The 3M mother
DEVON Corneal is an attorney and a writer. Her essay, “Can You Hear Me Now? Why Parents Can’t Get Kids To Listen”, was published online by The Huffington Post (Nov 3, 2011). In it, Corneal carps about her children not listening to her. She identifies the three children in question as “a son, a stepson, and the manchild I married”. She refers to them as “boys”.
For years I’ve said that the most sexist non joke is told by women who, when asked how many children they have, include their husbands in the count. I guarantee that women of two-plus generations ago did not speak in such terms about their husbands. Something has changed, obviously. I propose that the something is the anxiety women now bring to the parenting process.
Not so long ago, women approached the raising of children with confidence in their authority. And the typical mum in 1957 had three children; today’s mum has one, maybe one point five. Another huge difference between then and now: Whereas the mum of 1957 read virtually nothing on “parenting”, today’s mum reads as much as she can. In the process, she allows what I call “psychological bogeymen” into her head.
The bogeymen cause her to believe that any misbehaviour on the part of her kids is indication that she has either done something wrong or failed to do something she should have done. For better or worse, it all comes back to her – or so she thinks.
Stress and anxiety turn normally rational people into raving micromanagers. Indeed, today’s all-too typical mum is a Magnificent Maternal Micromanager (the ubiquitous 3M mother). She does it all not because her husband will not take any parenting initiative but because she does not trust him to do it right. In the process, he begins to look like one of the kids – in need of just as much correction as they do.
And so, like many women, Devon Corneal feels she’s married to a “boy”, a “manchild”. Actually, this non-joke reveals more about her than it does her husband, and it’s not the least bit funny. — The Charlotte Observer (North Carolina)/mcclatchy-tribune Information Services • Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions at www.rosemond.com