Is Equality a Reality?

A recent article in The New York Times has received a lot of attention recently. Entitled “When Mom and Dad Share it All,” the article chronicles the lives of some couples engaging in “equal parenting.” These couples split time at home with time at the office as equally as possible, hoping to both earn money while staying involved in their children’s lives. Which, although it sounds ideal to many, is clearly the exception to the rule, and a phenomenon that is unlikely to become a trend. Although every mom who, on average, does twice as much housework and childcare as her spouse, might wish that her husband pitched in more, the reality of equal parenting is not always as perfect as it sounds.

A Special Lunch Date

We were delighted to welcome 12 mom bloggers to our new Mom Central offices last Wednesday for our first Boston-area Mom Bloggers lunch. It was the perfect opportunity to get together with our local mom blogger community and introduce them to our team here at Mom Central.

Give a bunch of bloggers who usually only converse through the written word an opportunity to get together live, and conversation flows! The ladies who joined us cover so many different topics in their individual blogs – family, babies, kids, working from home, working outside of the home, homeschooling, raising teens, single parenting, and so on. You name it, these ladies do it and have an opinion about it! Needless to say, there wasn’t one moment of silence throughout lunch.

Pregnancy Pact in Gloucester: So Many Things Wrong

Recent news about teen pregnancy in Gloucester, Massachusetts, highlighted in Time Magazine, has been spreading like wildfire, controversial not only because the news involved 17 girls in one high school, but because many of them made a pact to get pregnant together on purpose.

Although this story evokes a number of different responses, the main question on my mind is: what went wrong? What failures were there in parents talking to their teens, in schools educating their students, and in community resources reaching out to young adults? Honestly - how many people weren’t paying attention in order for this to happen?

On the girls’ part, they appear to be classic millennials who seemingly lack direction and ambition. Is this a reflection of the economic situation (which, in Gloucester, due to an ever-decreasing fishing industry, is especially bad)? Perhaps these girls couldn’t see a lot of options for their future, found nothing to engage them, and considered this to be their way out. Many of these girls in telling their story believe that pregnancy won’t just bring them unconditional love, but it will make them whole. In fact, they’re so sheltered that they didn’t even think about what pregnancy would mean, about their lives falling apart around it. Rather than thinking through the consequences, these girls instead act impulsively, all too likely believing that their parents would be there to back them up and figure out the details. However, unlike teen rebellions of the past, which involved tattoos, body piercings, and gothic hair, this one has lifelong irreversible consequences.

Sunny Days

As soon as June (and that incredible heat wave) hit, parents started stocking up on sunscreen for their kids, only to find that they had a choice not just of sunscreens for body and face (in a variety of forms, including lotions, sprays, and bars), but sun-protective glasses, hats, bathing suits, shirts, and even the beach towels themselves.

These days, parents are not just stocking up on sun-protection for their kids - this is just a piece of a larger problem - we don’t think we are raising our kids in a safe environment. In fact, we no longer think that our kids are safe anywhere: we give them constant supervision while they play in the back yard, keep them away from any food that might have preservatives or toys that we think could have toxins, and strap them into booster seats until they’re 13. When we were kids, we not only played outside until dark, we never wore sunscreen, which is part of the problem. Now we practically chase our doctors down to have them check out the newest freckle or mark we’ve discovered. We didn’t wear bike helmets back then either, but now any time a child is moving at a speed faster than a walk, you can be sure she’s not only wearing a helmet, but knee and elbow pads as well.

“Sure,” we think, “we can buy some SPF 45 sunscreen and be good parents, or we can buy sun-protective shirts and children’s sunglasses with not just SPF 70, but UVA and UVB protection to the point that kids can barely see through them and be great parents.” Which is exactly how these things get out of control.

Sunscreen is still important – you can be sure my family will be wearing it next time we spend an afternoon outdoors - but there’s a limit to the amount of protection that’s a good thing. Otherwise it won’t be long before we’re locking our kids up in their rooms and forgetting about helmets and sun protection all together.

To read more about this, see the USA Today article in which I commented.