Apparently, people who are not parents are getting annoyed that peers with kids are getting “special treatment,” and/or these folks without children are peeved at exhausted parents looking for sympathy during a time of unprecedented upheaval for families. Despite knowing the pandemic is a time of off-the-charts stress for parents, for myriad reasons, they’re still irritated.
Really?
According to New York Times writer Jessica Grose, yes. For some
(mostly in the meaner virtual world, naturally), the adage “people are at their
best in the worst times” does not actually apply. Grose writes a lot about
parenting, and says she’d received complaints like the aforementioned even
before Covid-19, but such grievances have actually increased of late. You’d think with enormous job losses, the
threat of illness, and uncertainties galore, it’d be obvious to all that sympathy
was more called for than ever, but no.
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Grose reminds all that the notion of
the self-sufficient “nuclear family” is a myth. As far back as our species can
recall, children were raised communally, with extended family and neighbors
pitching in. It is how we are wired.
Biological anthropologists refer to this
as “cooperative breeding.” “That’s the idea that family and community members help
with holding, grooming, and sometimes even feeding your baby,” she writes.
Anthropologist Sarah B Hardy posits these “alloparents,” may have been “the
secret of human evolutionary success.”
Grose cites the fact that from colonial
times through the early 20th century, families either took their
kids to work with them in fields and sweatshops, or charged older siblings with
childcare. Even the 50s-era Father Knows
Best-type family – i.e. breadwinner dad, housewife mom, 2.5 kids and a dog
– was much rarer than we realize. A roaring economy did allow the creation of
the anomalous so-called “nuclear family,” but even then, housewives still
depended on friends, and of course most obviously, on schools.
The upshot: this is all uncharted
territory for families, a time that future social scientists and
anthropologists will no doubt be looked back upon and study. Hopefully, in the
final analysis, they’ll see more sympathy.
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