current # archives # profile # links # rings # cast # reviews # quizzes
email # gbook # notes # host # image # design

The Epidemic again

November 02, 2003, 3:18 AM

The Epidemic, The Rot of American Culture, Absentee and Permissive Parenting, and the Resultant Plague of Joyless, Selfish Children is the best book ever. Or so far. It goes into great detail about the mother/child bond and also about how daycare is mediocre at best. He doesn't say no daycare, he gives lots of suggestions on how to make working for both parents work well. Most of all, he tells people to listen to their instincts and not what a bunch of child gurus and even himself, say.

He also made a statement about how we're one of the only countries that do not pay for maternity leave.

Now when I think about that, it does make me furious.

When I was pregnant with Boo, a german woman I knew was saying that in Germany, women got 6 weeks paid pre-birth leave, 6 MONTHS paid maternity leave and the employer HAD to hold the woman's position for 6 YEARS after she left. 6 YEARS. Now that seems pro-woman, pro-family, doesn't it? Why the hell do we just accept what's out there in our country when what our country's work force gives women is so little. I'm not spouting off here ..the male hating thing. Not at all. I just wonder why women take it. The author of the books makes a point that if women who are pregnant make the comment that they're not coming back to work, they don't get their medical beneifts or whatevery pay they might've received.

He also said that the medical community has made pregnancy a disease. That is the truth. Who knows more about ourselves than us? We're just fearful and don't listen to ourselves, myself included.

"Are women really free, or are they merely subject to yet another set of expectations? Society likes to talk as if women now have a "choice," but in reality it may well be hat we've just added another layer of responsibility to the role. Even if you choose to work, you often continue in all the same roles as mother, wife, homemaker, PTA member, and so on. The support from our society is grossly inadequate.

"Many women today are just accepting what is dictated by society and struggling to make it work...."

Everyone should read this. Even if you're cool with your parenting style. I'm mostly ok with mine and how much I love my kids, but it's great to have a reinforcement out there that isn't all about indulging your kids and actually, a very supportive book all around. I think for working mom's, it'll spark defensiveness, but if you sit and let and sink in a little, you can get past the defensiveness and get what it's saying.


last - next

7 comments so far

Tanya McBee Gunby | Create Your Badge