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occasionally). Thank you very much for your help! 11/4/08
Living with Children
John Rosemond
Copyright 2008, John K. Rosemond
Q:
Ever since I had children, now 7 and 5, I have resented sacrificing my
executive position in the work force for staying home and giving 150%
to my children to make sure they succeed in life. I was recently
offered my last position back. I am torn between going back to work and
my responsibility as a parent. My husband, who is an uninvolved father,
says he wants me to be happy and thinks that going back to work is what
I should do. What advice can you give me?
A: Take it
from someone whose mom worked and went to college nearly all of my
formative years, one can succeed in life without his or her mom
sacrificing everything she wants for herself to insure that. In fact, I
don't think the self-sacrificing mom insures anything except perhaps a
child who is excessively dependent upon his mother.
Why did
women liberate themselves, anyway? Surely not to enslave themselves to
the task of making sure their kids succeed, which no amount of maternal
effort can guarantee anyway. My mom, and mothers of her ilk through
time, thought it was their kids' responsibility to figure out how to
succeed in life, not theirs. They believed it was simply their job to
raise children of character, not children who had high IQs or sat at
the heads of their classes or went on to become doctors, lawyers, or
CEOs of major corporations.
As for your husband, the "univolved
father" who wants what is best for his wife, perhaps you are so
involved with your children that he has difficulty feeling like he can
get involved without incurring your micromanagement. Any woman who says
she is giving more than 33% of herself to her kids is, by definition,
what I call a 3M mom: a magnificent maternal micromanager. Obviously,
you more than qualify. Besides, as I’ve said in recent columns, I don't
think parents should be involved with their children. They should be
interested and ready to get involved, but involvement should be the
exception, not the rule. A HUSBAND AND WIFE SHOULD BE INVOLVED WITH ONE
ANOTHER. And yes, I'm yelling, because all-too-many of today's parents
need to be strapped to chairs and made to listen to a tape loop of the
previous sentence blaring over a loudspeaker until they get it.
There
is nothing that secures a child’s sense of well-being and releases his
capacity for self-sufficiency more reliably than knowing his parents
are in relationship with one another. Perhaps, and I say this gently,
you have so immersed yourself in the role of mother that you have
neglected your marriage. Perhaps it is past time for you to rediscover
the joy and liberation of being a wife first, a mother second.
Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents' questions on his website at www.rosemond.com.
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