Comments on: Baby…Boom!

By: Silja

Silja — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:16:45 +0000

valerie, susan, and cindy:

there’s a reason things are called “stereotypes” and “generalizations”: it’s because they happen so often.

kids, blessings that they are, are not “for better or for worse, till death do you part”. you’ll be with your spouse long after the kids have flown the nest and hatched nestlings of their own – do you honestly think you can focus one hundred percent on the kids and ignore your spouse for, what, fifteen, eighteen, twenty years and then when the kids have left the house, bingo-bango, pick up where you left off? doesn’t work like that.

furthermore, it’s vitally important that parents present a unified whole to the kids otherwise they get played one against the other (yeah, hello, i was a kid, so were my sisters, and so was everybody else i know plus i have three of my own: never heard the one “dad, mom said it was okay”/”mom, dad said it was okay if you said it was okay” bit?). if the parents don’t take time to keep in touch and reconnect, toss discipline out hte window or leave it all up to mom cause coordinating will be impossible past the stereotypical “just you wait till your father gets home!”.

at the moment, i have a baby who will be six months on the 16th. know how much time i’ve had off? exactly sixty-seven minutes and that was because i walked out on them. i told him “it’s been four months with no time off for good behaviour – i’m going for a walk and i’ll be back when i get back”. i’m breastfeeding, so i can’t share feeding duties and i was back in time for her next feeding – to find him outside in the back yard with a smoke and a beer while she was sleeping on the couch.

By: david

david — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 22:02:28 +0000

I find nothing confusing about our situation at all. We have a five year old son and our different parenting beliefs are painfully obvious. I am very good dad and I do all the activities with him from ball to water painting, reading books and just playing in general. She on the other hand showers him with surprises and pastes him in front of a movie or cartoons and his DS video game. She does love him as I do but hands on is not her thing. Sex is just as obvious, she wants about 15 minutes per month if I’m lucky. I don’t do the begging thing anymore. The last time that she actually initiated sex was so long ago I couldn’t tell you. The thing that keeps me here is I grew up with my Mom and Dad and I want that for my son. We don’t fight or even argue much but our relationship is existing a lot of the time.

By: janet

janet — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 18:42:16 +0000

I am soooo confused. I don’t know weather I married my husband to leave my difunctional family or weather I really loved him or not. I know I love him to a degree, but I’m not in love with him anymore. I don’t sleep in the same bed due to his snoring. He has sleep ap but won’t go to the doctor. My husband tents not to take care of himself and that is a total turn off for me. He don’t take to my children when he gets angry, he just yells and that remings me of my childhood. So then I get mad and lose respect for him.

By: Frank

Frank — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:30:34 +0000

I think about divorcing my wife every day. She is constantly mad at me about something, and rejects and humiliates me regularly (e.g. she tells me to “hurry up” during sex, lately she asked me to stop self-gratification even though we only have sex once every three weeks or so, only because I would finish faster when we do have sex). It seems like I would be much happier without her. This article describes our situation perfectly.

By: katy

katy — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 02:07:09 +0000

I found this very helpful. Here, here to what Rick said! You three are a riot! I will be back for more when the next article comes out.
In terms of what these posts are saying, all I gotta say is, “Whatever happened to balance?” It seems as though many of you who are offended by this article believe that you have to sacrifice one for the other, i.e. spouse vs. children. That seems a little wacky. And it also seems as though the ‘proud parents’ who are posting here have a lot of their own self-worth and self esteem wrapped up in their parental successes. If you put as much passion into your marriage as you do into raising your children, I think things might look a little brighter. If your children were created as an act of love, where does the love go once they arrive? Give your children the greatest gift you could ever give them, and together, as a couple, teach them how to love. Just a thought.

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:40:18 +0000

You three women did a great job at telling it like it is, in real terms. I laughed when you said, “Abso-friggin-lutely.” You obviously live in the real world like the rest of us

By: RObert

RObert — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:24:28 +0000

On the help around the house – please count all the snow shoveling and car repair etc as
“housework” not just the inside stuff. I tend to do the more dangerous chores as well and
have been cut and burned and had my back go out – that should count for a bit more than
just the time spent. 10 hours of cleaning is easier than one hour of some auto repair or
heavy yard work. If one adds up all the stuff we do – including the fact that men
ususally work longer hours on the average and commute longer in order to provide I don’t
think their wives would be so bitter. Please keep your expectations resonable and less materialistic – I admit I dragged my feet on one huge project that was a total waste of time and money, just so the house looked “nicer”.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:49:58 +0000

Kids occationallly have some needs that trump everything but they will live without every meal being perfect or if you sit them in front of the TV for an hour so you 2 can be together.

Too often the parent’s love life suffers and the kids end up in a single parent home – put your relationship and each other, not the kids, first (that is putting God first). Kids will only be around 18 years, your spouse could be loving you for 50 or 60 years.

Schedule times for love and more than once a week so one of you isn’t getting turned down and humiliated over and over until he/she starts looking elsewhere – even if only in the mind.

By: Jillian

Jillian — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:51:43 +0000

Any information on maintaning our relationship while we explore parenthood is welcome. I think we are doing the responsible thing and talking about our fears and concerns about parenthood instead of just jumping in and assuming nothing will change. While I am excited to begin down the road to parenthood I cherish my current relationship with my husband and would like to do anything we can to help us prepare for the biggest change in our life.

By: Joan

Joan — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:09:41 +0000

Tanya, I think the reason you don’t understand most everyone’s comments is that you don’t have a full-time job outside of the home. I could only imagine how much easier taking care of the To Do list would be if I had the opportunity to throw in a load of wash or unload the dishwasher at a ‘normal’ time of day rather than at 5AM or 11PM. At the end of each long day sex just seems like one more thing on the list…