Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Britain is in an uproar over comments last week by Londoner Helen Kirwan-Taylor, an American-born mother of two who voiced what some consider the unthinkable by suggesting that there are more exciting things to do than spend time with her offspring.
But views of U.S. child and family experts are mixed.
William Doherty, professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota, says the article was a "deliberately provocative" social commentary about hyperparenting. "It's a backlash against excessive child-centeredness."
Susan Douglas, a professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan and co-author of The Mommy Myth, says the essay is "daring but a little off-putting."
"There's a difference between having your child think he or she is the center of the universe and making them feel like their activities are important," she says.
Others agree. "When so many women went back to work, they overcompensated because they felt bad" about leaving their kids, says Brett Paesel, an actress and mother of two, whose book Mommies Who Drink arrives Aug. 10. "That might be wearing off."
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, says the debate is further evidence that Western society, which has been child-oriented for decades, is shifting to a more adult focus. Her analysis of data supporting that switch was released July 12. "What was interesting to me is she wasn't saying she regretted having children. She was saying she regretted spending time with the children," Whitehead says.
Doherty says society is skewed between families in which kids are not attended to enough and are put in front of the TV and families in which the mother feels guilty if she's not playing with them all the time.
"What's (Kirwan-Taylor) like as mother? Who knows?" he says. "If her kids are as well adjusted as she says, she's probably a lot more interested in them than she suggests."
To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com
© Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
