Imperfect Genius

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This is the second part of a two-post series, a critical commentary of the article, “Sorry, But My Kids Bore Me To Death!” by Helen Kirwan-Taylor. In this post I highlight and discuss what I found disagreeable. In Part One I discussed a few points on which I concur with the author.

Despite the fact that I found some threads in common with the Helen, overall I found the article to be quite ugly. She seems to take no joy whatsoever in parenting or being a mom to her two children. The picture Helen paints of her daily life as a mom brings me to wonder why she ever became one in the first place. Why raise children if you don’t want to be involved in their lives?

Helen seems to harbor quite a bit of resentment and bitterness towards her role as a mother because it’s so boring and tedious, towards her husband because he isn’t a big help at home, and towards her children for wanting her time and attention. I wonder if she would walk away from it all if she didn’t think it would stigmatize her social life or affect her financial status.

I knew a woman married to a great guy who was a wonderful father to their daughter, but she wasn’t happy being a wife and mother. In fact everyone who knew her could tell that she was miserable but was trying to “do the right thing” and live the life that supposedly everyone wants. She eventually left and started a new life elsewhere. She said she didn’t want to be married anymore and didn’t enjoy being a mom.

Lots of people judged her for this, but you cannot make someone love being a mom, and if they truly don’t enjoy it then should they really be in charge of raising and caring for a child? The father had extended support from family and friends, he relished being a dad and despite the absence of one parent, there was plenty of love and guidance surrounding the child.

I’ll make a controversial statement by saying that I believe she made the best choice for herself and her child. Others might call her selfish or heartless, but despite the stigma that’s attached to women who choose (either before or after the fact) that they do not want to be mothers or don’t make good ones, she would not have been doing anyone a favor by sticking around.

Who would want to be raised by someone who resents them? Or is miserable all the time? Can you imagine the consequences of that? Perhaps Helen should take a clue. She says that her children are well-adjusted, and she makes light of the fact that they’ve learned to quit asking for her to play with them, but I wonder how her attitude and her hands-off mothering style really makes them feel. She peppers her article with comments about how boring she finds her children and how she invents any excuse to distance herself from their lives.

She laments about the education and hard work she gave up in order to become a stay-at-home mom. Why did she choose this path in the first place and why continue with it if it’s clearly not working for her? It’s obvious that she has plenty of money for hired help and makes no qualms about having a nanny, in fact it’s evident from the article that the nanny already spends more time with the kids than she does.

So why doesn’t she start working outside the home? Or let someone else, who does love children and wants to be engaged in their lives, take them into their home and give up the role of motherhood altogether?

Perhaps her first mistake is thinking that kids are meant to be “fun”. She says, “Kids are supposed to be fulfilling, life-changing, life-enhancing fun: why was my attitude towards them so different?”

Kids are not here for our amusement. Certainly people who desire children consider them to be an enhancement to their lives, and in our own experience we’ve found that becoming parents was, and continues to be, a life-changing event. But no one should have kids on the basis that they’ll be “fun”.

Although she is not specifically saying it, her dislike of children, even of her own, comes across very clear in statements like, “I spent much of the early years of my children’s lives in a workaholic frenzy because the thought of spending time with them was more stressful than any journalistic assignment I could imagine.” Later she goes on to say, “Research tells us that mothers drink the most when they have young children. Is that because talking to anyone under the age of ten requires some sort of lobotomy?”

I’m perfectly willing to agree that parenting is stressful and it is not always wonderful and there are times when one, or even all of us, are quite unhappy. But Helen, you cannot claim the title of “mother” and complain about all the headaches that go with the job if you aren’t even on the job, if you avoid your children and cringe at the thought of spending time with them. And to say that you find conversing with your own children excruciatingly painful and mind-numbingly boring is, well, quite terrible.

At one point she states, “My children have got used to my disappearing to the gym when they’re doing their prep (how boring to learn something you never wanted to learn in the first place).”

Instead of leaving her children floundering in a pool of boredom and trite learning, why not take a measure of responsibility in the develop of their intellect? Surely there are alternatives. Homeschooling is one example, Montessori schools are another, and I’m sure there are many other resources available. Rather than complain about how utterly boring their school work is why not find a way to engage them in learning that is interesting and meaningful? Perhaps that would require involvement in their lives, oh dear.

I’m not really sure why Helen decided to write this article, or what purpose it serves. She does not offer any realistic alternatives to other mothers who feel bored or lonely. What does she propose to do about all this boredom and dislike of mothering? Oh, yes, pretend you don’t have kids and adopt her policy of ignoring them.

Her honesty is refreshing, but if she’s expecting an outpouring of “Oh, me, too!” responses I’m afraid that might not happen for her. I’m all for truthful confessions that parenting isn’t meant for everyone, and that it’s not always warm and fuzzy and serene like a glossy magazine ad. And I appreciate moms who speak up candidly about the role of motherhood, who are willing to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly.

But I just cannot put myself in her shoes. For one, I can’t imagine hiring other to people raise my children, even if they are the best nannies money can buy. Furthermore, I cannot understand anyone - man or woman - who dislikes parenthood so much that they are willing to announce it to the world in mockingly bitter quips, and yet remain in that role and continue to subject children to their brand of resentful, uninvolved parenting.