Zatera Ul

…here by Glenn Reynolds about the current high social costs of being a parent, half from safety nazis and half from a child-intolerant culture. I spend a good ten or fifteen minutes a week just buckling children into car seats, and that’s just for weekly shopping and to go to church. My parents just threw us in the back of the Chevette and we could loll around as we pleased.

Then there’s the demands that children be constantly supervised and controlled. That’s one reason for my 161-hour work week. One time I had a couple of hours to myself, entirely free, and I was amazed how nice I was afterward; such a caring, patient, nurturing mother. Lately I’ve been lucky to be able to sit for more than two minutes at a time, except while nursing.

Glenn left out, though, the increased demands on mothers during pregnancy. Eating and exercising exactly right, cutting out the booze and cigarettes and caffeine and tuna fish entirely, worrying through endless prenatal testing. The fussing and fretting doesn’t end during labor, either, and the current caesarean rate of about 32-33% is a significant weight on parentdom.

Feminism, too, has made parenting harder in many ways.