Question:
I’m wondering if it’s normal for children to have full access to their parent’s bedroom at all hours of the night and day. My wife lets our children fall asleep with her in our bed and then she doesn’t move them when we go to bed at night. She tells me that it helps the children feel more secure to know that they can have access to their parents anytime. We have no privacy for us and we always have at least one or two of our kids in the bed at any given hour. I feel like a selfish dad for asking this, but it’s getting old having to share with all of these extra bodies.
Answer:
It sounds like the old attachment parenting debate is alive and well in your marriage!
What you’re describing is the collision of two very different theories of childrearing that won’t be easy to resolve in a few sentences. However, the first thing I offer you is: Don’t lose hope. If you have a partner who is open to your perspective, this is something you can work out with her.
What’s my personal opinion, you ask? I think that it’s important to let your children know that you are there for them, but it’s more important to give the marriage it’s own time and space that doesn’t include children. The marriage is a separate entity from the children and family and it needs to be nurtured in its own special way.
I do agree with your wife that your children need to feel safe and know that their parents are accessible and responsive to their needs. This is the great contribution of attachment parenting. However, I believe this can be taken too far – to the point where parents become afraid that if their children aren’t “attached” to them all of the time the children will suffer.
Quite honestly, I see more marriages suffering from lack of attention than children suffering from lack of attention. And, when marriages suffer, children ultimately pay the price.
You both sound like very conscientious parents whose children probably get plenty of love and attention. I would continue talking with my wife about carving out a space for the marriage that doesn’t include the children. Perhaps all of the little bodies can be cleared out of the parents’ bedroom before you both head to bed so the two of you can have talk, touch, and reconnect at the end of the day. There are lots of possible solutions to getting your couple’s time, but the value of the marriage bed is a conversation worth having.
If your wife won’t budge on this, go right to the heart of the matter and ask her how she feels about being alone with you. There might be marriage issues you’re not aware of and she might be using the children as a way to protect her from having to be alone with you.
If your marriage is really not the issue here, then stay with the conversation until you can carve out a special space for your marriage both in and out of the bedroom. Your children will have more security and a stronger foundation when mom and dad are connected.
Stay connected!
Geoff Steurer is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in St. George, Utah. He specializes in working with couples in all stages of their relationships. The opinions stated in this article are solely his and not those of St. George News.
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Copyright St. George News, StGeorgeUtah.com Inc., 2012, all rights reserved
It’s important to take advantage of the plasticity of a child’s brain early on and program it so that the resultant behavior is compatible with the parameters of one’s lifestyle. In my case, I enjoy having servants, but not paying for them. I keep my children out of public schools so that they can constantly tend to daily household maintenance functions as well as the kitchen duties required to satisfy my gourmet tastes. Most kids have to be coerced into this, and even then, they rebel and do a sloppy job. I’m glad my kids are not like this, because I would struggle with wanting to beat them, and if I did that, they’d be taken away by CPS, which would be a major blow to my balance sheet. My kids were expertly trained with techniques informed by years of MKULTRA research and various classified documents. I have found that they are doing better than I had expected in educating themselves solely through the internet. I’m writing a book about my techniques, which will probably revolutionize parenting. I anticipate it being the most successful self-published Amazon book ever.
Program brains? Servants? Keep children out of public schools, not so that you can improve their educational opportunities, but to do daily house chores and tend to your whims. If they didn’t comply you would “struggle with wanting to beat them”? Based entirely on your own written comments, you are one sick individual.
As far as you using MKULTRA techniques on your kids (and then wanting to write a book on this) makes perfect sense. These are the same CIA-sponsored experiments that Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, participated in at Harvard University from 1959-1962 and testing that mobster James “Whitey” Bulger volunteered for while in prison. Yeah, your kids will turn out okay and your book will be a HUGE hit with parents trying to improve their children and their own parenting skills. What will the sub title be…”kids will turn out like Kaczynski”???