It’s not a contest
Today’s what the heck were they thinking award goes to the New York Times, for the op-ed piece they ran yesterday entitled “Mom vs. Nanny” in which working mom Jenny Rosenstrach discusses the ways in which she attempts to manipulate her calculations in order to come out ahead in the contest she’s holding with her children’s nanny for who spends more “quality time” with them. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be funny, or make other working parents feel sane by comparison, or what.
It’s not a contest. Being the working spouse of a stay-at-home dad has taught me a few things, and one of the most important is that it’s not a contest. If you decide that you’re competing with your partner to be the most-loved parent, you’re going to drive everyone crazy, starting with yourself and ending with your children. The goal of this whole effort is raise your children to be happy, and secure, and confident in the love of the people who take care of them. If they adore you, and adore their daddy, and adore their nanny or babysitter or grandmother, that’s a good thing (as Rosenstrach acknowledges at the end of her essay). The tricky part is that most working mothers tell themselves that their children may love the sitter, but they’ll always be number one. Mommies are special.
Well, at times I’ve been quite sure that I wasn’t number one. And I had to admit, it was only fair that my son should love his father best, as he was the one with him all day, climbing on the jungle gym, making silly faces, reading the same stories over and over again. But it forced me to confront my hidden assumption that being a good mother meant being number one.
Like Rosenstrach, I carefully counted the hours I spent with my son. Parenting is challenging, and it’s often hard to know if you’re doing the right thing. It was all too easy to seize on anything quantifiable as a measure of my devotion. For months, I tandem pumped in the mornings, attaching myself to a pump on one side while my son nursed in the mornings. With hindsight, I regret the time spent fussing with a machine instead of paying attention to the moment, but I took the number of ounces I produced as another sign of my maternal commitment.
February 2nd, 2005 at 10:17 pm
“I’m not sure if it was supposed to be funny, or make other working parents feel sane by comparison, or what.”
I vividly remember this article because I think the author made EVERYONE look sane by comparison. I wouldn’t want to be her nanny, because the lengths she went to, to discount her nanny’s efforts, as if somehow that would elevate her own role, were astounding. As you say, it’s not a competition.
Then again, it does often feel like one, even between my husband and I, who have screechingly, painfully traditional roles these days.
February 3rd, 2005 at 4:51 pm
Do you think that maybe it is only the moms in this equation that feel like it is a competition? Moms do bear the brunt of the caregiving most of the time so maybe that contributes to those feelings. I know that my husband loves our girls but I also know that he enjoys going to work to get a little peace and quiet.