Parenthood - Week 280: Guiltless Time Away

Everybody needs a little time away
I heard her say
From each other  

Opening lyircs from “Hard To Say I’m Sorry,” by Chicago

Parents aren’t supposed to spend all day, every day, with their children. Human beings were evolved to live in multigenerational extended family community. Children would spend time with grandparents, aunts, and older cousins, as much as parents. In this model child-rearing is a community responsibility.

Parents are also not supposed to be away from their children for extended periods of time. The essential bonds that are built between children and their parents are the foundation for self-esteem, and positive self-worth. This is built on a foundation of spending quality time together. If a mother is away from their child, and has great caretakers, the child will still likely pine for the mom, and often this lack of relationship will require work to process (e.g. children who are adopted).

In our modern society, figuring out this balance is a constant struggle for parents. Some parents feel that they need to spend every possible moment with their child, and inevitably feel burned out. On the other end of the spectrum, there are parents who can’t figure out a way between work, life, and the oh so pleasurable tasks of adulting to find enough quality time with their children.

This balancing act is exacerbated by the fact, that we as a society, aren’t 100% behind the idea, that time away from your kids (especially for women), at even the newborn stage is healthy for parents. Add the double standard in which we judge women who work full time jobs as not spending enough time with their offspring, but don’t seem to be at all concerned whether fathers who work are spending enough time with their children. In my experience anecdotally, women are far more likely be asked “who is watching the children,” during work or social events as men. The implied message of this microaggression is that they should be the one’s at home.

All of this creates a negative internal dialogue, in which parents feel bad about wanting to have time for themselves and feel worse about not enjoying the time they are spending with their own children when that time is well, too much time. Add on the fact that for each parent, and for each child, this amount of time together and apart to reach a happy equilibrium is different and that this balance changes over time, and we get into a pretty “lose-lose” situation for modern parents.

Unfortunately, this isn’t one of those post that is going to end in some insight to help make sense of this madness. All I got for this one is this: Parents you deserve and need guiltless time away from your children, and with your children. Free from the guilt of unreasonable and sexist parenting expectations, and the guilt of work demands that does not value people’s roles as parents in their lives. If you are struggling with this balance, that means you care about your kids, and about your own self-care. This feeling of struggle, and frustration means that you are doing parenting right, asking the right questions, and doing the best you can.