I just read this article on CNN.com. The author, Fernanda Moore, discusses how she tried to discipline her husband by using the techniques she picked up in parenting guides - and which have been successful on her children.
Beyond the weirdness of treating your husband like a child, the author also seems to resent staying at home with the kids and portrays her husband as ungrateful.
I don't know. It all seems strange. I'd prefer a partner - male OR female - who doesn't need to be treated like a child, who respects me, and who helps around the house without being "creatively disciplined."
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You are right that is seriously weird.
I live in Utah, a place where being a stay at home mom is more important than fiscal responsibility or any type of safety net. The reigning belief is that if you don't stay at home you are basically a horrible person and hate your children. I have become fascinated with a blog, http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/. These poor ladies (not all) don't really seem to like their lives but are really defensive about any suggestion about not staying home (because of course that means you hate your children). I have no problem with women who chose to be stay-at-home moms but if you hate it, STOP DOING IT! I think your family would prefer some day-care time and a happy mom instead of a very angry mom. By the by, if you even utter the word day-care in Utah some one will run up behind you and punch you in the neck. (OUCH! my neck).
why do you think hubby needs to be treated like a child. maybe the author simply wants to do it because of some power trip.
It never fails to shock me how ignorant people are about relationships and marriage. You simply can't enter a relationship expecting to make all sorts of changes to your partner. They may change, they may not. If your whole reason for spending your life with someone is conditional on them changing something about themselves, IT WON'T WORK. It pisses me off.
I read the article and I found her to be resentful of her husband because of the nature of his work. I also found her techniques to be very passive-aggressive and selfish. Her husband wasn't being an asshole; he does scientific research and that means irregular hours. Yes, he could call her, but maybe he didn't have the chance to -- or doesn't consistently.
I found her idea that treating her husband as if he were a child -- especially on the day he wanted to spend time with her and she either (1)didn't have the courage to say "I'm sorry, but I just don't feel like it tonight" or (2)didn't have the respect for her husband to treat him like an adult -- really, deeply insulting to him.
When she does go to talk to him, he treats her with an air of skepticism. I wouldn't blame him! I mean, seriously, if this situation had been flipped where he was a stay-at-home Dad doing this to the working Mom, people would flip their shit because it's disrespectful to Mom.
I honestly found her behavior really disgusting, if you hadn't already guessed by my response.
The "creative discipline" section, where she discusses the fact that he comes home late sometimes, is probably most telling: her tactic of sitting him down doesn't sound like discipline; it sounds like talking to your spouse like an adult about something that bothers you.
Imagining your husband (or wife!) as a child rather than an adult smacks of condescension and self-righteousness, not to mention a watching of too many cookie-cutter sitcoms.
But most interesting is her reflex to resort to parent-child rhetoric, even when addressing her husband -- "go to your room!" when she is angry with her husband; "use your words" when she solicits him to speak to her -- and how that might suggest that her life is too cloistered, too narrow in its social opportunities. When our reflex is to address adults like children, we are spending too much time with children. This woman's behavior reveals one of the possible pitfalls of the stay-at-home mom lifestyle: too narrow a quality of social interaction.
Yeah, this was discussed on a childfree board I look at, the general consensus there is that it's a sick and unhealthy way to relate to a partner in an adult marriage.
At first I wondered if this was some kind of kink/game --"You've been a naughty boy, go to my room" ;) In which case to each their own, consenting adults and all that, right? But I think she REALLY thinks this is a way to live life together and interact--sad.
Eh...I don't know. I think she has some good points in there. I do think that sometimes people put more thought in to how they are relating to their kids than how they are relating to their spouse. And a lot of parenting "advice" is actually just good advice for relationships in general. Like her examples of "rewarding good behavior" and spending some quality time. A few years ago, things were pretty tense in my marriage. We've worked on a few things, like thanking each other and acknowledging the work the other one does, and also making sure that we spend some one on one time together each day. Both of those things seem like no-brainers, but they'd gotten lost in the busy routine of coming home from work and managing two kids. We've also talked about taking "time outs" when we are really upset, rather than yelling at each other.
So I don't find this too offensive. My husband and I have a pretty good balance of splitting up the household work, but that doesn't mean things are harmonious all the time. Stepping back and realizing that we shouldn't take each other for granted, and we should put the same amount of thought in to our relationship as we do in to our parenting, was a good thing for us.
kat, it sounds, though, like you took a different approach to solving the same problems. If I'm reading your post correctly, you're saying that you and your husband sat down and talked openly about your issues and agreed on strategies deal with them.
The author of this article withheld her true feelings from her husband, and instead tried to manipulate him into acting the way she wanted by treating him like one of her children.
IMO, your approach was healthy. The author's approach was condescending, dishonest, and maybe sexist? I mean "sexist" as in "it's OK to treat adult men like children", while, I'm assuming, Feminist women (perhaps even the author) would balk at the suggestion that an adult woman be treated like a child. (Hope that last part makes sense.)
In a marriage, there should be two equal partners. The husband and the wife are considered two parts of a whole, and children are the next generation in line and they should be treated as such. A wife treating her husband like a child is disrespectful to him as her partner, and completely ignorant on her part. There is a difference between compromise and the methods she used.
The idea of disciplining your spouse is just all kinds of ick. Romantic partnerships should be about respect, equality, and balance. The relationship in the article just isn't healthy at all.
The idea of being nice when someone does something good more than than being mean when they do something bad works pretty well for most relationships. The creepy part is the way she frames it as treating her husband as a child.
I wonder what her husband will say when he reads her article. Or did she set the parental controls on their computer so he can't see Big Kid Websites?!
I'm going to hazard a guess that the "Go to your room" and "Use your words" were fictional, and intended for comic effect. At least I hope that's the case. If my wife ever told me "Use your words," and actually meant it, I daresay she'd get a rather choice selection thereof.
It seems to me that the parenting techniques didn't work the way that she desired and the grown-up talk at the end was more effective.
So because you have Daddy issues - you think it's acceptable to hate on all fathers? Well, you know what? My life wasn't perfect either. My mom used to beat the crap out of me. I wasn in care by age 10. My brother was beaten with an organ leg, and moved out by age 11. My Sister also was gone by age 11. I was the youngest. We all suffered. When he slaps had no effect on me any more - she resorted to using weapons, canes, shoes bedroom furniture, whatever she could find.
We dont have to treat our husband as child