First Parenting Conversation

[JakeWaters]

I just discussed parenting with my girlfriend for the first time and it turns out that we have some disagreements. (We are not currently parents. These are out hypothetical future children we are talking about). We both agree that we shouldn't hit or yell or be impatient with our children, but we disagree about school and even Santa Claus. 

She wants our kids to do the traditional K-12 program, and I want them to be at home. She's studying to be a nurse and she made a point that if she takes too much time off she will lose certifications and it will generally be bad for her career. Of course, I would offer to be the one that stays at home, but I'm an engineer and it would make more sense economically for me to work. I was willing to compromise by saying that we could find a nice school once our kids are say, 10 years old, but I don't want to hand my five year old over to some stranger for half the day. She still didn't like that idea. 

Are any of you stay-at-home parents? Could you describe an average day as a stay-at-home dad through the various stages of your child? I'm asking because it almost seemed like she was trying to make me feel guilty by saying that I'm the one that "gets" to go to work. She said that being the parent that stays at home is the hardest job in the work, especially if you have multiple children, because they will require non-stop attention, she will have no time for herself, the children will "push her buttons", and she will have no interaction with adults. I assume that the children she is describing is the product of bad parenting--i.e. mean-spirited, retaliatory, etc. And I assume that the life she is describing when not parenting is what she has observed from stay-at-home parents that do not get any help from their spouse or friends or family. And of course I would be there for the kids as much as her when I'm not at work.

Also, she is deeply worried that if homeschooled, our children will not develop social skills. She is very concerned that our children will be missing out on the bonds and friendships that are sometimes created with people that go through years of school together. She says that that was a joyous part of her childhood and it is very disturbing for her to imagine her children without that opportunity. I argued that social skills can be learned anytime anywhere, but she is deeply concerned about that specific social environment, because it was so good for her.

And as far as the Santa issue--no matter how many different ways I explain that telling children about Santa is lying, she doesn't see it. She says that it is a wonderful part of childhood. She says she's not religious but she gets somewhat emotional whenever I talk about religion.

Thoughts?

[VforVoluntary49]

 

My girlfriend and myself literally had this same conversation today (although the parts you seemed to have sticking points with went a lot smoother with us).  Just a few questions-what age bracket are the two of you and is it feasible to push having children out for a few years or not. Also, even if home-schooling your children did you discuss allowing them to participate in community sports, activities etc. of their choosing at an appropriate age-those seem to be good situations for social skill development, especially when it is in an environment where the child doesn't seem like he/she is forced to go but has voluntarily chosen to go to.

 

Finally, are you religious at all or are you an atheist, and what does she consider herself. That is a major issue that (no matter how emotional she may get when it is discussed) you have to hash out, because it will surely be the cause of major issues in your future relationship.

[Annabelle]

Try this thought experiment: Imagine your girlfriend made more $$$ than you, and therefore it would make more economic sense for her to be the breadwinner.  How would you feel about giving up 10-15 years of the prime of your working life in order to raise your kids? Sure, you get to form strong relationships with your kids, and have fun with them, etc. But you also lose your career, lose any fulfillment you get from working, get to spend less time with adults, spend a lot of time doing housework, and so on. When the time eventually comes to return to work, it will be too late for you to get very far. In the meantime, you will all be trying to survive on a single person's income, so money will be tight.

For me personally, there is no way I would give up my career. I'd rather give up having kids, so that is what I plan to do. I don't know how your girlfriend feels in that regard, but I would strongly encourage you to spend some time finding that out. Really listen to everything she has to say on the subject. Be open to having your mind changed about some things. I predict that if you approach this with the "how do I convince her to see things my way?" mindset, things will go badly. I'd put absolutely every card on the table, and work with her to find the optimal solution. There are lots of types of schools and childcare out there, and lots of working arrangements, too.

In sum, I think that if either of you feels pushed into doing something you don't want to do, resentment will set in just as soon as the novelty of having kids wears off.

[JakeWaters]

VforVoluntary49: We're both 26. And yes, we don't plan on having children until we're around 30 or so. Yes, we both want to introduce our children to as much as possible, including sports, and I would love for them to do anything that they truly enjoy. Yeah, I would never insist that they do some particular activity just because I want them to. I actually played baseball for 10 years when I was a kid, but I was never asked if I wanted to play. I didn't enjoy it for the most part. I'm atheist. She says she's not religious because she "doesn't know what she believes". She's the type of person that doesn't think about religion or politics or philosophy. But I see your point about the nessecity of talking about religion. Even though she is not interested in religion or philosophy, and has never had much conversation about those things, it has to be discussed.   Annabelle: You make a very good point. My whole vision of my future would be turned upside down if I were the one that needed to be at home. I guess I was surprised at her reaction because she loves kids and can't wait to be a mother. She's very gentle and motherly, and I just assumed she would jump at the chance to stay at home with the kids. And I think you are right again that things didn't go so well because I did have the mindset of "how do I convince her to see things my way".     I'm planning on having another discussion with her tomorrow night. We've never really had much serious discussion about religion, philosophy, parenting, etc. I guess it's inevitable, and it's probably healthy to do it regularly.

[Annabelle]

Good luck!

By the way, not sure if it's just my computer, but your post goes off the edge of my screen without offering a horizontal scrollbar. I had to copy + paste it into a text editor to read the right half of it. Did you write it in a word processor or something? I have the best luck here either typing directly into the web form, or typing into a basic text editor and pasting into the web form. If you write it in a fancy word processor and paste it here, the text brings along formatting styles from the word processor, causing all sorts of issues.

[Annabelle]

I just got to thinking (and forgive me if it's forward to talk as if the two of you are going to end up together, but that's the way you introduced the situation)...

Before you two met each other, neither one of you could have known whether or not you would end up being the spouse with the higher income. Maybe it would be reasonable for a nurse to expect to be the one who makes less, and for an engineer to expect to be the one who makes more, but you couldn't know for sure.

So for all you knew, it could have been you who would be the lower earner and would have to stay home. You say that discovering that would have come as a shock to you, so maybe that is exactly what she is going through (or doubly so for her if she expected to be part of a dual-income household, where there would be no chance of having to give up her career).

Thus my other piece of advice would be not to push too hard. If you're not planning on having kids for a while, you guys have time to ease into the idea.

Incidentally, I'm not sold on the whole "school sucks" thing. There were aspects of school that definitely sucked for me, but I'm glad my parents didn't homeschool me. They were pretty clueless about the world when they were younger, and I didn't think they could have provided me with a quality education. They taught me the things they knew about in the evenings, and for the rest, I had teachers with years of experience teaching children. Maybe things are different now that we have the internet...

My main complaint is that I didn't feel comfortable talking to my parents about any upsetting things that happened during my day, so a lot of experiences remained unprocessed until I became self-aware enough to process them on my own. I think the most important thing is to work to maintain an open relationship with your kids, so that they feel comfortable coming to you with anything. You can help them figure out how they feel about events, you can help them problem-solve, and they can feel secure knowing that you'll step in if the situation is just too much for them to handle. I think kids are resilient enough to go through a lot without getting too damaged, as long as they have that support system at home. Not only that, but they'll learn how to deal with challenging situations. Great practice for adult life, where there is no one to shield you from the world at large.

[PatrickC]

Also, she is deeply worried that if homeschooled, our children will not develop social skills. She is very concerned that our children will be missing out on the bonds and friendships that are sometimes created with people that go through years of school together. She says that that was a joyous part of her childhood and it is very disturbing for her to imagine her children without that opportunity.

This is the oldest and most well oiled argument for regular schooling of course, the 'socialisation' argument. The funny thing is that children only get to interact with kids the exact same year as each other. Hardly an optimum way to socialise frankly. Plenty of homeschooling groups I imagine that you can interact with like Dayna Martin and other parents in the unschooling enviroment. You might need to do a bit of research in that regard and get to know parents before having children. It's a very active and fun community from what I can tell.

I think it's fair to say that your engineering career is likely to be more profitable in the long run for the family. Unless she has plans on becoming some top hospital administrator perhaps. However, her nursing career might well prove to be more flexible and adpative than your own career. So in terms of being a stay at home dad in an affordable and child friendly location/enviroment, her nursing career might prove to be more available locally than yours.

I would be curious to hear what she experienced as a 'joyous' experience of school. Talk to her about your own experiences of school warts and all. There is also the problem that boys & girls often experience school very differently. Girls are statistically more successful at school, which may lead to more percieved happiness for them when they look back. Whereas boys tend to report with 'disipline' problems and they do have the highest drop out rates. Public school carries a significant risk of failure for boys, even based upon the average statist view of things.

Information and knowledge will be your friend when you are trying persuade someone into taking a different view from the norm. I have a some sympathy for them, particularly with someone I care about. So it's only fair that you do all the relavent hard work in bringing the empirical information to them. That way they can at least evaluate the information more dispassionately. Best of luck!

[JakeWaters]

 

REPOST--formatting error...

 

VforVoluntary49:

We're both 26. And yes, we don't plan on having children until we're around 30 or so. Yes, we both want to introduce our children to as much as possible, including sports, and I would love for them to do anything that they truly enjoy. Yeah, I would never insist that they do some particular activity just because I want them to. I actually played baseball for 10 years when I was a kid, but I was never asked if I wanted to play. I didn't enjoy it for the most part.

I'm atheist. She says she's not religious because she "doesn't know what she believes". She's the type of person that doesn't think about religion or politics or philosophy. But I see your point about the nessecity of talking about religion. Even though she is not interested in religion or philosophy, and has never had much conversation about those things, it has to be discussed.

 

Annabelle:

You make a very good point. My whole vision of my future would be turned upside down if I were the one that needed to be at home. I guess I was surprised at her reaction because she loves kids and can't wait to be a mother. She's very gentle and motherly, and I just assumed she would jump at the chance to stay at home with the kids. And I think you are right again that things didn't go so well because I did have the mindset of "how do I convince her to see things my way".

 

 

 

I'm planning on having another discussion with her tomorrow night. We've never really had much serious discussion about religion, philosophy, parenting, etc. I guess it's inevitable, and it's probably healthy to do it regularly.

[JakeWaters]

Annabelle:

That's another assumption I made--that I would always have the higher income. I also didn't realize that she placed so much importance on her career. I mean, her favorite things to talk about are family, kids, weddings, marriage, homemaking, etc. I assumed she would be happier staying at home than working. I assume that I assume too much. 

And yeah, it's good that we have some time before we are ready to have kids. 

I also would agree that not every single school is bad for every single person. I think there are certain personalities out there that benefit from: being around a large group of people for long periods of time, receiving verbal explanations and personal interactions with certain subjects, perhaps the competition that comes with being around a large group of peers, etc. But I also think that school, especially public school, can be a horrible experience for many, many people (like me). There were a few things that I enjoyed, but for the most part it felt like a prison filled with hollow, two-dimensional people with no character or substance.

I completely see your point about the importance of home-life for children. Like if I was forced to put my kids in a horrible public school for some reason, it would not negatively affect them as much if they had a wonderful home to come home to.

 

xelent:

Yeah, I do need to learn more about what options are available. Perhaps she would be more open to homeschooling if she saw the groups and communities that are available.

I think I see your point about flexibility--like, for instance, if we lived out in the country but near a hospital, she would still make a hefty salary but our cost of living would be very low.

She went to a private school and she had an amazing experience. Everyone knew everyone else and she literally has no bad memories from that time. She never felt forced to be there, she always wanted to be there. She did as many extracurricular activities as she could, and she remains friends with several of her old teachers and classmates. This was nothing like my experience, although i do have some friends that remain.

[PatrickC]

She went to a private school and she had an amazing experience. Everyone knew everyone else and she literally has no bad memories from that time. She never felt forced to be there, she always wanted to be there. She did as many extracurricular activities as she could, and she remains friends with several of her old teachers and classmates. This was nothing like my experience, although i do have some friends that remain.

I'm going to 'assume' [] that she went to either a Sudbury school or a liberal Montessori one perhaps.

These schools can be great options of course, if you both decide to go with schooling. Sudbury schooling is perhaps the best option. They are often described as democratic schools where the kids get to vote on important matters regarding their education and conflicts with pupils or teachers. It shouldnt be confused with political democracy mind, as any schooling is a voluntary decision made by each child. The pupils can decide what they would like to learn and then choose for how long. This type of schooling would be a worthwhile compromise perhaps.

[Magenta]

I don't understand how you can reach a conclusion on something as complex as child-rearing if the basics like standards for truth have not even been established. It's putting the cart before the horse, hanging the curtains before the foundation has been poured, grabbing for the leaves when the roots haven't started.

[JakeWaters]

 

I don't understand how you can reach a conclusion on something as complex as child-rearing if the basics like standards for truth have not even been established. It's putting the cart before the horse, hanging the curtains before the foundation has been poured, grabbing for the leaves when the roots haven't started.

 

 

Yep. That's why I plan to discuss religion, basic philosophy, etc, before we try the parenting discussion again.

 

[zg7666]

In my case, I think, this was a crucial: look who goes in education today, see which of our generation came teachers...  (often emphasized here, that would be the bottom 30% of students). 

In addition some cold facts about the school system have been helpful, too.