Guilt, guilt, and more guilt.
March 30, 2007Oh my, am I ever fired up. Fired up but good! You'll have to go to Wonderland to find out why.
In other news, my son, Henry—perhaps you've heard me mention his name here before—he's at preschool right now. On Friday, school lets out at 12:30. But his school provides this lovely aftercare option, wherein you can leave your child to fingerpaint and cavort and pee in his pants and all those activities that preschoolers enjoy. Aftercare continues until five p.m. It's cheap. It's awesome.
Now, I work. I have projects, and deadlines, and I make (a little) money, and so forth. Ending my work day at 12:15 simply does not cut it, in terms of Getting Things Done. Meanwhile, aftercare, to Henry, is a tiny wedge of heaven—a place where he gets to play with all the Legos a Lego addict like himself could wish for. If I don't leave him in aftercare, he's angry with me. When I pick him up, he begs to say for another few minutes.
I need it. Henry loves it. But—can you see where this is going?—leaving him there fills me with guilt. FILLS. I am guilt-soaked. I am marinating in it. No, I'm macerated by guilt, and covered in a lovely sage-infused guilt reduction. But why? Why, my friends? Am I trained to feel inadequate, no matter which decisions I choose? Because you can bet that if I picked him up at 12:30 and he wanted to stay, I'd feel you-know-what.
Oh, but this is all such a cliché. Hi, I'm a cliché! I'm steps away from this, except without the laughs:
Reader Comments (42)
Whoever made the comment about the socialization routine is right on target. Wait until he gets to kindergarden and can sit still and follow directions - you'll be happy for every hour he spent away from you, learning how to function as part of a group.
Ouch.
I suggest heavy drinking ASAP.
Easy Peasy ;) Stop with the guilt!
Occasionally I tell myself: You are probably feeling guilty about the wrong thing. There's probably something even worse you are doing that you really should feel guilty about and don't even notice. But that's probably going in the wrong direction.
1) they define daycare as more than 10 hours per week by anyone other than the mother. Er.... hello daddy?
2) arguing and being defiant is a "disorder"? Or just training for anyone who actually wants to get a proper job when they grow up? (I write as asst. prof of law, so I might have a slight bias as to what constitutes a proper job. But let's just say, you don't want people to think for themselves on the Walmart checkout, but you do in law or academia).
3) "Both the negative and the positive effects were subtle." And in a study of 1300 that would be barely statistically relevant then?
4) You have absolutely no idea what it means when these kids grow up. Nor, once you control for parental education, income, residence, school, will you be able to ever find out because your sample is so small.
5) "attention from parents is far more important to how a child turns out than day care or schooling." Well, my isn't that a surprise? I wonder if that's because PARENTS raise their kids and instill values, not kindergarten teachers, nannies, au pairs or childminders.
I interpret the findings as follows: Stay at home mums confom to social expectations (in the US) about their "proper roles". Their kids are also more likely to conform. Kids who have to compete for attention learn communication skills to get what they want.(This is a completely bias interpretation but no more so than that on msnbc.)
I'm happy to see my toddler disagree with me, fight for what he wants, be wilful and determined. That is what will give him the fuel to achieve whatever he sets his mind to.
I'd love to see a similar study in Denmark or Iceland.
Alice - enough of the guilt. My LO doesn't want to come home either at 4pm - and he is only 21 months and really should still be at the completely in love with mamma stage.
Yeah, sure, right, whatever...but what about my kid's advanced vocabulary!? What the hell am I gonna do with a ten-year-old who knows words that are more fancy that I don't know what?
No but really, you and I are in complete agreement: such studies are generally shams and media outlets like MSNBC have no idea how to report on even a valid scientific study with the degree of detachment and nuance it actually calls for.
As a recovering sixth-grade disobedient arguer (with top-notch vocab skills), I guess I thought my attitude was evinced by my ironic application of the false values of "winning" and "losing" to the challenge of parenting.
Oh, and I love Jeannie's wig. That was priceless.
braine, the vocabulary problems can be avoided if you raise your child trilingual. 21 months and about 3 comprehensible sounds. There could be trouble when he is a teenager yelling at me in Icelandic and I haven't a scooby doo; but I've already worked it all out and I think my own ignorance will come to be a blessing.