In My Home

for the most part maggie, i think your posts are well educated. you have intelligent responses to people who are sick, have been raped, etc. and i respect you for that.

but on this point, i totally disagree. i think you have been very callous in your assertions that fathers cannot be as nurturing as mothers and that mothers are better for the children than fathers, and your opinion that it is us "children" who haven't been pregnant yet that think men are equal to women in the parenting department. i think your exageration of me asking if it was necessary for mothers to stay at home after children are grown, turning it into me saying it is a "waste of time" for mothers to stay home is an immature retelling of the point i was making. i asked a simple question, and you turned it into a "mothers who care prefer to be there for their children" issue, which inescapably means you believe working moms are not there for their children when their children need them.

you took my examples of anecdotal evidence (about my own mother raising my brother and me while working) and said that was frivolous and that you can't use anecdotes, and then countered with your own anecdotes (of staying at home and being scared when you were 15, and of how your children needed you) and considered those sufficient evidence for your point.

i didn't mean to start an argument with you, maggie. and i'm disappointed that's what it became. of course i respect stay at home mothers. i just asked why they stay at home after the children aren't even there. it's clear that you don't respect working mothers to the same degree as stay at home moms, and that makes me sad.

but anyway, opinions, opinions!

oh and someone warned me in my rep (neutral rep) to "watch out" too.. i wonder who this rep person is..

 

Im sorry guys but I have to agree with mrs sugar on this one. I do agree that dads can be the main parent if sutuations ask for that...but in all actuality she's right that mothers are mothers for a reason. Dads can do a great job at it all if given the job but nothing replaces the mommie if the child is given the chance to experience the mothers care. (Parenting~It really isn't something you can ever understand until you have kids yourself.

 

well, thank you for taking the time to respond anyway. the original post pertained to practicing traditional gender roles, so i thought introducing that concept was not only pertinent to the topic, but necessary as it could provide everyone with some additional insight.

i know very well that we are talking about mothers. my question was certainly related to motherhood, as it pertains to mothers on both the levels of sex and gender, and questions which could hold a potentially greater impact. "normal"/traditional families are somewhat of a rarity, so if we focus only on the traditional families, then we are overlooking and discounting a significant amount of people. when we do not look at the entire picture, our views may be skewed.

i think it was certainly in the scope of the thread, condsidering we are discussing traditional gender roles in the home. when we look at those who transcend gender lines, we can gain new perspectives. my question was also about whether motherhood was based more on sex or gender. your claims are founded in your beliefs about hormones. a gay man may take hormone pills, but would that change anything, in your opinion? i doubt hormones necessitate an ideal. other factors play a more necessary role. rather than muddy the waters, the question actually holds the potential for clarifying the waters, and proving how the theory holds true. i did not mean to offend you; i believe my questions were asked respectfully, and i appriciate that you took the time to answer them. i question the theories, not your individual parenting skills.

i know this isn't geared towards me, but saying, "well my mom.." is the same thing as saying, "well, with my kids..." when both people are speaking from experience, both experiences have value and validity. perhaps it wasn't your intention, but calling someone "immature and childlike" puts others in a defensive mode, and makes people fear "negative rep" for expressing their views. the childless may lack the experiences you have had as a parent, but that does not mean they are all immature and childlike... and that certainly does not mean that their experiences are neither valid nor worthy of consideration. i take exception to the argument that people are only "qualified" to express their views on motherhood once they become a mother. experience certainly holds weight, i'm not denying that, but it does not provide absolute truth. the questions that everyone has asked aren't attacking the individual mother. the theories are questioned, not the skills of one particular mother. if someone tried to tell me how to raise my child, or that i was a bad parent, i would certainly take exception to that. if my theories are questioned, rather than the particular ways i practice them, it is not an individual attack.

 

Nova, two things, I respect a lot of what you have to say. I didn't want to argue either. Two, I didn't think the rep thing was you, either. I know you are more mature than that. I usually dont' even address reps, but this one was something (which I still haven't discussed on the board or gone into any detail on what was said in the rep sheet at all) which should have been a response to the thread. I don't think it was you, though.

I did feel you said womyn who stay home after their kids were in school were wasting their time, if you didn't mean that, then please forgive me.

I never said dads couldn't be "nurturing" I said they weren't usually replacements for mothers. There ARE some things one has to experience to understand, I do not mean this in a mean way. But the feelings of parenting cannot be understood without doing it. I did years of childcare before I became a mom. And I didn't understand motherhood at ALL until I became a mom. Even people who have "raised their sibs" are still looking at it from a child's perspective. It isn't the same as parenting. (Thank god no one compared mothering to taking care of a dog LOL. I have seen that.....)

 

Thanks, Apple, you know exactly what I am talking about!

 

we may have to agree to disagree on this one Maggie

I think it is possible to sit back and look at how one was parented and the results from that action. Not for the entire parenting, especially young development, but how you were treated as a teenager and an adolescent, parts of the way you were treated. Especially if you discuss it with you parent.

No, it doesn't make you an expert on being a parent. But it helps you understand some techniques, sort of a trial and error method that you were also a participant in. You still have to remember the end result with your children, not just being a parent at that specific moment in time... eventually you aren't responsible for every part of their life.

 

The key thing certain people seem to be missing here is that being a parent doesn't make you an expert on parenting either. You only have that limited anecdotal evidence of your own experiences, in your own socioeconomic situation, with your own child(ren)'s personalities, and with the dynamics between you and your child(ren)'s father(s). I would place money on the bet that those hormonal effects or whatever that Maggie Sugar experienced are as different (or more different) from what my own mother experienced as they are from what my father experienced. Not all women have the same feelings in response to the same stimuli. I find this assumption rather sexist, as well as the assumption that males are incapable of these emotional attachments. No, I don't see being a stay-at-home mother as any form of oppression or whatever, I see it as a perfectly valid choice (as long as the woman actually had a choice in the matter). But, I do find the assertation that women belong at home taking care of the children, and that males are less capable of that task, as being sexist.

 

Not only that, but we learn much of our parenting skills, from our parents. If our mothers were bad moms and we didn't realize the error of their ways, then we are likely to repeat their behaviour, with our own children.

So really, our experiences with our own mothers are important factors, in raising our own children. IMO...

I think, what's more important, is that the child feels loved and validated. It doesn't take a SAHM, or a breastfeeder, to do that.

 

so you see the wall as black, i see the wall as white... and that's not going to change. so we'll leave it at that.

if half of the equation is missing, then half is still present. the glass is half full, not half empty. all that i'm saying is that other views should not be completely discounted. i believe in animal rights, yet i have never experienced being a monkey, for example. it is not the complete and total picture, but this does not mean that my opinions lack validity or truth.

likewise, though, not many parents can be completely objective about how they parent.

i was definitely not trying to insinuate that you would give people bad rep for their posts, rather than discussing them. as one of the most outspoken participants in this discussion, it would be silly to assume you give out neg.reps for those who disagree. rather, i was saying that when you said, "immature and childlike" (which i apparently misinterpreted, appologies) that might make people feel defensive, or sense agression... thus that would have a negative effect on how some may reply. because both you and someone else posted about recieving ned rep for your ideas, it seems like a relevant concern. granted, it shouldn't be a concern, but since it seems to have happened, it was at least an annoyance.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on some parts of this discussion. I, still, don't feel that the biological imperitive which makes womyn mothers is meaningless (meaning that "anybody" can do it just as well.)

I ain't touching that one with a ten foot pole.

 

LOL And I wouldn't expect you to, Maggie. You and I have had this discussion before. We can certainly agree to disagree, on this subject.