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I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.
About Me
Blogs I Like to Read
- Amy's Very Cool Homeschooling Family
- Ann Douglas
- Blogging Baby
- David Rhoden
- Domestic Psychology
- First Impressionist
- Jonathan Hickman
- Lemuria Books
- Mamas Ink
- Marrit Ingman
- Martini Made
- Meagan Francis
- Mo's Journal
- Remembering Ward
- Suburban Turmoil
- The Vol Abroad
- This Woman's Work
- Women's Health News
- Zygote Daddy
Good Stuff on Being a Parent/Family Life
Books I"ve written/contributed to
Blog Archive
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2005
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April
(74)
- i hate...
- godspeaks.com
- war dead
- ezra's blog
- be afraid, be very afraid
- no hairpeace
- Market Square Cam
- pret a porter
- Making 80s CDs for party and stumbling on many of ...
- My first grader, Elliot, has a pal, Caleb, who liv...
- iraq
- Ayelet Waldman's new piece in Salon about the haph...
- Via Ezra's blog: Students for an Orwellian Society
- webb feet
- devon
- the divine s.v.
- Oakwood-Lincoln Park
- nannyneeded
- the other moms
- unsatisfied
- I am a Gen-Xer, which means I am seriously excited...
- spongeworthy
- Mother Nature has a dark sense of humor. Today, on...
- cost per word
- George W.
- lemur Originally uploaded by kgranju. I'm ...
- DeLay
- janecinco2 Originally uploaded by kgranju....
- Jane and "Boy Wonder" - April 17, 2005
- biblical literalists, take note:
- random horse thoughts
- not to be confused with the String Cheese Incident
- This is my fifth day in a row off work -- my real ...
- phonefun
- From ATL
- Even if you don't know my pal Ayun Halliday (and y...
- Off to the deep south for several days to speak at...
- discourse with elliot
- need naming help
- Oh joy. Tonight I am going to see David Sedaris at...
- susie on andrea
- This discussion about social conventions related t...
- elliot
- andrea dworkin
- management consulting
- i heart news
- I'm really interested in the concept of intentiona...
- tsunami
- charles & camilla get hitched
- burkas Originally uploaded by kgranju. Thi...
- happywritergrrl
- cookie monster going low carb
- dating sucks, redux
- flickr3 Originally uploaded by kgranju. I'...
- Robert
- In watching the Pope's funeral today (I work in a ...
- thought for the day
- friendster
- ouch
- i am getting veeeeerrrryy sleepy....
- don't you wish...
- death cab for cutie
- schadenfreude
- seeing things
- www.current.tv
- The search terms people use to end up at my blog a...
- question of the day
- not working
- You really should read this book, like, immediatel...
- creepy
- atlanta
- elliot's first riding lesson
- elliot's first horseshow
- popewatch
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April
(74)
16 comments:
to quote many an attachment parenter on the recieving end of someone "creeped out" by a four or five year old still nursing: DONT LOOK AT HIM THEN. he was a holy man and catholics have every right to see thier leader laid out in state. its none of your business. I am not catholic but your conmment just smacks so deeply of the self centered hyper analytical blogger who thinks that they have to have an analysis and a comment on everything and anything going on in our world and if something goes against how you think the world should be then it should just be blotted out. I personally am not much for funerals and dead bodies but I fully understand why the world is mourning this great man and why worldwide Catholics want to see thier leader before he is laid to rest. may you be as holy. I know you are very full of yourself and your opinions but a little humility would absolutely do you no harm whatsoever. I imagine you will delete this because I think you just prune out anyone who doesnt just praise you to the hilt online. maybe those narcissistic tendencies had something to do with your divorce..hmmmm.....
Yikes!
Saying that seeing the Pope lying in state creeps me out has nothing to do with why I'm divorced (although that would make a far more entertaining story than the real aone. Such a better story, in fact, that I think I'll start telling it that way. What do you think?)
Seeing dead people all dressed up creeps me out. This really has nothing to do with who the Pope is/was or Catholocism or attachment parenting....
ah yes. the sign of our times. no one wants to work at marriage. no one wants to get thru the rough times. just "better off not married'> we arent talking people who married someone who turned out to be a sociopath. just someone that eventually someone was unwilling to bend and adapt (and based on Ms Granjus very dogmatic opinions I am willing to bet that she was at least part of the problem) I think that people who read her parenting books might be very interested to know if becoming as adament and dogmatic about theories which have not been proven to be scientifically neccessary might just lead to the demise of thier marriages. they deserve to know. it would be very interesting to see if all her vigorous "parenting" produces children who are any more willing to engage in relationships as adults knowing how easily they are dissolved. as far as I know no one remembers thier infancy and if they had to cry it out a bit but plenty of people have very cold feet about love and trust because their parents chose to divorce rather than deal with thier character issues that prevented them from staying together in stability. this generation has it backwards. you pour it ALL into the kids and if the marriage doesnt work out, well, hey, thats OK. doesnt scar kids anyway. there is a whole heck of a lot more research out there that supports divorce scarring children than say, crying it out or being made to sleep in a crib scarring children. I remember Ms Granju about ten years ago creating new orifices for anyone who did not go along with her rabidly extreme views of parenting. and now when she has gone and done something proven deleterious to the adult lives of her children she doesnt really like it too much when people point it out. like I said I would be most interested to know if the same personality traits that make her so insane about parenting issues also reared their head in her marriage. if say she would rather give her kids a broken home than GASP..compromise a little. yeah, teaching your kids you terminate relationships rather than compromise , thats fitting them for adult life real well
You are wrong. I make no excuses.
I do think divorce is bad. I do think it hurts children and has been very hard on my children.
There is no way I can adequately describe to you the pain and guilt I feel over failing to keep my marriage together. I will carry that guilt the rest of my life. I make no excuses for myself. I failed my children when their father and I divorced.
I don't know who you are or why you seem to feel compelled to figure out why or how I came to be divorced, but your schadenfreude is getting tiresome.
Hey, I think you should feel free to delete wacko comments. It's your blog, not this person's, and I don't care what she/he thinks; I'm not here to read it. Besides, I don't think she/he is quite "all there," if you know what I mean. I just skimmed the comments, but they don't seem to be the thoughtful analysis of a sane mind. Discourse with him/her is pointless.
Anyway, these kinds of comments are so typical and mundane. Like Dooce, like Rosie, like any other blogger with a relatively high profile, you now seem to have your own nutjob.
I think good parenting and divorce are two separate issues. I think it is obvious to anyone who reads Katie's blog even semi-regularly that she did not make the decision to divorce lightly and that she feels terribly about her divorce and the pain this has caused her children. Being married does not necessarily make one a good parent or provide a stable home. Being divorced does not necessarily make one a bad parent or provide an unstable home. And no, perhaps we do not remember as adults being left to cry it out as infants. But any psychology 101 book will tell you that infancy is about trust vs. mistrust. If we cannot trust our parents to provide for our needs as infants (by responding to our cries) then how can we ever truly learn to trust anyone else? Can we say that just because we don't remember being treated in a manner unloving and uncaring that there will be no scars left?? And I think these same parenting philosophies of allowing a baby to cry then carry over into times the child can remember and that the parents still fail to be there for them.
for the research minded...mined from the web..
Each year, over 1 million American children suffer the divorce of their parents; moreover, half of the children born this year to parents who are married will see their parents divorce before they turn 18. Mounting evidence in social science journals demonstrates that the devastating physical, emotional, and financial effects that divorce is having on these children will last well into adulthood and affect future generations. Among these broad and damaging effects are the following:
*
Children whose parents have divorced are increasingly the victims of abuse. They exhibit more health, behavioral, and emotional problems, are involved more frequently in crime and drug abuse, and have higher rates of suicide.
*
Children of divorced parents perform more poorly in reading, spelling, and math. They also are more likely to repeat a grade and to have higher drop-out rates and lower rates of college graduation.
*
Families with children that were not poor before the divorce see their income drop as much as 50 percent. Almost 50 percent of the parents with children that are going through a divorce move into poverty after the divorce.
* Religious worship, which has been linked to better health, longer marriages, and better family life, drops after the parents divorce.
The divorce of parents, even if it is amicable, tears apart the fundamental unit of American society. Today, according to the Federal Reserve Board's 1995 Survey of Consumer Finance, only 42 percent of children aged 14 to 18 live in a "first marriage" family--an intact two-parent married family. It should be no surprise to find that divorce is having such profound effects on society.
Restoring the importance of marriage to society and the welfare of children will require politicians and civic leaders to make this one of their most important tasks. It also will require a modest commitment of resources to pro-marriage programs. Fiscal conservatives should realize that federal and state governments spend $150 billion per year to subsidize and sustain single-parent families. By contrast, only $150 million is spent to strengthen marriage. Thus, for every $1,000 spent to deal with the effects of family disintegration, only $1 is spent to prevent that disintegration. Refocusing funds to preserve marriage by reducing divorce and illegitimacy not only will be good for children and society, but in the long run will save money.
Among its efforts, the federal government should:
*
Establish, by resolution, a national goal of reducing divorce among families with children by one-third over the next decade.
*
Establish pro-marriage demonstration programs by diverting sufficient funds from existing federal social programs into programs that provide training in marriage skills.
*
Mandate that surplus welfare funds be used to strengthen marriages and slow the increase in family disintegration.
*
Rebuild the federal-state system for gathering statistics on marriage and divorce, which ended in 1993. Without such data, the nation cannot assess the true impact of divorce on the family, the schools, the community, and the taxpayer.
*
Create a public health campaign to inform Americans of the risks associated with divorce and of the long-term benefits of marriage.
* Give a one-time tax credit to always-married couples when their youngest children reach 18. This small reward for committing one's marriage to nurturing the next generation into adulthood would help to offset the current marriage penalty in the tax code.
State laws govern marriage. Among their efforts, the states should:
*
Establish a goal to reduce the divorce rate among parents with children by one-third over the next decade and establish pro-marriage education and mentoring programs to teach couples how to develop skills to handle conflict and enhance the marital relationship.
*
Require married couples with minor children to complete divorce education and a mediated co-partnering plan before filing for divorce.
*
Promote community-wide marriage programs for couples planning to get married and marriage-mentoring programs for couples in troubled marriages.
*
End "no-fault" divorce for parents with children under age 18, requiring them to prove that grave harm will be visited upon the children by having the marriage continue.
* Make the Covenant Marriage option available to engaged couples as a way to bind them to a marriage contract that lengthens the process for obtaining of a divorce by two years.
If the family is the building block of society, then marriage is the foundation of the family. However, this foundation is growing weaker, with fewer adults entering into marriage, more adults leaving it in divorce, and more and more adults eschewing it altogether for single parenthood or cohabitation.
American society, through its institutions, must teach core principles: that marriage is the best environment in which to raise healthy, happy children who can achieve their potential and that the family is the most important institution for social well-being. To set about the task of rebuilding a culture of family based on marriage and providing it with all the protections and supports necessary to make intact marriages commonplace, federal, state, and local officials must have the will to act.
Patrick F. Fagan is William H. G. FitzGerald Senior Fellow in Family and Cultural Issues and Robert E. Rector is Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
this is in the same spirit that years ago you reamed women who in your eyes had no excuse for bottlefeeding
Dear "Anonymous":
This would be a much more interesting discussion if you would offer up some clue as to who you are.
Maybe you didn't read my last comment: I do not disagree with you that divorce is bad for kids. So basically, you are arguing with yourself.
Suffice it to say that in my case, staying married literally was not an option. Not everyone who gets a divorce wants to get a divorce.
As for divorce and bottlefeeding, I see your point. I bottlefed my first baby because I didn't know what the hell I was doing and got bad info from people (like doctors) who were supposed to be helping me. As with divorce, this was not the optimal thing for my child and again, I make no excuses.
Katie
The problem with research on the effects of divorce on children is
that there have been no studies that test for the effects of divorce
while holding all other variables equal. To do so, you would need to
randomly assign people to a married or divorce group regardless of
whether they should stay married. It'll be pretty hard to find
subjects willing to (a) stay married or (b) get divorced for the sake
of the study.
Are children of divorced parents more likely to have been abused?
Yeah, as it turns out, people who are or have been in abusive
relationships are, sadly, more likely to abuse their children. And
they're more likely to get divorced. Staying in an abusive marriage
wouldn't fix it, though.
Are children happier and better adjusted and feel more loved if they
live with two parents who love each other and have a good
relationship? Yeah, they are. But those aren't the people who are
getting divorced. The question is more like "are children better off
staying living with parents who have a crappy relationship and make
each other feel like shit, or are they better with parents who live
apart, and as a result become happier, healthier and, maybe even find
someone that they can really love so that their children have a model
of what a healthy marriage looks like so that they don't get stuck in
a crappy one like Mom and Dad's?" I, for one, am damn glad my parents
divorced. My father's a much better husband in his new marriage and
my stepmother is really, really, cool and she loves me. And she
helped my sister get into an amazing school rather than the state
college she'd likely have gone to. And helped pay for it. And her
family is cool. Mom didn't remarry, but she's still glad she's not
married to my father; she cares about him, but that doesn't mean she
has to be married to him.
So yeah, in my experience, having three parents who love me and a
model of what a good marriage looks like is better than my life would
have been if my parents had stayed together in a bad marriage. Maybe
if I'd had that model sooner I'd have been able to avoid my divorce.
people seem to miss the third option here and thats about fixing thier marriage. sure there are these extreme cases out there but most people getting divorced "fell out of love" or ran into some insurmountable (or so they thought) problem and rather than find a way to deal with it, they give up. if someone feels guilt, it is, (to quote Dr sears who I know you all know and love) often a big tipoff that there is somethign to feel guilty about. if divorce was truly the best option for your family you would not feel guilty. if say, your husband was a sicko who was trying to kill you all or somethign you might feel guitly for getting your kids into the situation in the first place but not for the divorce. if he had a small harem with no intention to give it up again you might feel guilty that you showed poor judgement in the first place but not guilt for having chosen the best option in this situation.(note..a lot of times adultery is a cry for help for the marriage, this isnt what I am talking about...I am talking about people who never have and never wil have any intention of being faithful to anyone) I feel very passionately about this issue because everyone gave up on my husband and me, blamed him, etc etc and guess what, it is slowly working against all odds. I just get sick at how quick our culture is to say to people oh poor baby, you feel unfulfilled, go get a divorce, the problem is the other person. well guess what, far too often the problem is NOT the other person, at least not entirely and just switching faces isnt going to change a darn thing. except once (if ever) people begin to realize this they have put their kids thru a relational merry go round which will most definately color how they approach marriage as adults.
I find it beyond the height of irony that people who push parenting theories that are unproven, who take research done on children in highly neglectful circumstances (orphanages for instance) and then try and paste that into basically loving families who simply have different parenting pracctices....that these are the very same people who are so quick to minimize the effect of something proven to affect children, if not their immediate mental health, at least their trust in relationships as adults. I am again not talking about bizarre extreme situations but just the insecurity of knowing full well that if someone you have invested in and committed to no longer feels "happy" and "fulfilled" enough that they can discard you like a used tissue. this is what children of divorce feel, maybe especially if there has been no exenuating circustances that they need to escape from, just their parents need to maintain their "happiness"...what people are not taught enough these days...any maybe this is a by product of a parenting philosophy that feels chidren might be damaged by if they learn delayed gratification....is that sometimes to get to the good stuff you have to go thru a season of feeling very very unfilled, indeed maybe even miserable. how much MORE responsible to look at yourself and the role you played and try to change the dynamics in the marriage, extending grace to this person you once claimed to love so much, instead of just saying..oops...made a mistake...lets try again with someone else. I almost said "oops I did it again"...in deference to a certain public figure who appears to add quite a bit of proof that someone who doesnt honor their vows the first time is probably not likely to do it with the replacement either.
I might further add that I think that attachment parenting has led to a demise of many a marraige, although not in the way people usually think. there are plenty of people who are married to someone like minded and they are all blissfully happy doing the family bed, etc etc. but what happens when people marry, blissfully unaware that attachment parenting even exists. then they get pregnant, and one party (usually the wife, but not always) starts reading, the other party doesnt buy into it (and rightly so because this stuff has never been proven as essential though if everyone is happy iwth the situation I am not sure its so harmful either...except for the innocent bystanders who have to put up with thier parenting practices being criticized by the newly converted). and voila...now you have a wife posting all over AOL about how her previously wonderful husband is now just "not attuned to what children really need"....divorce court here we come......
no I dont want to put my name on this...you put up a public forum then you are inviting public comments. I would never lay my soul bare online for the world to read. that is for me and whoever I choose to share it with. its called boundaries.
Gosh. You really seem to feel passionately about my life.
that is really rather interesting coming from a person who has devoted significant chunks of her time into telling other people that they are doing thier parenting all wrong. I do realize that people get divorced. I am sure that a lot of people in my husbands and my situation would have bailed. I feel for people who believe they have no other options but to be miserable or to divorce. I feel for people who have been deluded into thinking they are truly doing something positive for thier children by divorcing. I also realize there is a minority of cases where there are such severe safety or substance abuse issues or even severe mental health issues with the other party that divorce is the lesser of two evils. I further realize that if one party decides to leave the marraige there really isnt a whole lot the other party can do once things have reached that point. what I DO find problematic is people making out like oh its so horrible, its so guilt inducing but its really the best thing and there was no other choice. the "i picked the wrong person" business might be believable once but so many people do this two, three, four times that it begins to clue you in that succeeding in marriage is about a lot more than picking a person who makes you feel a certain way before they tie the knot...
this is digressing but I think people seek people at their own level of mental health even if it is unconscious....all these people concerned about protecting your girls from abusive relationships would be far better to focus their attention on teaching these girls (and boys while they are at it) that the healthier they are emotionally, the healthier person they will attract. instead our culture is rife with these rescue fantasies that just sets unhealthy people up to connect with yet more unhealthy people. instead of telling people how to evaluate or look at other people they should be teaching them to get healthy themselves and then they will automatically seek people at their own level. ditto on parenting...instead of all these how to techniques, none of which are grounded in reality...if you yourself have it together..you aer going to relate to others in healthy ways and it will just breed more of the same.
in case you are wondering, I accidentally linked to your site from something about horses and suddenly realized that I knew exactly who you were. that you were that woman ten years ago on all the breastfeeding boards on AOL making anyone with any reason whatsover that they did not breastfeed feel like shit. you were the one who wouldnt let up. you were the one that practically demanded a signed doctors note (or a big bleatfest wherein the bottlefeeder got to blame the medical establishment for misleading them) that there was a real medical reason they didnt breastfeed. unlike most other things in life you get a very small windwo of time in which to make breastfeeding work. if you screw up or if someone else screws up...thats it...no second chance. do not kid yourself that before there was formula people screwed up...someone told them the wrong thing or they were all alone with no advice good or bad...and unlike now where at least kids get bottlefed...there was a very high incidence of infant mortality and I believe a good chunk of those were babies that today would have wound up on formula with "lactivists" second guessing thier mothers decisions. lest you think I am drawing too close a parallel with marriage let me say that even if you have screwed up real bad with your marriage, with the right spirit things can be turned around..there is room for the second chance. if you only had a couple of days to make your marraige work or it was blown for good...well..then an awful lot of us would be up a creek without a paddle.
I am curious. Under what circumstances would you agree that it is simply not possible to remain married?
I really would be hard pressed because almost any circumstance I can think of I can think of hearing of a situation in which with the proper tools that type of situation was salvaged. but I realize that without access to things that optimize change...I would have to say severe abuse, addiction, unrepentent adultery in which the other person shows no hope or interest in change. I would have to add that separation can be a great tool if the situation is not livable. approached with love I have to say I have heard of all kinds of situations turning around. even ones that a lot of people would say certainly 'entitle" someone to a divorce. but most of the people I know of who have been divorced were not married to wife beaters or pedophiles or alchoholics or serial adultererse..they "couldnt communicate any more" or "had finally met thier soulmate and it wasnt their husband" or "had nothing in common". these aer NOT insurmountable problems. I can fully understand why someone would feel hopeless, in fact have felt it myself. its a shame our larger society really just feeds in at any angle that if your marraige isnt working then divorce is the best option.
Suffice it to say that my situation fit quite neatly into one of your categories.
look, I stepped back and thought about all this and realized I am going to just get in it deeper and step in it or something. I do not agree with the extreme edge of your parenting views. at one time I did and it caused a lot of strife with my husband and I. as I have grown as a parent I have realized its always that delicate balance of making sure your kids know how precious they are but taht they also realize who is boss until the day they turn eighteen and are on their own. I serious doubt taht any discussion or evaluation or argument will go anywhere because I dont think it would go anywhere. it has been my observation, as I have stated before that AP has perhaps indirectly contributed to divorce in some cases not because the baby in the bed interferes or anything, the safety is a different issue, but clearly a lot of couples are both very happy with the whole set up. as I said I think the problem comes in when someone gets this stuff and starts cramming it down the throat of a spouse who doestn buy into it. I think, like a lot of parenting stuff out there, AP takes stuff that has a grain of truth and runs with it. I think most parenting books make a few good points and the rest is just pure speculation and the authors own dumb luck that whatever he/she is selling happened to work for them. I have no doubt bill sears is a fantastic parent..but I bet he would still have been a fantastic parent if his kids had slept in cribs and not been worn in slings. I dont care to argue this stuff. but it just breaks my heart that this stuff gets palmed off as "fact" and then people wind up arguing about it in their marraiges, alienating grandparents, isolating themselves from previous friends and siblings who dont "support" their new parenting style. and its not even proven fact that any of it is truly neccessary.
as far as your own personal divorce issues...this is something close to my heart because of what me and my husband have been thru. Suffice to say that it was a combination of things that even people who give a lot of lip service to the sanctity of marraige were often the very ones telling me that really my best bet was to leave him. for whatever reason I hung in there, determined to wring every bit of self knowledge from the situation..in part I stuck out because I suspected if I left I would just get involved in another sick relationship. as time has gone on I have realized more and more that it was more like fifty fifty my and his fault rather than the mostly him and victim me that I thought I saw in the early years. when I listed the conditions I did I said it realizing that in the absense of anyone to offer a glimmer of hope that either being miserable or worse forever or divorce are the only two options. I might add my husband took years to willingly go to counseling for our marriage (although he was in counseling for his own stuff all along) but every time I would decide on my own I had had it something would happen that would make me think maybe I was being a bit hasty. I am not going to say that if we made it anyone can because that would be a denial of the fact that I could have worked on myself, done everything right and reached a point of realization that no matter what I did, no matter how much tough love and self examination on my end nothing would change. I am sure if so many people had had real tools to help us instead of suggesting divorce right off the bat it would most likely have been a much shorter journey. I dont really believe anything HAS to be the end of a marriage...but a lot depends on some assurance..however small..that the other party is making at least some baby steps
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