Photo Credit: Jane Goodrich Photography
“The more anthropologists and social scientists understand about human parents, the more emphatically they conclude that we were designed to raise children in small co-operative groups, and not in nuclear families.
Parenting is meant to take place where help is always at hand, in a collective setting where even the children begin rehearsing child-rearing skills from a young age.
The main reason why we struggle, why our patience runs short, is that our nuclear-family situation is entirely un-natural, unreasonable and unsustainable.
No parent is meant to be at home alone with one or more children; it is Nature’s design to always have a fresh pair of hands nearby that we can turn to long before tiredness becomes exhaustion.”
So are we doing this parenting thing all wrong? Can I actually attribute my impatience, exhaustion, anxiety and craziness to an “unnatural and unreasonable” situation?
Is there an actual diagnosis to parenting in 2015?
I think doctors, pharmaceutical companies and alcohol companies have known about this diagnosis and kept it hidden from us all this time. They so easily prescribe medications for our said “depression, exhaustion anxiety and craziness." Couldn’t they have prescribed us a trip to the movies, a dinner alone without kids, or simply time to ourselves?
So we find ourselves in our little nuclear family of one or two parents taking it all on ourselves when it really does take a village. But what do you if your village lives in Canada or across the world? What if you have no village at all?
We have family and friends who are there for us. But when it comes to the day to day operations it can be a very overwhelming task to run that little village alone.
When my twins were born I was very lucky. I had a huge village ready to lend a hand. My mother lived with us for three months and then I stayed with her in Canada for the summer. I told my husband I was not coming home unless there was help waiting for me. I saw every friend and family member at that time as a potential “baby holder.”
But everyone has to get back to their own day to day lives. And moms and dads are left on their own to figure out the tricky, complicated crazy world of parenting.
So if there is a diagnosis is there also a cure?
Remember that is okay to ask for help. It is perfectly permissible to say I can’t handle this today and to feel a need to walk away. We should not feel guilty about asking someone else to take over but instead welcome it. It takes a village to raise a child but it also takes a village to raise a parent.
I don’t know all the answers but I will prescribe this Motherly MD advice to you: take two minutes to yourself and call me in the morning…
Parenting is meant to take place where help is always at hand, in a collective setting where even the children begin rehearsing child-rearing skills from a young age.
The main reason why we struggle, why our patience runs short, is that our nuclear-family situation is entirely un-natural, unreasonable and unsustainable.
No parent is meant to be at home alone with one or more children; it is Nature’s design to always have a fresh pair of hands nearby that we can turn to long before tiredness becomes exhaustion.”
So are we doing this parenting thing all wrong? Can I actually attribute my impatience, exhaustion, anxiety and craziness to an “unnatural and unreasonable” situation?
Is there an actual diagnosis to parenting in 2015?
I think doctors, pharmaceutical companies and alcohol companies have known about this diagnosis and kept it hidden from us all this time. They so easily prescribe medications for our said “depression, exhaustion anxiety and craziness." Couldn’t they have prescribed us a trip to the movies, a dinner alone without kids, or simply time to ourselves?
So we find ourselves in our little nuclear family of one or two parents taking it all on ourselves when it really does take a village. But what do you if your village lives in Canada or across the world? What if you have no village at all?
We have family and friends who are there for us. But when it comes to the day to day operations it can be a very overwhelming task to run that little village alone.
When my twins were born I was very lucky. I had a huge village ready to lend a hand. My mother lived with us for three months and then I stayed with her in Canada for the summer. I told my husband I was not coming home unless there was help waiting for me. I saw every friend and family member at that time as a potential “baby holder.”
But everyone has to get back to their own day to day lives. And moms and dads are left on their own to figure out the tricky, complicated crazy world of parenting.
So if there is a diagnosis is there also a cure?
Remember that is okay to ask for help. It is perfectly permissible to say I can’t handle this today and to feel a need to walk away. We should not feel guilty about asking someone else to take over but instead welcome it. It takes a village to raise a child but it also takes a village to raise a parent.
I don’t know all the answers but I will prescribe this Motherly MD advice to you: take two minutes to yourself and call me in the morning…
Marcie Gandell is a full time Westchester NY Mom to three boys and a part-time web designer. She is also a cook, housekeeper, chauffeur, handyman, expert negotiator and an excellent juggler!
Read more from her at her blog, Random Stupid Thoughts, a Mom's View of the World.
Read more from her at her blog, Random Stupid Thoughts, a Mom's View of the World.
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