Do Parents Whine Too Much?

~ Laura

In last week’s Slate, Ruth Graham wrote a funny little piece about all the whining that goes along with modern parenting. Ross Douthat suspects that he’s another parental whiner.

Like most parents, I whine about it and kiss the brats all at the same time. I’m not whining so much about parenting any more. The kids themselves are easy as long as you give them a frozen burrito and good wifi access. My whines du jour are mostly about being stuck in the suburbs until the kids finish school.

Published by Laura

4 thoughts on “Do Parents Whine Too Much?”

  1. My theory on the parental whining is that for generations women did most of the work, and when they whined they were (for the most part, with the exception of Ayelet Waldman) told that they were bad mommies. I think there’s a renaissance on the whining occuring now that men are doing more active parenting. For some reason, they don’t feel compelled to keep the whining to themselves — and even when guys whine, they’re not told that they’re crappy fathers for doing so. Rather, it’s regarding as a charming manifestation of their involvement.

    I do know that as our careers became more 50/50 and my husband out of necessity started doing more kid stuff, he has found himself whining more with the fellow dads simply because now he’s more aware of how tedious certain aspects of parenting can be. (“Really? They need to eat every day? Three times a day? And the refrigerator doesn’t just magically fill itself with food every week?”) On the upside, at least where I live, the stay at home dads and involved dads have started actually speaking up and vetoing some of the silly stuff that goes on at school that women used to complain about, only to be told that they bad moms because they resented coming home at the end of a long day to a really involved craft project for Spanish, etc. I used to complain about how every crafty type project involved a ten dollar trip to Michael’s, and how with three kids, it was theoretically possible to spend a hundred dollars a month on things like: the Civil WAr scrapbook; the chemistry ‘make an element mobile’; the diorama of the Scarlet Letter, the pinata for Spanish class, etc. etc. etc But once dads start taking kids to Michaels, some of them actually approach the administration and suggest that their family’s resources could be better used elsewhere. I don’t mind whining if it’s productive.

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  2. It seems like Ruth Graham needed to sell an article, and making sense paled beside pecuniary considerations. As she concedes, the kind of articles and books she is complaining about are humorous and ironic in tone. I don’t believe that she or anyone else is actually caused to question the value of parenthood, any more than reading, say, Cynthia Heimel causes someone to abandon heterosexuality.

    It’s an ancient vein of humor, the kind that appears to subvert established social values, but really doesn’t. As George Orwell noted, P.G. Wodehouse is funny because a master should not be dependent on his servant, and an earl ought to have more dignity. Wodehouse’s humor doesn’t really subvert the class structure; humorous complaints about children reinforce, rather than subverting, the valorization of parenthood; and complaints about romantic relationships with the opposite sex reinforce, rather than subverting, heterosexuality.

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  3. “It’s an ancient vein of humor, the kind that appears to subvert established social values, but really doesn’t”

    Yes. That ponytail article — I was going to call it humble-bragging. Complaining about the ponytail woes of a child who is obviously both adorable and loved. My only thought on looking at the pictures was that the child was cute. Do childless people really read the article and have fear? A big part of the humor does come from laughing at the incredible love you feel, that makes you want to try to give your child the ponytail of her dreams.

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