I recently stumbled across a fascinating article on msnbc.com entitled “Why Good Dads Make Moms Jealous.” It is a very interesting study on how the law (“you must/you must not ____”) affects and informs parenting, and even divides husbands and wives. One of the factors cited by all of the mothers interviewed for the story was the enormous amount of pressure they felt to be the primary caretaker of their children. Indeed, these moms felt guilty about any amount of time that they did not spend with their kids.
In a day and age when it is common for both parents to work, it would appear that moms are feeling the squeeze. There remains an underlying message in society that they should be at home taking care of their kids, but they also should not compromise on their careers and individual success. If they can’t do both, then they are failures. They are either irresponsible parents or weak non-people who have given up their dreams. Total Accusation, Total Law.
I’ve seen this message propagated in many different places, but a recent one that sticks out is from the Food Network. Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller starts with a song that lists all of the things this working mom, presumably Robin Miller, had to do during her day, the refrain being, “It’s crazy, but I love it. I love this crazy life.” The woman goes from one thing to the next and is smiling the whole time. I thought I was watching some 50s domestic propaganda like the Cleavers or something. The message was loud and clear: “You’re happy! Not stressed! You love your crazy life!” To be fair, the show is trying to help moms with their “crazy lives”, but the message is mixed.
The article reveals that the “do it all” message is crushing mothers. They are feeling both guilty and superseded by their husbands. Ironically, the moms interviewed for the article do not like their husbands actually being good at parenting.
The “do it all” message appeals to our ego, or, our deepest sense of self-made identity. It tells moms that they can do it all. So, when they can’t and have to rely on someone else (their husbands), they get upset. They clearly need the help, but they also “‘don’t want them to take over,’ says Pyper Davis, a mother of two in Washington DC. ‘We don’t ever want to be pushed off that throne of being Mommy.'” Their pride is bruised when they can’t be everything to everyone.
This represents another example of how we all believe we can fulfill the law (of parenting, of success, of virtue, etc). When we end up failing, we are mad because our self-deifying ego told us we could. This ego continues telling us that we should be able to do it. In this case, when moms see that their husbands are able (at times!) to come home from work and still be caring, present fathers, they become indignant to the extent that they feel they are not able to do the same. Our egos turn the scenario into a competition. Unfortunately, we seldom realize that our egos lie. They deceive. We see our spouse “succeeding” while we are “failing,” and we forget all the times when they have not been able to do something and we have “made up the difference” for them. In an environment of law and judgment, all we see is our failures. Only grace could allow us to have perspective. As the article reveals, there is precious little grace in the world for moms.
As a result, moms often have very little grace for dads, even when they are “doing well.” The law creates jealousy and insecurity, which create more law. Here is the most explicitly law vs. grace part of the article:
I
f we’re not careful, jealousy and insecurity can turn moms into control freaks. So says Park, a recovering control freak herself. “With our first child, I was constantly asking my husband, ‘Are you making sure he’s getting his vegetables?’ It feels good to make the decisions.”
Trouble is, “the more we control how dads do things, the less involved they want to be,” Park says. A recent Ohio State University study of almost 100 couples with newborns backs her up: Researchers found that even dads who believed they should be highly involved in childcare shied away from doing things for the their infant if Mom was very judgmental.
With something as important and close-to-the-bone as parenting, it is easy to think that control (and more control) is the answer. And our egos tell us that such control is possible. However, as the article suggests, not to mention the testimony of all parents and kids everywhere, control of this kind is an illusion, and our efforts in its direction only bring about the opposite of their intended effect. Love is the enabling word. In an environment of love, jealousy and judgment do not exist. Of course, our first inclination as a sinful men and women is to ask, “How do I then create a love-filled environment for my family?” To turn even love into a law – in other words, “How do I control this?” I can’t.
The Good News is that the Love that we so desperately need, the belovedness which creates a home full of grace, compassion, and forgiveness has been given to us by God through his son Jesus Christ. He is in control.
COMMENTS
6 responses to “Jealousy, Judgment, and Competition in Parenting”
Leave a Reply
Thank you for this post. The struggle between furthering my career and starting my family has been on my mind lately. It seems I cannot have it all, but I have wondered “will I resent my husband because he seemingly can have it all?” Thank you for the reminder that good parenting means showing your children how to lay in the graceful hands of the Father.
This is a fabulous post. I hope to use it Sunday, and am just grateful for it.
This is so true. In fact, I recently heard on MSNBC how females judge Sarah Palin for trying to be the V.P. when she is still a mother. She can’t do it all at once! This agrees with this post in the idea that we want to be perfect, as mothers, career women, and people; we don’t want to be held to this standard ourselves but yet judge others according to it.
Sorry for the dramatic “deleted comment” post–I was simply trying to improve the emphasis by adding a word. The current post is exactly the same as the deleted one, just with the addition of “ourselves” in the last sentence.
I agree with everybody… great post!
I think in the pastoral care of people there are TWO issues that come up when people are groaning under the burden of the Law.
(1) They haven’t heard the Gospel — absolution for lawbreakers — or need to hear it proclaimed again FOR THEM (pro me).
(2) They are groaning under a very real law, but in this particular case it turns out to be a human law, not God’s law.
#1 can’t stressed enough because, even if we could fix all erroneous human judgments regarding the content of the Law, it would still be (in the words of the old BCP) an “intolerable” burden.
But I think it is worth seeing cases of #2 when they occur and addressing that aspect as well. There were times when some Christians told left-handed children they were children of the devil — and huge burdens of guilt were laid on the kids for this. These parents and schoolmasters honestly believed that the children were transgressing God’s holy law.
In this case part of the problem is the Law of Feminism — which is supposed to be liberating to women! THOU SHALT HAVE A HIGH POWERED CAREER is the law many of these women are groaning under. They are bad people if they want to be stay at home moms.
Don’t mistake me here. I am not trying to replace that law with a June Cleaver law: all women SHOULD be stay at home moms.
But it just needs to be said that women in the 80s and 90s were sold a bill of goods. There were told “you can be as gods”: you can be a GREAT mom, and a partner at a law firm, and let nothing slide either place and your kids will be just fine and you will feel JUST GREAT. That was a lie. It came from the Father of all lies. Worse, they were not only told they “could” be as gods, but that they SHOULD be – they were BAD women if they did not aspire to do that.
What is needed now is a lot of grace and a lot of “down to earth” (in the words of Luther) acceptance of our selves and our situations – as creatures not gods. A willingness to say, hey there’s no way I can do it all, so let’s figure out, with a lot of prayer and love, what we can do in this family. And a willingness for self-criticism (husbands and wives both), the capacity for which only is birthed by the real felt experience of love in the midst of the removal of judgment. That births the freedom to examine everything: do I need as a man to bring in all the money, am I afraid of being looked down on for being a stay at home mom (or dad), do we need all the things we think we need two full time incomes on, am I afraid of my children loving me less if he is a great caretaker, are we afraid of being retro like the Cleavers… and so on.
Thanks everyone!
John, wonderful comment, and excellent point regarding this being a human law. I often get even more upset when I realize that in my sin I even try to live up to false human laws. I get consumed with someone else’s opinion of me even more so than I would regarding God’s opinion of me.