titles moms typically perform in American households, including housekeeper, van driver, day-care provider, staff psychologist, and chief executive officer.) Most guys do not spend 94.4 hours a week at their jobs. And 99 percent of them earn less than $117,000 per year.
This may explain why, in the vast majority of cases, the increase in hostile interactions usually starts with the woman and spreads to the man. Which brings us to a little book that may provide a clue to the cure. My wife got it as a gift from a friend. It is titled Porn for Women. It’s a picture book of hunks, photographed in all their chiseled, muscle-bound, testosterone-marinated, PG-rated glory. Lots of naked chests and low-cut jeans, complete with tousled hair and beckoning eyes. And they are ALL doing housework.
There’s a picture of a well-cut Adonis, and he’s loading the washing machine. The caption reads: “As soon as I finish the laundry, I’ll do the grocery shopping. And I’ll take the kids with me so you can
relax.” There’s another hunk, the cover guy, vacuuming the floor. A particularly athletic-looking man peers up from the sports section and declares, “Ooh, look, the NFL playoffs are today. I bet we’ll have no trouble parking at the crafts fair”.
Porn for Women . Available at a marriage near you.
4. Depression
What to make of the transition to parenthood? We have so far outlined an experience that requires a “giving response” three times per minute, allows half the sleep you need, provides little energy for friendships, and turns issues like who takes out the garbage into divorce risks. If these aren’t perfect conditions from which to ferment our final Grape of Wrath, I don’t know what are. Our fourth subject is depression. Fortunately, the majority of you won’t experience it, but it is serious enough to warrant attention.
About half of all new mothers experience a transient postpartum sadness that vanishes in a few hours or days. These baby blues are typical. But another 10 percent to 20 percent of mothers experience something much deeper and infinitely more troubling. These women are dogged by feelings of deepening despair, sorrow, and worthlessness, even if their marriages are doing well. Such painful, bewildering feelings last for weeks and months. Afflicted mothers cry all the time or simply stare out the window. They may stop eating. They may eat too much. These mothers are becoming clinically depressed, a condition known as postpartum depression. Though plenty of controversy rages about its sources and the criteria used to diagnose it, there is no controversy about the solution.
Women experiencing overwhelming anxiety, moodiness, or sadness require intervention. Left untreated, the consequences of postpartum depression can be tragic, ranging from a severe drop in quality of life to infanticide and suicide. Left untreated, postpartum depression also will debilitate the lively, interactive bonds that are supposed to develop between parent and child in the earliest months.
Instead, the baby begins mirroring the mother’s depressive actions. It’s called reciprocal withdrawal. These children become more insecure, socially inhibited, timid, and passive—about twice as fearful on average as children raised by mothers who aren’t depressed. The damage is still observable 14 months after birth.
It’s not just the woman who’s at risk for depression. Between one tenth and one quarter of all new dads become depressed when baby is born. If the woman is also depressed, that figure goes up to 50 percent. Not a pretty picture of bringing a baby home, is it?
Happily, this is not the complete picture.
‘Nobody told me it was going to be so hard’
A common comment I hear from parents when I lecture on brain development is “Nobody told me it was going to be so hard”. I do not wish to minimize the hardness of the transition to parenthood, but I wish to offer some perspective on it.
One of the reasons
This may explain why, in the vast majority of cases, the increase in hostile interactions usually starts with the woman and spreads to the man. Which brings us to a little book that may provide a clue to the cure. My wife got it as a gift from a friend. It is titled Porn for Women. It’s a picture book of hunks, photographed in all their chiseled, muscle-bound, testosterone-marinated, PG-rated glory. Lots of naked chests and low-cut jeans, complete with tousled hair and beckoning eyes. And they are ALL doing housework.
There’s a picture of a well-cut Adonis, and he’s loading the washing machine. The caption reads: “As soon as I finish the laundry, I’ll do the grocery shopping. And I’ll take the kids with me so you can
relax.” There’s another hunk, the cover guy, vacuuming the floor. A particularly athletic-looking man peers up from the sports section and declares, “Ooh, look, the NFL playoffs are today. I bet we’ll have no trouble parking at the crafts fair”.
Porn for Women . Available at a marriage near you.
4. Depression
What to make of the transition to parenthood? We have so far outlined an experience that requires a “giving response” three times per minute, allows half the sleep you need, provides little energy for friendships, and turns issues like who takes out the garbage into divorce risks. If these aren’t perfect conditions from which to ferment our final Grape of Wrath, I don’t know what are. Our fourth subject is depression. Fortunately, the majority of you won’t experience it, but it is serious enough to warrant attention.
About half of all new mothers experience a transient postpartum sadness that vanishes in a few hours or days. These baby blues are typical. But another 10 percent to 20 percent of mothers experience something much deeper and infinitely more troubling. These women are dogged by feelings of deepening despair, sorrow, and worthlessness, even if their marriages are doing well. Such painful, bewildering feelings last for weeks and months. Afflicted mothers cry all the time or simply stare out the window. They may stop eating. They may eat too much. These mothers are becoming clinically depressed, a condition known as postpartum depression. Though plenty of controversy rages about its sources and the criteria used to diagnose it, there is no controversy about the solution.
Women experiencing overwhelming anxiety, moodiness, or sadness require intervention. Left untreated, the consequences of postpartum depression can be tragic, ranging from a severe drop in quality of life to infanticide and suicide. Left untreated, postpartum depression also will debilitate the lively, interactive bonds that are supposed to develop between parent and child in the earliest months.
Instead, the baby begins mirroring the mother’s depressive actions. It’s called reciprocal withdrawal. These children become more insecure, socially inhibited, timid, and passive—about twice as fearful on average as children raised by mothers who aren’t depressed. The damage is still observable 14 months after birth.
It’s not just the woman who’s at risk for depression. Between one tenth and one quarter of all new dads become depressed when baby is born. If the woman is also depressed, that figure goes up to 50 percent. Not a pretty picture of bringing a baby home, is it?
Happily, this is not the complete picture.
‘Nobody told me it was going to be so hard’
A common comment I hear from parents when I lecture on brain development is “Nobody told me it was going to be so hard”. I do not wish to minimize the hardness of the transition to parenthood, but I wish to offer some perspective on it.
One of the reasons
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