Lazy Parents Have Happier Kids

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My mother always said that the best parents are "lazy" parents. Her theory, as I understood it, was that these parents don't jump up every time their kids need something so that children learn to entertain themselves, enjoy themselves, and become more independent.

In couples, lazy parents, theoretically, have more time for each other because their children learn not to interrupt them when they are together. While I would never recommend neglecting a newborn in hopes of improving character, I am going to talk about ways to support your marriage that may substitute a tiny bit of time with your child.

I am writing this as an antidote to all the literature on how to be the perfect parent. The current high standards for parenting lead to low standards for marriage. The irony is that having a healthy marriage is one of the greatest gifts for your children and yourself. While there are a few people that are so self-involved they shouldn't have kids, that isn't the majority of modern parents. Most couples need to keep kids from completely overwhelming the little love rituals and routines they once shared. Encouraging your child's independence to create time for yourself and your partner is an art that can start very early and evolves with the ages and stages of your child.

Finding Alone Time

Even though finding time is challenging, parents need to continue to find a way to "park the kids" safely and turn toward each other. No matter how established the marriage, talk time remains critical to long-term happiness. Many women have very clear rituals around talking to their children after school or at dinner that they are loath to interrupt. They can see how the kids deteriorate without this contact. Yet they have no such connection to their spouses and may not see the immediate impact of missing time with a partner.

When I first read about couples needing daily 15- to 20-minute talk times I was astounded. The very idea of having time to chat together, uninterrupted, seemed like a fairytale. One, not-too-happily-but-long-married friend of mine flatly told me regular talk time was impossible given real people's hectic schedules. Although she could tell me when she talked to her own kids every day, she believed that real couples would need to find and agree on a new time each day. I thought to myself, if you are too busy to make a regular time to talk, wouldn't you be much too busy to agree on a daily talk time?

When couples are courting, making time together to talk is given careful attention. Before you have children, the idea that you would lose your connection seems strange, even impossible. If you tell someone without kids that couples that actually talk 15 minutes a day are rare and special, they will think you are unrealistically pessimistic. However, married people with kids think you are special if you do talk 15 minutes regularly.