I'd like to start a discussion on Parent Oppression. Have you heard this term? If so what do you believe it means?
I didn't hear it until I entered the Hand in Hand Parenting certification program a decade ago. My eyes widened in both surprise and intrigue. Now almost 3 years into being a parent myself (including pregnancy) it's incredibly evident the ways our experience, the importance of our parenting job, and our needs as parents are disregarded, judged, and completely unseen by the majority of the people...even mental health professionals!!
My example of the day of parent oppression is this: My 2yo woke up vomiting and wouldn't stop. Each minute with him I was torn between giving myself fully to his physical and emotional healing and the pull that I needed to let people know I might be late or need to cancel meetings, worry about the judgment of this being last minute and looking "unprofessional", holding the discomfort of sending a frantic subject-line only email saying "sick kid need to cancel" while I tried to undress my wet vomited on shirt and my naked toddler heaved into the toilet. That discomfort IS internalized parent oppression. The job of being fully with him and my own distress that moment is of the utmost importance for future mental emotional wellbeing for us both! But my discomfort was the fear that I would be judged as "messy, disorganized, emotional".
My mentor, Patty Wipfler said this to me about it:
"It's an example of that phenomenon most parents I know experience - focusing on being with your child and feeling bad because you're not focusing on your work or the next meal or the mess in your home, then focusing on your work and feeling badly because you're not focusing on your child or your partner or on housekeeping tasks left undoing, then focusing on the housekeeping, shopping, cleaning, cooking, keeping things tidy, and feeling badly because you're not working for pay or paying attention to your child. That crazy thing where, whatever you do, you are down on yourself for not doing the OTHER parts of the enormous workload you have.
It's also the people quick to judge you as you try to get through the market with your child without your child having a tantrum, your own parents and friends constantly taking stock of your parenting, and signaling their negative feelings whenever they have them, the struggle to make ends meet, the struggle to find work that can make relaxed parenting at least occasionally possible, the lack of services when you need them, and of a quality that they don't make things worse for you and/or your child in the long run, and the absurd difficulty of building community with other like-minded people, whether they are parents or not.
You've done SO well in many/all of these areas. And still, internalized parents' oppression exerts a straitjacket effect on your happiness, your thinking, your wellbeing, and the decisions you make. It's a big project to get free of it, and you're right in the middle of that."
Where do you notice parent oppression in your life?
Karen Wolfe, LMFT
Founder of SF Bay Play Therapy Family Counseling Center and Disheveled mom of a toddler
April 2024
Resources on Parent Oppression
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The War Against Parents: What We Can Do for America's Beleaguered Moms and Dads by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West
The Current Situation for Parents and the Work of Parenting, Article by Patty Wipfler, founder of Hand in Hand Parenting
Listening Partnerships, a practice to work through the effects of and counter internalized parents' oppression
The Current Situation for Parents and the Work of Parenting, Article by Patty Wipfler, founder of Hand in Hand Parenting
Listening Partnerships, a practice to work through the effects of and counter internalized parents' oppression