This is the twentieth installment of Barren Advice. You can ask questions that are fertility or non-fertility related.Barren Advice is posted each Tuesday-ish. If you have your own question for Barren Advice, click here to learn how to submit. Please weigh in with your own thoughts in the comment section and indicate which question you're addressing if there are multiple questions in the post.
Dear Mel:
How do you two stay connected amid parenting?
--Anonymous
Lots of sex.
There's also this other thing we do that anyone can try regardless of how much their ass is dragging at the end of the day or how covered they are in spit-up or how unsexual they are feeling after an afternoon of parent-teacher conferences about behaviour.
Live like the Amish.
I don't mean turn off the computer or television or strike up the kerosene lamps. What we've done is borrow the impulse that drives Amish philosophy. The Amish are against technology that splinters populations. Without cars, a family can't move far apart from one another and not see each other. Ipods and cell phones keep someone from striking up a conversation with you. Electric lights and central heating mean that people can split up into different rooms in the house.
The point is to keep people physically together and leave lines of communication open in case conversation occurs. Therefore, from the time Josh comes home until we go to bed, we're usually (with few exceptions) in the same room of the house. We're not necessarily doing the exact same thing, but the option is always there to chat back and forth. We'll read together on the sofa or watch a movie together. Sometimes I'll be on the computer and he'll be reading a book or I'll be writing letters and he'll be watching television.
The point is not to move together like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, but to be physically close so that anything can happen. Including that sex I mentioned in the first place.
No really, the beauty of a blog advice column is that you get to weigh in with your two cents too. Let the questioner know if you support the advice, add to the response, or dispute it completely.
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15 comments:
I love this advice!!!
What great advice! We moved my computer into a different room, for several reasons, but I've been missing being in the same room as J (even when we're both working). Maybe I'll consider moving back into the living room!
Funny...the thing I hate most about the layout of our house is that no one can escape! It's a very open floor plan, on one level, so you can never really be private. You are always close enough to hear what's going on (and our house is over 2000 sq ft). But, part of what makes our relationship work is our ability to be independent. And, of course, sex.
Wow, you just blew my mind. My husband has his computer space in the basement and mine is upstairs and I've always hated that...now I know why. We have all of our most important conversations in our hot tub because there is nothing else to do but talk and drink wine... and, well, anyhow, we talked out our infertility grief in the hot tub, decided against IVF in the hot tub, decided on domestic adoption in the hot tub, etc. And yes, I am aware it can kill sperm. We didn't go in there while we were doing treatments :)
Great advice... I was trying to get up the motivation to go follow my husband to bed since he just left the room where he was reading, I was blogging, and we were both so content. And know I know what I ought to be doing;)
The time I spend on the computer is currently one of the biggest bones of contention between dh & me. And it's not the fact that I'm on the computer (because he's generally just watching TV anyway, & flipping channels & driving me nuts...) -- it's that he doesn't like me being upstairs & him downstairs. He feels neglected. I think the next computer I get will be a laptop. : )
That's good advice!
During a college internship I lived with my aunt and uncle. They had a little ritual of having coffee together at the kitchen table every night after the kids were in bed. They said they had been doing it ever since the oldest child was a baby. I've only been a parent for 5 weeks but already am thinking of ways to carve out special time with D.
We make sure to have the little one sleep over night with his grandparents at least once a month. This gives us an entire adult evening and morning! This time is not for blogging, cleaning, etc. Nope, we have actual conversations, watch movies, and snuggle. Love it!
We're living in a small rented house - normally we're in a rambling pile back home - and I have noticed we spend a lot more time in the same room, or very close, and it does aid communication...
Good advice. Every night after the kids are in bed we have us time. Its not all lace and leathers, some times its just wine and talking, other times a movie. But I agree with being in the same room. Laptops are good.
Oh my! This is the best advice ever! Will have to ponder how to put this in practice in my house which, while as yet devoid of children, has plenty of space for Manny and I to drift apart in.
The Hub and I do that, but I thought it was b/c I was so clingy and he so lovey. Now I can pretend it was thought out. ;-)
p.s. I also will not allow a tv in the bedroom b/c it's the only place we REALLY connect without any of his outside distractions. That one IS on purpose
Excellent idea!
Bea
(Obviously, I was referring to the sex.)
Bea
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