.......so much for the "Domestic Engineering" degree program......Jared boiled it down to one class - "Suck it Up 101"........I love it.

Lindsay Ferrier recently blogged just that, and got TONS of responses:

http://suburbanturmoil.blogspot.com/2007/06/dont-shoot-me.html

And then she wrote about how isolating it can be to be a stay at home dad in a stay at home mom culture:

http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Columns/Suburban_Turmoil/2008/01/31/Dad_Core_Is_Hard_Core/

As far as the genetic stuff, I would cut women some slack if they're experiencing post-partum depression. That just makes everything hard. I know you didn't single out depressed women to criticize, but I'm just pointing out that this could be a factor you're unaware of.

I feel dissatisfied with my stay at home mom life sometimes, and wish I were out working. But taking regular breaks helps, having an amazing husband makes all the difference, and loving my son makes it all worthwhile.

"Maybe Suzy doesn't actually need to be in Girl Scouts AND dance class AND Gymboree AND whatever else the heck you've scheduled your future stressed-out multitasking daughter for."

Yes, yes, yes. Good on you.

Heh - this post should take some of the heat off of me for my talk-radio rants . . .

convincing Gracie that jumping down the stairs could in fact kill her

Sounds like your Grace and my Rebekah would get along just fine . . . :)

I agree that the severe overscheduling of childhood is a lot of the problem here. I suspect that the fact that our society doesn't really value parenting all that much, and that people know it, has a lot to do with this too.

Its funny my husband complains far more than I do about having to do house work. We both work outside the home. I push anywhere from 34 to 39 hours a week and he’s full time. Guess who scrubs the toilets? Guess who mops the floors? Guess who dusts? Yep it’s me and guess who doesn’t complain about it? Me. We share all the other stuff.
Now the cool part is that me going back to work for the “man” has made him a better dad. He sees how cool it was for me to be able to be with the kids. I loved being a stay at home mom and at times I miss it. Those ladies do need to suck it up and see how blessed they are. I have to work to pay the bills. I’m not angry that I had to go back to work, I wanted to. I love my job most days. My mother was a stay at home mom who was very good at what she did but I knew how unhappy she was with not going back to work. She insisted I go back after my son was born and greeted him with open arms to be a stay at home grandma.

I don't read those mom blogs myself.

I think it cool that you’re a stay at home dad and I agree that we are spoiled in this life today.

Feeling blessed today.

Well put. It was a tough adjustment from cube-ville to the at-home dad gig at first, but a little rhythm was all I needed. The dishes and laundry never end, but I think Brother Lawrence had it right that even the most mundane chores can be opportunities to practice God's presence.

And there's also the fun side:

The other guy: "What do you do during the day?"
Me: "Fold laundry and watch Babylon 5, a couple days a week."
The other guy: "Man, I want to fold laundry and watch Babylon 5!"

And RachelAnne, that link from Nashville Scene is pretty much spot on, at least in my neighborhood. There's just something awkward about being the only rooster at a hen party, regardless of whether you're the rooster or a hen.

Okay, so I've got a little street cred here, so I'm not coming in stupid to this comversation.

While I agree with a few statements you make, Jared, you also make some that are...well, a little too high on the vitriol scale and low on the sociology.

Few of our modern conveniences have truly aided us. In truth, most of them only take away our time in less direct ways or force us to work more to afford them. Either way, we lose time or we are forced to work harder (which also loses time).

Part of the problem is that those assumptions about normality are all ingrained in society. Undoing them proves costly, especially to the first wave of folks who attempt it. In many cases, those mavericks bear the ire or they fail. Perhaps the second wave will prevail. Then again, it may not. Maybe it will need a third, fourth, or fifth wave before any progress results.

We can undo our reliance on tech. We can go back to a single wage-earner. We can grow our own food, make our own clothes, and do all those things that were often done within a supportive community. Problem is, we need the supportive community and few people are willing to want to join it because doing so is...well, frighteningly counterculture and exacts a painful cost to early adopters.

Your sample mom has all her kids in different sports requiring crazy schedules because all the other kids in the neighborhood joined organized sports. There aren't any kids around the neighborhood anymore--no spontaneous games of kick the can or frisbee. So if you want to drop out of organized sports, good luck trying to find kids for your kids to play with regularly. AND now it is assumed by colleges that your kids did indeed play organized sports because all well-rounded kids play organized sports AND they excel at them which means extra practice and throwing yourself into that sport mercilessly so your kid can get into Harvard BECAUSE Harvard is a guarantee of great job in the future and we all want our kids to have a better future AND seeing that the world is globalizing, only those kids with the best educations and best jobs will survive. So you damned well better have your kids in organized sports.

If it weren't so abysmally true, it would be laughable. Unfortunately, the way society works today, that's about how it is. This explains why you've got the Barna Group telling us that Evangelical parents are more concerned that their kids get into a good college than that they know Christ.

Now multiply that suburban angst out over a million stupid issues. Despite being sick as a dog this week, I spent four hours on the phone trying to clear up a mistake on a credit card bill. Did we have credit cards a hundred years ago? No. Our predecessors somehow survived. But not having one today brings its own share of problems. What other problems are associated with stuff we take for granted today? Pick an item. Say a cell phone. How much personal time and money does that cell phone chew up in a month? Carrier won't support your old phone? Wants to raise the fees? Lost the phone? Gotta call the insurance company to make a claim on the lost phone? Oh, and you had your social security and bank info in the phone, too? Ouch! That's a lot of follow-up. What else?

And that's just one modern "convenience."

This is not a zero sum game. We may actually be sliding into the negative.

We must also remember that the American Church's blind devotion to industrialism in the late 18th century and early 19th contributed first to taking dad out of the home (so he could no longer help mom with the kids), but then later took mom out of the home, too. In the history of mankind, that simply has not been the case. So the last 90 years are an experiment. One that is largely failing.

So there are choices we can make. But in most cases, we want someone else to jump first because the folks who try to fight this often land without a parachute and make a fine mess.

So, I wouldn't be so hard on moms here unless you're willing to undo all the societal changes that have changed the world for the worse, those that have destroyed communities, put parents in cubicles, separated us from our food supplies, and generally forced us into living frantic lives. Those folks may have a deep disquiet in their souls, but they can't find a way out of the rat race, nor do they wish to be the first off the cliff.

Nice utopia we've made for ourselves, huh?

Well, not stupid if you don't count spelling conversation as "comversation."

;-)

"So, I wouldn't be so hard on moms here unless you're willing to undo all the societal changes that have changed the world for the worse"

All Jared was saying is that people should stop complaining. "Not complaining" is a very Biblical concept, and complaining spirits are a huge problem in our society.

In the "good old days" you wouldn't have all your kids in organized sports because half of them died during childbirth.

I don't see this as an "either-or". First off, you're right on much of what you say to a degree. But throwing out the baby with the bathwater isn't the answer. Do you want to spend 2 hours clearing up a celphone problem or 9 hours a day hoeing in the field (only to have your entire crop wiped out by a hailstorm at the end).

We could go back and forth on that forever - I'm not saying things are great today. But I think Jared's post is perfectly valid, and - yes - people complain far too much today about what is, in general, a pretty comfortable life.

About evangelical parents feeling an elite college is more important than them knowing Christ . . . is that the specific poll question they were asked? Or is that being inferred. And since when is going to college (or spending a lot on college) a hinderance to knowing Christ?

If you're arguing that parents spend too much time chasing the brass ring, you have no argument from me (I'm the sole wage-earner for my family of six - my wife and I felt it was important for her to stay home w the kids. We don't live extravagantly, etc. etc. etc.) But I do want my kids to go to college.

I became a Christian in college, btw.

Dan, that's all well and good, but I'm not talking about sociology here. I'm talking about perspective, attitude, diligence, and ethic.

My tasks are not much different than the average SAHM's tasks. Based on that, I am saying that the bellyaching is not merited.

As for running the kids all over the place: I was listening to a mom talk about how many nights her son was at some activity. I was stunned that he was doing so much. My son was in scouts and football. He gave up football and tried baseball then gave that up because he didn’t want to be gone all the time. I guess my kids are just home bodies because church and swimming are enough for them. If you take them out too many nights a week they get cranky.

Jared you points are valid. One unexplored point in this might be that they have men who don’t appreciate them. Stay at home moms and dads need to be appreciated.

I already posted, but then I thought of something else. Sometimes when I'm talking to my mom, we talk about the minutiae of our day, which includes a full range of various housewifely activities. She'll say something to me like, "It's a full time job, isn't it?" or "It's so hard," and I just think...not really. The only reason I can spend so much time on my baseboards is because I'm not doing anything else! I could compromise the cleanliness of certain parts of my house in order to have time for other things. Whenever I am feeling dissatisfied, it's not because I'm overwhelmed with Clark, cooking and cleaning, it's because I want more than that. So my whining has a slightly different tone :)

It drives me nuts to hear stay at home moms complain about doing what I'd love to be doing. I don't read many mommy blogs either, for the same reasons. *hoping that I don't fall into the category of boring blogging mommy*

And Beau and I have had many conversations about whether or not he should quite job hunting to be a stay at home dad. For now, he's continuing to pursue a full time job while I'm the breadwinner for the family. But I know we'll have the conversation again if he does not get the job at PHC for the fall. And if that happens then both of us will have to give up some dreams - his of being the breadwinner, mine of being the stay at home mom - and we'll continue on as we have been for the past two years. It may not be what we want, but it is where God has us and it is what we will do without complaint (much) and trusting Him.

Bill, et al.,

I would heartily encourage everyone here to read the book Better Off : Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende. He shows very clearly how technology removes people from community, leading to the isolation that many people (at-home parents especially) feel.

Grousing moms do so largely because, as women, they need to experience their world relationally and make sense of it within the network of other women. But our society has cut out the "old-fashioned" means by which this used to occur, working near home and with other women (planting and harvesting, quilting, cooking, and so on). Brende shows how that dynamic in non-industrial societies makes a huge difference in the mental health of the community.

May explain why so many of those suburban soccer moms are on antidepressants.

This is ironic, because I just read a post about how all bloggers are whiners EXCEPT for mommy bloggers.

It's interesting to see how perceptions vary. For the record, I never whine. I just checked. When my posts are negative, they are for a good reason (death springs to mind).

I have a different take on mommy (and daddy) blogs. As many of the comment over at Suburban Turmoil indicate, new parents are often really isolated. They turn to the blogosphere because they want to reach out and they want to vent. So, while I agree that there is plenty of whining out there and that whining is boring, I try to read them, when I read them at all, with some degree of compassion.

Isolation and disconnectedness run their course and force people to reach out, even if the means of reaching out is subpar (blogging, online forums, chat). Others don't reach out at all because can't put a finger on the reasons for the malaise they feel or they have simply given up.

I think the following song captures the dynamic here very nicely:

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone

Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone

Subdivisions ---
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions ---
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight

Somewhere out of a memory
Of lighted streets on quiet nights...

Groovy, man.

Heh. I love this post. Even though there's an obvious gross generalization, it keys in on something that I've been trying to figure out for a while -- people seem to become isolated and cynical, and then it all goes south.

Jeremy, I am not trying to be un-compassionate or unfair. As a co-laborer in the fields, I am only trying to plea for realism. And for joy.

I'm appealing a bit to Philippians 2:14 here.

I've been pondering on this... And honestly, I don't feel victimized by daily life - though dude, you haven't lived noisy messy chaos til you've hung around in my house! ;-)(two girls can't possibly cause as much havoc - not to mention laundry and bodily fluids - as four home-all-day boys!) What I whine about is not the tasks I have to do - I actually kinda like them.

What I whine about is that parenting is HARD and I feel like I suck at it. And it gets harder and harder as they get older. But still - your overall principle applies, eh?