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People often ask my wife and I how we manage to raise our 4 daughters, and homeschool the 3 school-aged ones. The assumption is that it must be a ton of work. The key to making this work is our parenting style. We promote autonomy _a lot_. For example, my youngest was eating on her own at ~10-11 months. Sure, she was making a mess at first, but now she's 1.5 yrs and she's pretty good at this. Then you see the "exhausted-parent" type spoon-feeding their 3yo toddler, and wondering how we manage. This translates to a lot of other areas (dressing up, housekeeping, hygiene, schoolwork), and while it's still a ton of work, it's much more manageable. The bonus is that we're raising confident, independent women as a result (because they know they can do it themselves). I believe the current trend of helicopter-parenting / parents as slaves to their children is actually harmful to society, and that we're currently raising a generation of children who won't know what / how to do anything on their own. People don't magically become independent at 18; it's a process that starts at a very young age. Try talking to your girlfriend along these lines, you might manage to convince her. And for what it's worth, showing the kids that the laundry doesn't fold itself _is_ father-of-the-year material in my opinion. |