We are getting close to May which is Mother’s Day month, and I think now is as good a time as any to talk about something that genuinely bothers me on a psychological and emotional level, I personally know far too many people who do the work of a single parent, while living in a two-parent household.
What I mean by that is there’s a parent who does all the work, who does the cooking who does the child-rearing, etc. And they do so despite the fact that there is another parent in that household, somebody co-parenting there.
Maybe they are married. Maybe they’re not married but they’re living together and have kids together. Whatever the case may be, it’s not an equal share of the responsibilities. And it leads to a lot of stress on the one parent who’s doing a lot of work.
As I write this, I’m reminded of an episode of the children’s show “Bluey” where the mother, Chili, tells her husband and children that she needs to be left alone for 30 minutes and she doesn’t want anybody to talk to her. It’s a perfectly understandable feeling and it requires the dad to step up and entertain the children. He’s doing so in a way where he’s trying to make sure that the children don’t bother the mother.
And yes, parents do need some time to themselves to chill for a bit and when you’re a two-parent household with multiple children, parents can alternate to take that break.
But that’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m referring to are parents who do nothing. Parents who are seemingly always on that break. It causes an insane amount of work and stress on the parent who is engaged in doing the work to help their children help their family.
Whenever we talk about the potential for divorce and the like, we always mention money, sex life/cheating, and things like that. Those tend to be the reasons that get cited for divorce, but there’s always going to be some underlying cause there.
Are they spending too much money and not doing any of the work to earn the money or not doing anything to save money? Is the lack of a sex life between partners, due to the fact that one is tired from doing all the work, and putting nothing into the relationship with the raising of the children?
The dynamic usually seems to be that the mother is always doing all the work, and the father is just kind of aloof, but that’s not always the case. It could very well be the father is doing all of the work, and the mother is just kind of doing her own thing and not really doing her duties as a wife or mother. Regardless of the breakdown here, the fact of the matter is that we as parents have a responsibility to contribute as much as we can, to our spouses and to our children.
Recently, I mentioned the idea that fatherhood begins at conception, and it is an idea that conservatives particularly in the pro-life movement and generally just family-centric conservatives should be emphasizing. Fatherhood, as well as motherhood, begins at conception and parents should be devoting themselves to making sure that they are doing everything they can for each other, and for their children.
In the type of world we live in right now, it just seems more and more the case that children are being left to their own devices (quite literally when we see the number of phones and tablets and TVs being used to babysit our children). But it’s extremely easy to let devices babysit our kids especially when one or both parents are not contributing to the raising of the kids. Being a good parent requires being there, being attentive, and doing everything you can to raise your child.
To the extent that we can start turning the country around quickly, given the forces that we are currently working against, one of the best and most efficient ways to do so is to make sure that we are raising our kids to be the type of people who can cherish this idea of a strong, central family unit that can rely on each other — fathers can rely on mothers, mothers can rely on fathers, parents can rely on children, and children can rely on parents. The basis of a strong family, one that can withstand the cultural battles that we are constantly having to fight, is to practice it and demonstrate it to our kids. If we cannot even fix our families, there’s no way that we as conservatives who say we favor strong families can work on saving the country.
And look, this really isn’t the type of column that should have to be written. It’s not the type of column I really particularly enjoy writing if I’m being honest, but it’s one that has to be said. Because the collapse of the traditional nuclear family is undoubtedly one of the primary reasons that society has fallen as far as it has. We should absolutely be doing better and it starts not in the state house, but in the family house. At the dining room table, in the living room, or wherever your family gathers.
