Ottensen said:

thats actually a good point. for the sake of the discussion, i will be 40 in a year and a half man thats old!

my father made the money when i was younger, my mother ran the house, took care of the kids, was in the pta at school and was a girlscout leader just to name a few things. while i certainly did not have 5 brothers and sisters all my same age, i did have 2 younger siblings and it would never have occured to my dad to step in and take over what was clearly something my mother was doing on her own...im not even sure she would have wanted his help, that was her thing she was doing and she always had visions of what we should have be it, birthdays, christmas, easter baskets, valentines morning surprises, or any other holiday tradition i remember. my father was always present at the party or occation, but other than supply the money and maybe talking over what his thoughts were on the gift ideas - i know that it was all my mother's doing.

something as simple as when i had my son 14 years ago. it would never have dawned on me to have someone help me change his diaper - in my mind it was so MY job, i never questioned it keep in mind though that i left jakes dad when i was pregnant after a 9 year relationship. but, still, other than the occational, 'oh, youre busy girl, i'll change him real quick for you' there was never anyone else in charge of that type of care for my son. the same is true with bri - while i lived with her dad until she was like 4 1/2 months old, he was there to bring in the money and i took care of the children and the house. he was fine with that and i knew nothing else, so i was never bothered one way or the other with it.

flash forward a few years and my brother and his wife have their first baby. i kid you not, when it was time to change the diapers it was a team effort from day one! i mean, sure, his wife had a c-section, so she probably needed the help in the beginning, but it took a long time for that to stop - like, a really long time i remember thinking to myself, why does it take 2 people to change a diaper??

can you believe it? my sister and her husband had a baby a few years later and they too were changing diapers together i used to just shake my head and wonder what the hell they were doing having diaper changing parties together...it literally made no sense to me at all, still doesnt lol...

when did it change? when did parents become so unified on their diaper changing procedures or bathing or dressing the kids or anything else for that matter? was i the crazy one, doing it by myself, or was there a real change in the way that parents took care of the babies??
[Edited 5/30/09 14:02pm]

nakedpianoplayer said:

i guess somewhere along the line times really did change


In other news I was reading my Sunday online tv show wrap-ups for the week, and it appears that the Gosselins are definitely splitsville. TLC is on the hunt for a camera friendly apartment for the dad as he will have joint custody with the mom. Should they divorce after presumably filing for legal separation in the next month, that leaves an estimated 10 million dollars for them to wrangle over in court just from the show alone. There's also been a complaint filed for child labor exploitation and they are now under investigation.