Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I think I'm tighter with my kids than my parents were with me and they won't hate me as much in a few years. Here's what I'm thinking: we spend more time with them. We do stuff together. I've thought a lot about teenagers 200 years ago and how they don't seem to hate their parents as much, at least in books, and maybe it's because they were all sitting in a little house all winter knitting, singing, and reading to each other and frankly, that's exactly what I do with my kids now, except it's a little apartment.
Now, you might say, what about all those nannies and governesses they used to have? That was a very small percentage of the population, though! Most people slept with their kids in one or two big beds, just like everyone in Brooklyn does now.
People imagine that it's old fashioned to kind of ignore your kids; what I'm arguing is that this thing of not hanging out with your kids, roaming around in giant houses where everyone has his own room and entertainment center, etc, is really more of a post-war phenomenon, and that "attachment parenting," loosely defined, (because I sleep-trained, yes I did, somebody tell that baby who the f--- I is), is the way it's always been done.
Even that mean French Mommy who wrote that book about being mean to your kids probably sits down every night with them for a two-hour meal, which means they're actually talking to each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment