This Momversation is a discussion about which is harder: being a mom or being a wife.
- Dooce, having experienced post-partum depression, says that marriage was much easier, and she shares many good reasons why. She votes for Motherhood as the more difficult.
- Finslippy says (among other things) that it’s easier to neglect marriage, making it the more difficult of the two.
- GirlsGoneChild, who experienced marriage and children in rapid fashion, also agrees that marriage is the more difficult.
Dooce got more than 700 comments on this and has shut them down. There are conversations going on at GirlsGoneChild and at Momversation, but I was wondering what my readers think about motherhood vs wifehood, either in the concrete (you are a parent) or in the abstract (you will one day be a parent, and you give your best guess as to which will be more difficult for you).
Motherhood vs Spousehood
Conventional wisdom might say that for Infertyls, motherhood will be incredibly rewarding after the long and tortuous route to get there. And that, consequently, achieving that hard-won dream would make parenting less difficult than marriage (especially a marriage that has been tested by infertility).
But my own experience did not fit into that mold. Regarding marriage, I know how to navigate a peer relationship, a (mostly) rational relationship of (mostly) equals.
I struggled then, and I still sometimes do, with the irrational relationship I have with purely emotional beings. As they become more rational, parenting them becomes easier for me.
And in theory, I should be the One In Control in my relationships with Tessa and Reed, right? I am Authority and they should, at all times, defer to my more seasoned judgment. (Don’t laugh. My parents expected this of me, and I have forgotten that I rarely gave it to them.)
Smack!
That’s reality hitting me upside the head on an almost-hourly basis. My kids DON’T stop fighting when I tell ask them to. They DON’T keep their dirty and clean clothes in different places. They DON’T accept my wisdom about not eating boogers as gospel.
Control is an illusion. Tessa and Reed just might have more of it than I do. It certainly seems like it at times.
These are some of the reasons why motherhood is, for me, more difficult than spousehood.
(Well, that and the fact that Roger cooks.)
So, for you, which is or will be harder — being a parent or being a spouse? Please share why you think so.
