Posts made in May, 2015

10 Amazingly Enjoyable Things About Having Kids

Posted by mommy on May 8, 2015 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

To get this blog properly started, here is my article I wrote with my husband, published at The Federalist.

There has been a recent explosion in books and articles chronicling the supposedly overwhelming rigors of child-rearing, particularly for the educated middle-class professionals who write and read these articles.

 

While we might suspect that a lot of this is just the whine-brag as a literary genre—look how put-upon I am combining my successful career with my wonderful children—we’re also concerned that the young and childless might look at it all and conclude, as some do, that parenthood is a disaster best avoided.

 

That seemed to be the upshot of a perverse Mother’s Day ad last year in which young women were invited for a fake job interview. The “job” turned out to be motherhood, which was portrayed as a form of worker exploitation undreamt of by the most fervent Marxist.

 

Unfortunately, if you turn to pro-family conservatives, you often get much the same story, with parenthood cast as a personal sacrifice made for the greater good of humanity, while childless bliss is “a symptom of cultural decadence, in which modern comforts crowd out intergenerational obligations.” So if you have children, you’re doing it for the good of society, to ensure the demographic survival of the West.

 

Both sides agree that there is some ineffable personal value to be gained from parenthood, but the positive side is vague, while the negatives are vivid and specific. As the title of a recent book would have it, being a parent is “all joy and no fun.”

 

As working parents of two young boys, we can assure you that this is all wrong. If you’re not having fun, you’re not paying attention. Yes, taking care of children is a lot of work and a relentless responsibility, but as with any really difficult job, the rewards can be enormous.

 

To counteract all the gloom and doom, here are ten amazingly enjoyable things about having kids….

Read the rest at The Federalist.