Tag: parenting
Rhetoric Seldom Matches Reality Of Motherhood

Rhetoric Seldom Matches Reality Of Motherhood

The one good thing about Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s campaign for the presidency is that he provides many opportunities to point out to the rest of the country what we here in Ohio have known for too many years.

The man is no moderate. One of the ways he proves this, over and over again, is by how he talks about women. I may enjoy a little too much sharing the moment in 2012 when Kasich took the stage and offered this description of politicians’ wives:

“You know, Jane Portman, Karen Kasich and Janna Ryan, they operate an awful lot of the time in the shadows. It’s not easy to be a spouse of an elected official. You know, they’re at home, doing the laundry and doing so many things, while we’re up here on the stage getting a little bit of applause, right?”

As a full-time columnist married to a U.S. senator, I found this description of my life utterly fascinating. I do laundry, all right, but to tell the world I’m never applauded for the effort crosses a line, big-time.

If you’re one of those old-fashioned reasonable Republicans tempted to argue that Kasich is certainly more moderate than some of his fellow presidential candidates, please stop right there and think about what you’re about to say.

If it takes Donald — Round up the Muslims! — Trump and Ted — Science? We don’t need no stinkin’ science! — Cruz to make John Kasich look reasonable, we might as well move this shindig of a primary to a moisture farm on the three-moon planet of Tatooine.

Last week, Kasich was speaking at a campaign event in New Hampshire, when a man in the crowd asked where the candidate stands on paid maternity leave.

Keep in mind that we are the only industrialized country without paid maternity leave. Say that out loud, and then remind yourself it’s 2016.

Kasich is just fine with that. His response, as reported by The Columbus Dispatch:

“The one thing we need to do for working women is to give them the flexibility to be able to work at home online. The reason why that’s important is, when women take maternity leave or time to be with the children, then what happens is they fall behind on the experience level, which means that the pay becomes a differential. And we need to accommodate women who want to be at home, having a healthy baby and in fact being involved, however many years they want to take care of the family.”

I…he…but…

Sorry, so sorry, about that moment of rambling. Mine, I mean. I should have stopped banging my head against my late father’s 12-pound wrench propped up on my desk before I started typing again.

Kasich’s telecommuting suggestion would work so well for nurses, teachers, police officers, factory workers, doctors, waitresses, cashiers, baristas — you know, any woman in a job that involves something other than tapping the keys on a laptop. Did he even hear himself? I wonder that. A lot.

About those mothers who, in Kasich’s mind, could work from home: What fun for bone-tired mothers caring for newborns whose idea of sleep is a brief flutter of eyelids between feedings. Has this man never spent a day with a newborn?

As for the majority of you mothers who don’t work in jobs that allow you to telecommute: Poof. You’re invisible in Kasich Land. Problem solved.

I admit to feeling more than a little intemperate about all this because, in the past three years, our family has grown by four grandchildren. Two of them were born in the past three months.

My husband and I rushed in to help, because we could, which makes us luckier than most grandparents our age. Every time we’re with our daughters, who are fortunate enough to have jobs that let them spend the first few weeks with their babies, we leave wondering how all those mothers without their advantages manage to do it all.

We know the answer. We all do. Except John Kasich, maybe.

The heartbreaking truth is that mothers without paid maternity leave try, try, try — too often without help and without hope, too. They are never able to get ahead, and their children start out behind.

This, from the country that President Barack Obama declared during Tuesday’s State of the Union address to be “the most powerful nation on earth, period.”

Tell that to the mothers.

Better yet, prove it.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. She is the author of two books, including “…and His Lovely Wife,” which chronicled the successful race of her husband, Sherrod Brown, for the U.S. Senate. To find out more about Connie Schultz (con.schultz@yahoo.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Photo: Jessica Lucia via Flickr

Let’s Give The Kids A Holiday From Divorce

Let’s Give The Kids A Holiday From Divorce

Halloween is just around the corner, which means we’re on the cusp of another season of anxiety and misery for too many children of divorce.

For the past few years, I’ve tried to time this column for right before Thanksgiving, but an increasing number of divorce lawyers tell me that’s too late. We should start talking about who comes first — hint: they’re always younger and usually shorter than the squabbling grown-ups — around Halloween, which is often the trigger date for holiday visitation negotiations.

The same two parents who used to argue over which of them would have to traipse through the neighborhood with the kids for trick-or-treating now go to the mat over who gets to deprive whom of even a glimpse of their children’s costumes. Think of it as the warmup round for the all-out war to come over Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year’s.

And as any divorce lawyer can tell you, the more cherished the holiday tradition the more vulnerable it is to revenge parenting.

I am not referring to parents whose primary concerns begin and end with their children’s well-being. Bless them, every last one of them, for they shall know their children’s love and gratitude for the rest of their days.

My concern is for children whose parents tend to be either newly separated or eternally embattled. Aside from the dangerous parent, the only thing worse for a child than a parent reeling from the fresh wounds of a broken vow is one who has chosen to live out the rest of his or her life brandishing old injuries. In either drama, the worst roles always fall to the children.

Primary parents can get territorial, acting as if they are doling out a favor or two rather than abiding by a court order. Non-primary parents can succumb to a bottomless pit of despair, looking for slights that don’t exist. In both instances, the parents make the children feel responsible for the supposed grown-ups’ self-esteem. You know how frustrating it can be to try to calm an adult who doesn’t want to feel better? Now imagine trying to do that when you’re 6.

All the while, children watch and learn. Boy, do they learn. In time, they will figure out who lied and who didn’t — and who was and wasn’t willing to put them first. There’s no redo for that. They also absorb the harshest lessons of the marriage their parents modeled. Good people can fall out of love. Good parents contain the damage so their children can grow into adults with a fighting chance for happiness.

A special request on behalf of all the children too afraid to ask: Please take them holiday shopping for the ex-spouse, who will never be their ex-parent.

I’ve seen this heartbreak play out time and again. Children want to be part of the gift giving, too. If you can’t bring yourself to help them make a present and you can’t be trusted to shop with them unless you travel with your own exorcist, ask a friend or relative to do it.

I’ve lived long enough to know there is yet another good reason to raise your children in a bitter-free zone: One day, you will want to know your children’s children.

There is nothing like falling in love with your grandchildren. Just when you think you’ve seen and felt it all, you discover a whole chunk of your heart that was hibernating until they showed up.

Last weekend, my husband and I welcomed our fourth grandchild. She is perfect because she is ours — you know how that goes — and it would never occur to either of us to distinguish our relationship to her by bloodline. We love her mother and her father, and now we love her.

We married almost 12 years ago, each of us escorted by two grown children. The way we see it, we have four children, four children-in-law and four grandchildren, with a fifth on the way.

The only time we have to consider the particulars is when someone outside our family attempts to sort our children like poker chips. There is no faster route to my bad side than to ask me which grandchildren are “really” mine. Immediately, those offenders’ names go into that file folder in my head titled “What Is Wrong With People?”

Most children want to love everybody in their family, and they rely on us adults to show them how. We are their role models, always.

What kind of role model shall we be?

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. She is the author of two books, including …and His Lovely Wife, which chronicled the successful race of her husband, Sherrod Brown, for the U.S. Senate. To find out more about Connie Schultz (con.schultz@yahoo.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2015 CREATORS.COM

Photo: Suzanne Hanlon via Flickr

The Diaper Dilemma That Shouldn’t Be

The Diaper Dilemma That Shouldn’t Be

A worrisome trend in this country illustrates in the starkest terms how a mother’s income affects not only her baby’s health but hers, too.

Child Trends — a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center — reported in 2013 that low-income parents, especially single mothers, have higher rates of depression and depressive symptoms than mothers with higher incomes.

What does that mean exactly?

A researcher for the Yale School of Medicine asked women in New Haven, Connecticut, one question: “If you have children in diapers, do you ever feel that you do not have enough diapers to change them as often as you would like?”

About 30 percent of the women said yes.

Keep in mind that these mothers are not allowed to use the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, aka WIC, or food stamps to pay for diapers or baby wipes. This restriction must surely comfort those Republican state legislators around the country who’ve been busy trying to stop these same women from buying such things as steak, seafood, sharp cheddar, and anything organic for their families.

That’s another trend these days: making it easier to pick out poor people in the grocery line. It’s a full-time hobby keeping the lives of those people from resembling ours.

In a story for The Atlantic, Olga Khazan described some of the ways those mothers in New Haven stretched the use of their babies’ diapers:

“Mothers would take the diapers off, dump out the poop, and put the diapers back on. They would air-dry the diapers. They’d let their kids sit in wet diapers for longer than they should — a practice that can lead to UTIs and other infections. Other moms have reported potty training infants who are less than a year old — at least six months earlier than is recommended — in order to save money.”

Under the best of circumstances, motherhood has a way of introducing you to fears and insecurities you didn’t know you had until you laid eyes on your new baby. Surely, those of us who never had to worry about the annual diaper bill — Pediatrics journal currently estimates the cost to be $936 a year for disposables — would be outraged by what those mothers in poverty are going through. I’m certain this is most mothers’ — most parents’ — reaction.

But then there’s that other group of people, and they always seem to have so much time on their hands. These readers’ response was fast in the comments section — and furious in its scolding. Use cloth diapers, many said. After all, it was good enough for them in the 1970s … their mothers in the 1950s … their grandmothers in God only knows when.

Forget that most day care centers require disposable diapers. Forget, too, that you need a washer and dryer to clean them. And forget that if you don’t, you need a car, or else you have to take public transportation to the laundromat, where you’ll spend more money.

Too many readers had another solution: If you can’t afford a baby, don’t have one.

There you go. Let’s add babies to the list of things poor people shouldn’t be allowed to have.

I was so discouraged by the reader comments on The Atlantic‘s website that I posted a link to the story on my public Facebook page. Many readers brainstormed about how to help these mothers. A few shared links to diaper banks in their communities.

To my disappointment, a sub-thread took off lecturing women in poverty to use cloth diapers — and to stop sullying our gene pool with babies they can’t afford.

It’s amazing what can come out of our mouths when we’re convinced of our own superiority and enduring good luck. Nary a word about the need for comprehensive sex education, affordable birth control, and protecting a woman’s constitutional right to safe, legal abortions. I know, I know.

I woke up the next morning thinking about my parents. They certainly could not afford to have a baby when my 19-year-old mother discovered she was pregnant with me. Dad got their marriage license and a union card in the same month. After I was born, they lived with an aunt for a while before they could afford to rent a house. Pictures from that time show a family barely scraping by.

In 1987, my mother stood next to me as I fastened a disposable diaper over the bottom of my new baby girl. “I wish we’d had those when you kids were little,” she said. “I was so tired at the end of the day, but I still had to wash those diapers.”

As I noted in my journal that evening, my mother could afford only so many diapers. She had no clothes dryer and no car to drive to a laundromat. Skipping the laundry was not an option, no matter how exhausted she might be.

“On my worst day, my life is easier than my mother’s,” I wrote, grateful to the woman who couldn’t afford me but had me anyway.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and an essayist for Parade magazine. She is the author of two books, including …and His Lovely Wife, which chronicled the successful race of her husband, Sherrod Brown, for the U.S. Senate. To find out more about Connie Schultz (con.schultz@yahoo.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo: Gabi Menashe via Flickr

Helicopter Parents: Why Do They Hover So?

Helicopter Parents: Why Do They Hover So?

Helicopter parents are famous for micromanaging their children’s affairs. There are two kinds.

One kind indulges children to the point of near imbecility. No demands are ever placed, no chores required. The parents see their role as obedient servant, concierge, and above all, banker. The children eventually become wards of the family estate.

The other kind pushes their offspring to excel in every nook and cranny of the American reward system. The goal post is a high-paying job, typically in finance or tech. Such children become what Yale educator William Deresiewicz calls “excellent sheep” in his book of the same name.

What these helicopter parents have in common is their interest in commandeering every detail of their children’s lives. They drive teachers crazy and turn their kids into stress monkeys.

But what’s in it for the parents? Don’t they have a life? Even the most meager versions of a life require time attending to one’s own interests.

One such parent makes my jaw drop when she talks about her son. Jeff (not his name) is an artist living in Brooklyn, now pushing 30. He’s enjoyed some critical success, but his edgy and unintelligible works have yet to attract a paying audience. Bottom line is he has no bottom line.

This bothers his mother, so what does she do? She buys Jeff an apartment. That way he has some financial “security,” she explains. But the apartment cements him in place, just when he needs the flexibility to move, possibly far, for a job.

That’s not all my friend revealed to me. The kid’s new apartment has electrical problems. Jeff simply can’t deal with them, she says. He can’t gird his loins to call the electrician. So she girds hers, dealing with the electrician from 300 miles away. No point asking who pays the bill.

This is a woman who denies herself many middle-class comforts. When we met for lunch recently, she drove around for 20 minutes looking for free street parking rather than paying for a space closer to the restaurant.

Jeff is depressed, of course. A good-looking artist, he attracts a stream of glamorous girlfriends. But he can’t do love, so the girls move on. Does my friend see any relationship between her messed-up kid and her spineless parenting? Afraid to ask.

Deresiewicz writes mostly about the hovering taskmasters. These parents drive their children to amass the sort of numbers — grades, SAT scores, extracurriculars, honors, majors — that scream success to picky college admissions officers.

The end result is a child commanding a high income, a big-ticket manse, and a lifelong depression.

Again, what do their parents get out of it? On the surface, bragging rights. Deeper inside, writes the psychologist Madeline Levine, the parents are filling up “their own brittle selves with their children’s accomplishments.”

By the way, the parents don’t receive affection in return for what they assume is their sacrifice. Levine found the generations in such families less connected, if anything, than in poor ones.

Deresiewicz regards both kinds of parents — the pressuring, critical type and the hyperindulgent type — as two sides of a similar parenting style.

“Pressuring your kids to get an A in calculus when they are 17 is essentially the same as tying their shoelaces for them when they are eight,” Deresiewicz writes. “Both are ways of treating them as if they can’t do anything for themselves.”

Both styles emerge from the belief that one can protect children from pain and struggle. It’s a flawed belief ending in sadness.

And what a waste of affluence.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo via Pixabay