By Dr. James Dobson
Question: Dr. Dobson, I'm a full-time mother with three children in the preschool years. I love them like crazy, but I am exhausted from just trying to keep up with them. I also feel emotionally isolated by being here in the house every day of the week. What do you suggest for mothers like me?
It is high time you realized that your wives are under attack today! Everything they have been taught from earliest childhood is being subjected to ridicule and scorn. Hardly a day passes when the traditional values of the Judeo-Christian heritage are not blatantly mocked and undermined.
We have discussed several major social problems that account for much of the trouble facing boys and their parents today. This chapter will deal with yet another difficulty that we have referred to several times without defining it. It is called postmodernism, which helps explain further how families, and especially how boys, came to be in such a mess.
Why are feelings of inadequacy and inferiority so prevalent among people of all ages at this time? The current epidemic of self-doubt has resulted from a totally unjust and unnecessary system of evaluating human worth now prevalent in our society.
I have referred to a "system" of evaluating human worth in our culture, beginning with the most important attribute of physical attractiveness. You may ask, what ranks second in significance?
In a very real sense, we parents are products of the society whose values I have condemned. We have systematically been taught to worship beauty and brains, as everyone else, and so have our grandmommas and grandpoppas and uncles and aunts and cousins and neighbors. We all want superchildren who will amaze the world. Let's face it, folks: We have met the enemy, and it is us.
Teens, including those with wounded spirits, live every day with images of killing, poisoning, maiming, decapitating, knifing, crashing, and exploding. It is everywhere, from the theater to cable television to music videos and the Internet.
Dr. Dobson, as a woman, I'm interested in how your description of men and women applies to my relationship with my husband. Would I be correct in assuming that he needs me in ways that I may not have fully understood?
The sexes are designed with highly specific—but quite different—psychological needs. Each is vulnerable to the other in unique ways. When reduced to the basics, women need men to be romantic, caring, and loving. Men need women to be respectful, supportive, and loyal.
We have taken a hard look at the bias against boys in schools and how they are often discriminated against sexually. There are other concerns that we must consider now about how boys learn, why too many of them fail, and how their masculine makeup often works to their disadvantage.
Every parent is under terrible pressure in today's fast-paced culture. The demands of jobs, maintaining a house, keeping up with financial commitments, church responsibilities, and trying to raise a family keep us running at breakneck speed.
I am convinced that most contemporary mothers care more about their husbands and their children than about any other aspect of their lives, and they would like nothing better than to devote their primary energies to them. But they are trapped in a chaotic and demanding world that threatens constantly to overwhelm them.
I spoke at a White House conference a few years ago during which the other speaker was Dr. Armand Nicholi, a psychiatrist from Harvard University. His topic, like mine, was the status of the American family.
Compulsive parenting can be equally hazardous to the object of all this attention: the child. Many parents today burn out their kids with too many scheduled activities. Like Martha (Luke 10:40), they allow busyness to distract their family from what is truly important.
What is the primary reason for failure in school? The answer may surprise you.
Why do boys harass and intimidate each other this way? Angela Phillips explained it like this: "The effect of intimidation is to drag other children down to the same level of powerlessness, through fear. A child who lives in fear is unable to learn. The bully has then reduced his victim to his own dysfunctional level." That is exactly what I was trying to do with Denny. I just picked the wrong victim, that's all.
Some years ago a woman told me about her experience as a room mother for her daughter's fourth-grade class. She visited the classroom on Valentine's Day to assist the teacher with the traditional party. Valentine's Day can be a painful day for an unpopular child. Every student counts the number of valentines he or she is given, which becomes a direct measure of social status.
Dr. Dobson, I have observed that elementary school and junior high school students, even high schoolers, tend to admire the more strict teachers. Why is this true?
Dr. Dobson, my family lives together under one rood and we share the same last name. But we don't "feel" like a family. We're so rushed and stressed by the routine pressures of living that I sometimes feel I hardly know my wife and kids. How can I begin to put a sense of togetherness into this harried household? How do you put meaningful activities into your family?
How, then, can we keep cracks from developing in the sidewalks of our marriages? Well, the surest way to avoid an affair is to flee temptation as soon as it confronts you. Author Jerry Jenkins has referred to this determination to preserve moral purity as "building hedges" around marriage so that temptation is never given a foothold. You take steps to protect yourself and enhance the level of trust in your marriage at the same time.
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Dr. James Dobson is the Founder and President of Family Talk, a nonprofit organization that produces his radio program, "Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk." He is the author of more than 30 books dedicated to the preservation of the family, including The New Dare to Discipline; Love for a Lifetime; Life on the Edge; Love Must Be Tough; The New Strong-Willed Child; When God Doesn’t Make Sense; Bringing Up Boys; Marriage Under Fire; Bringing Up Girls; and, most recently, Head Over Heels.
Dr. Dobson served as an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine for 14 years and on the attending staff of Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles for 17 years. He has been active in governmental affairs and has advised three U.S. presidents on family matters. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California (1967) in the field of child development. He holds 17 honorary doctoral degrees, and was inducted in 2008 into The National Radio Hall of Fame. Dr. Dobson recently received the "Great American Award" from The Awakening.
Dr. Dobson is married to Shirley and they have two grown children, Danae and Ryan, and two grandchildren. The Dobsons reside in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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