From: mbb@keps.kodak.com (Maureen Busch)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Second Baby Thoughts ...
Date: 14 Aug 92 17:49:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: keps.1992Aug14.174956.16940
Organization: Kodak Electronic Printing Systems

In article <1992Aug12.164601.15750@hemlock.cray.com>, rice@cray.com (Jonathan
Rice) writes:
>In article <1992Aug12.202549.24557@keps.kodak.com> mbb@keps.kodak.com (Maureen Busch) writes:
>>Maybe it is easier for people who don't have any interests that require blocks
>>of time to call their own.  I don't know since I am a person whose personal
>>interests do require time alone.
>
>You're the second one to bring this up in response to what I wrote.  I'm not
>sure what particular phrase of mine might have triggered it.  I'll have to
>scan the article for "robot dad" or some such keyword :o)

I don't know you or what you like to do in your spare time, and I don't really
want to natter on and on about me-me-me (this is misc.KIDS, afterall!), but 
there are things I like to do that I won't consider doing if I don't have a
minimum of an hour of uninterrupted alone time.  Aerobics videos are an
example.  Doing them after 10 pm or before 6 am is, well, not as likely to
happen on a regular basis as doing them right when I get home from work.
Doing them in fits and starts (3 minutes here, 7 minutes there) is as useless
as not doing them at all.  Forget going to a studio.  There isn't one nearby.
Reading challenging books (you know, big words, long sentences, paragraphs, and
chapters) is another.  The frustration of being interrupted mid-page, or of
reading the same page several times (in several sittings) in an effort to find
my place is just too great for me to be worth it.  Again, it's all personal
preference.   If I want to find the time to do these things, I will
have to work hard (and negotiate with my sweetie of husband) to get everything
else done so I will have the time.

>>We all do it, and most of us manage it quite well, but it is still a mental
>>and emotional job we didn't have when we had only one child's needs to 
>>consider.
>
>But it is not "more than twice as hard," at the risk of repeating myself to
>the point of being a nuisance (too late?).

Okay, okay.  If we brought in the human factors people to do a time-use study,
their findings would probably bear out your claim that we haven't actually
doubled the amount of physical labor we perform - although I haven't found
a way to make chores like changing the sheets on the beds significantly less
than twice the work it was with one child.  However, I am surprised that you
don't consider thinking to be work.  I am a software engineer, and as such,
I am paid to think.  If I've been working hard, that means I have been thinking
a lot (about how to implement code, or fix a perplexing bug), or been dealing
with other people who have problems (too many meetings).  When I get home at
the end of the day, I am not physically tired, but my brain is tired.  Thinking
about how to deal with things at home is tiring - and it is "work".

>>to bet your daughters are even similar in personality and temperment
>
>Tee hee!  Cash or check, I can't take plastic. :o)

My mistake.  You wrote so confidently:
|You know how to watch for tiny signs -- of interest, boredom, fatigue,
|alertness, apprehension, comfort.  You know how to watch for danger signals
|-- of sickness, or impending accident (say, why is it so quiet?).  These are
|second nature to you by now.

My experience was that I didn't know what signs to watch for because my
kids manifest just about everything differently.  I had to learn what signs
to look for all over again.

>> What some of us have acknowledged is that the impact of a
>>second child on our lives as we know it has been non-trivial.
>
>As so often, it comes down to differences of experience.

It sure does.  A few thoughts:  One idea that you have reiterated several
times is that the drop from 6 hours free time to 2 hours free time is much
more drastic than the drop from 2 to almost none.  This isn't true for all
people.  I found that dropping from 6 to 2 required me to make some compromises
(I could do either aerobics or read a book, but not both, in the same
evening).  Dropping from 2 to almost none was more drastic for me and required
a greater adjustment.  I expected this to happen, and I don't begrudge my
kids the time they take away from my personal time, but the adjustment to that
reality was harder all the same.

Secondly, as I pointed out to you in email, in your attempt to show that it
isn't "more than twice the work", you effectively created the impression that
there was *no* additional work involved, or that it was negligible.  This is
just as unfair as telling horror stories.  Kathy Wilk referred to the "frantic
lifestyle" (apologies for poor form) of a family with 2 children and 2 parents
employed full-time outside the home.  This is an accurate description of why
it often *seems* like twice the "work" to some people.  It is definitely more
of everything, and beyond a certain point, (that point being unique to each
individual)whether or not it is actually "twice" is immaterial.

Finally, all that said, I don't want to create the impression that kids are
nothing but a lot of work.  Quite honestly, I would have to say that if two
is twice the work of one, then it is at least four times the fun, four times
the love, four times the laughter.  My question is, how much greater is the
fun, love, and laughter when a third child is added?  Twice that of two?  More?
-- 
Maureen Busch				|Small world, but I wouldn't want to
Internet: mbb@keps.kodak.com		|paint it - Steven Wright
UUCP: ...!{harvard!ima,uunet!atexnet}!munsell!cairo!mbb
DISCLAIMER:  The opinions expressed are mine, not my employer's.