I watched a Dr. Oz special on Discovery Health Channel recently where he accessed lifestyles of individuals, the impact it was having on their health and recommended changes. While looking at one middle-aged woman’s life who was stressed taking care of her mother’s failing health, one of his points really rang home for me. He stated during airline safety insctructions, they always ask you to put your oxygen mask on first before assisting a child next to you because you can’t assist the child when you’re passed out. In so many ways, that’s true for parents who sacrafice so much, including taking care of themselves, for their kids, jobs, homes, etc.
So many of the parents I know are at their wick’s end trying to have it all and have no time to exercise, cook, or even eat right by the time they’ve put in a full days work, got in enough time with their children and caught up on house chores and kid’s activities. Not too long ago, it was common for one parent to stay home while kids are young and that seems unheard of now. Or next to impossible with higher costs of living and the pressure of keeping up with the Jones’.
For us, volunteerily going down to one income and gaining child-related expenses is not an option and we both have college educations and good jobs. Cramming a child into our chaotic work schedule is not an option either, something I’ve thought about a lot. Even if I could make such a schedule work, I’d always be running thin and the slightest change could wreck havoc, not a healthy environment for kids or parents. So I feel for parents out there juggling a full time career and have a lot of respect for them.
Unlike so many my age, I’ve been avoiding social network sites, every MySpace page I’ve ever come across was not only ugly, but seizure-inducingly busy with tacky backgrounds and poorly visible color choices while assulting visitors with over-played pop. Recently, however, I’ve joined Facebook after reading about a Girls in Tech group and have been pleasantly surprised that Facebook seems to be the anti-MySpace, no tacky profile pages and a nice selection of interest groups and networks to join (including childfree groups). I confess that I’ve spent a bit of time looking up old friends, but enjoyed talking to people that I have not talked to or even thought about in years.
One of which is an old friend from high school, from her profile I see that she’s married with one kid. I sent her a chatty catch up message, giving a brief rundown of my life in a few paragraphs and inquired what was going on in hers. Her response was less-than-thrilling, a whopping 2 sentences about her son’s sports activities and how her life revolved around that now and nothing else. She didn’t even bother to answer me about how the holidays were, how her job was going, her new house, nothing. At first I was a bit offended by this non-reponse, then I felt sorry for her for not wanting to gush about other aspects of her life.
As a child-free adult, it brought up a fear I had about having kids – that my life would be completely consumed by parenting. In my excessive research to decide not to breed, I came across an article that stated there are basically two types of parents – those that adapt to the kids life and those that adapt their kids to their life. I figured I’d be the later as a parent rather than have a house full of bulky, plastic toys.
I guess the point of this rambling post is that parenting seems to be getting more demanding, expensive and time-consumming in a time when both parents are expected to work or bring in some sort of income.
12/02/2009 at 11:03 am Permalink
I admire your “child free” lifestyle. I guess it is more envy than anything. I think it is crazy to have to juggle both a career and parenting.
My sister is that type one group you mentioned… She lets her children dictate where she is going and what she is doing. I can’t fault her, but I can’t say I agree with it either.
I currently use MySpace, but I’m starting to look into using FaceBook instead. Although, my blog’s design is what gets all my attention these days. I don’t have time to spend updating crap in 6 different locations.
The other thing, don’t fault your High School friend too much. Not everyone has the day-to-day free-time that us IT professionals have.