flagellate”? Because they’ve been taught that kids pay a long-term price
for their parents’ ordinary mistakes. They don’t. Because they think they’re to blame for their
children’s flaws. They aren’t.
But guess what. Admitting you can’t control phenomena that nevertheless significantly color
your emotional well-being and day-to-day life is not necessarily a ticket to relaxation. Even
armed with twins studies and mortality stats, I have not experienced parenting as the carefree
romp that Caplan promises.
Sure, much of it has been wonderful. However, not to get all whiny mother on you, raising children
remains an often complicated, frustrating, and stress-inducing enterprise, involving many
kinds of challenges.
The best part of this article in my opinion, however, was the author’s postscript:
If I were the conspiracy-theory type, I might imagine a sinister plot behind efforts to keep
mothers from complaining. After all, mothers perform the lion’s share of unpaid housework and
child care—and pay a steep economic price for doing so, on average making less money than
fathers or childless people and suffering from a higher rate of poverty. What better way to keep
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