Back to clee03m's question. There's no 100% perfect person out there, but everyone has their dealbreakers. It would have been a dealbreaker for me if my husband had viewed housework/childrearing as a woman's affair.

One of my favorite positions on life can be summed up by this: we admire people for their accomplishments, but we love them for thier flaws.

Hi Matterunomama,


Yes, I appreciated your comments when you wrote in your post, "Doesn't it strike you that the single Dads don't chime in because they, in general, don't have the same issues? If they need a wife, they hire out the tasks or let them go. Women feel they 'have' to be both parents."

However, I would add that it's not always because women "feel" they have to be both parents...sometimes they have to. Hiring out the task might not be possible for a variety of reasons, and letting the task go might also not be possible or palatable. So you're left doing it yourself.

The sports activities are sometimes more for the parents but not always. Lots of the happy, well adjusted children who are close to their families and thriving tend to be the ones who are active in various activities and not just sports. There are exceptions but this tends to be a pretty good rule, at least in my community.

Very different, I agree, as when we were growing up. Kids just went off for their afternoon and their parents often had no idea where they were... it was fine as long as they weren't late for dinner!

That's how I was brought up too. But it's a different world nowadays. This is a constant topic conversation among parents (particularly moms, climbers or non-climbers).

I also appreciated your response because my children are in elementary school. I realize that the balancing act changes as the children grow older - sometimes easier, sometimes harder, but different. So I love the perspective of a mom with older children. And I must say, you sound like an incredible woman! Raising children, med school in your forties, interesting travel. Your children are lucky to have a mom like you.

I think the main thing that I can't imagine right now is the level of my emotional response to having a kid. I know that I can't even begin to comprehend the strength of that attachment, and how that is going to change my priorities. (It's one of my favourite parts of my job though... seeing the look on a new mom's face when I give her baby to her to hold for the first time)..

In terms of other people being equally prepared... well, to be honest, no, I don't think most people are in my situation which is why I balk when I feel like people are telling me "You might expect to be able to climb once you have kids, but once you actually do become a mom, you'll know better.".

Back to clee03m's question. There's no 100% perfect person out there, but everyone has their dealbreakers. It would have been a dealbreaker for me if my husband had viewed housework/childrearing as a woman's affair.

Doesn't it strike you that the single Dads don't chime in because they, in general, don't have the same issues? If they need a wife, they hire out the tasks or let them go. Women feel they 'have' to be both parents
.

Pardon me, but the above is nonsense. perhaps it applies to your own life, based on your own experiences, but making such a sweeping generalization that marginalizes single fathers in what seems a feministically sexist way, offends me - as a single father - personally.

I work two jobs to support myself and my son. My daughters nominally live with their mom who bailed out to go live with her boyfriend after the second daughter graduated from high school. Hiring an aupair? are you kidding? I clean when I can, and cajole/browbeat/guilt trip my son into doing some housework when I can. otherwise, well, its a happy cluttered mess.
...

Doesn't it strike you that the single Dads don't chime in because they, in general, don't have the same issues?

i think one of the points that she was making is that MOST women don't have "happy cluttered mess"es. they only have highly stressful cluttered messes.

this is just one example of way in which, in general, men are better about just letting stuff go slash/ compartmentalizing.

me personally, i have several happy cluttered messes. me and my hubby are the opposite of what lena was talking about earlier.... we both agree things need to be done, but his threshold of what needs action is quite a bit lower than mine.

But Susan put it differently in her article, and I strongly agree with her basic premise that "If your goal in life is to climb as much as possible, you shouldn't be having kids, b/c you will be disappointed". Notice that this is a different statement than yours. It is a question of priorities.

If your child is your priority, and you also incorporate climbing ( or anything else) in your life, b/c you love it, and you have to have something in your life that is YOU, that you find enjoyable and pleasurable-- that is absolutely right. I think a normal well-rounded person who all of a sudden drops everything after the child is born and is fixated ONLY on the child and nothing else is not exactly mentally healthy. (though it is normal and pretty common to sit with the sleeping newborn baby in your lap and just stare at him/her and marvel at this miracle that somehow came from you... LOL)

However, if your priority is CLIMBING, you shouldn't be fitting your CHILD in between your climbing, you really can't do it that way, and you probably should wait until you feel that having a child IS more important to you that climbing -- or not have children.

overall, women tend to be the ones more likely to notice a dirty shower and fingerprints on the mirror-- and do something about them).

WHile I admit atht it can be successfully argued that women can be characterised as begin neater than men, however much stress is realized over any particular cluttered mess is purely a characteristic of the individual's personality, and level of mess-aversion, to coin a term. There ARE guys who are rampant neat freaks.


uhhh, if only there were a self-deprecating humor/sarcasm emoticon...i would have applied to that particular use of the word "happy". knowhatImeen?

So in the above example, you have a really good husband-- the one who makes the bed, takes out trash. picks up after himself, and does laundry... maybe even does the dishes... and a good handiman, to boot... but... fair labor distribution? no!

the same reason why men don't go to the doctor: men just don't talk about things that much in general.

For instance, about 12% of women get breast cancer, but as men get older the chances of them getting prostate cancer grows signficantly (to the point where researchers believe that if men lived long enough 100% of all men would get prostate cancer). Every year there are thousands of walks for breast cancer. I've never seen or even heard of a walk for prostate cancer.

[Do you want to show your kids how to get out there and live their lives, or how to live in a spotless house, stressed, watching 5 hours of TV on weekends getting fat?

Divorce is a pretty sad thing, but a loveless marriage is even sadder.

People may "change", but the basic personality structure remains, outside events (growing older, new jobs, new city to live in, etc) bring out what was already latent within each person's make-up.

you write those like they're mutually exclusive. they aren't. depends on the day. somedays, its solo alpine ascents, and other days its cleaning the bathroom. some days its draggin a bunch of n00bs to teh crag, setting up a handful of topropes and busting each other as we struggle, and other days its vegging in front of the TV with a quart of yogurt.

somedays its jumping out of bed a 4 am to make a 3 hour drive to the mountains, and other days its sleeping in until noon.

somedays its looking up at the sky and knowing all is right with your world, and other days its feeling crushed under the swirling concatenation of worries that you can't control.

in that variety, lies the essence of the full life.

This is such a powerful and interesting statement to me. Acknowledging the range of actual experiences, the exceptions, etc...this still sums up what many think of as the "norm" of where we stand now with gender roles in the household--a husband is a really good one when he takes on some of the tasks, "maybe even" including dishes (and of course, still fills the handyman role). I do not mean this as a critique of anyone's life or partnership....I just find it very telling.

And just not something I'd personally accept. First, a caveat: I am not having children.

Do you want to show your kids how to get out there and live their lives, or how to live in a spotless house, stressed, watching 5 hours of TV on weekends getting fat?

Chromosomes are not the issue here, weak people making bad choices for themselves thinking they are protecting their children is.

and thereby do you marginalize your own argument, and reveal much of what you're presenting here as outright guessing.

this reveals two things:

1. you're both a bit control freak-y.

2. you're both very jealous of things that take away time from your selves.

...and in those talks outlining expectations, are sown the seeds of disappointment.

but - and no disrepect here - you did, if indirectly, using it as a device to describe your behaviours about introducing something into your lives that would require giving up part of yourself to care for a dependant living being.

perhaps, in your current situation, that has been static and established for the time you've been together.

but in spectulating about the behaviours you "expect" with the introduction of kids you're not going to have, you reveal yourself to be guessing, simply by leaving yourself that ultimate out that you've NOT going to have kids.

holy mother of condemnation, batman!

and only the neat freaks get fat? please

It's not only the neat freaks.

Also:

Lazy people
people with thyroid issues

Ok, I admit it - I have a cleaner, and really I have no opinion except I stand by my assertion that everyone has a choice in making their priorities - edit: regardless of whether they have children