Parenting

An admission I must make is although I'm all into "marriage," I have a big fascination with parenting. I know, it's pretty weird.

It's one of the reasons I like 11D. I notice myself when reading magazines, any article about parenting, I gobble up, ususally after articles about Islamic Terrorism, the Middle East, and movies. So you can see my priorities...

Anyhow, there's a book review in the Atlantic about "Unraveled," a story about a woman who leaves her family to pursue the single life. Mothering, seems to me, to be a pretty goddamn tough job and not all are suited for it. For instance, I know for a fact that a large percentage of my friend's mothers suffer some form of insomnia. I think after 18+ years of worrying about children, your mind tranforms into something I don't, nor ever will, understand. And mothering these days conflicts with so much else out there for women - careers, being sexy, playing tennis, you know...

It's not surprising then, that according to this book, mothers tend to be not happy. In fact, a weird little fact is that "the category of parents who typically report the most parenting satisfaction - who feel they're doing the best job - is divorced dads...many men today can cook or at least order takeout, and know where and how to hire domestic help, perhaps with refreshing clarity and less anxiety than ever-conflicted mothers."

Hmmmm.

Also in the same article is a quote I quite like, independent of any connection to parenting, "Life is difficult. This is a great truth*, one of the greatest truths. Most do not see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties, as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others."

*The first of the "Four Noble Truths" which Buddha taught was "Life is suffering."