Mediate Michigan

Who is more important to you — your spouse or your children?

Ask most parents whom they would save from a burning building, and odds are they would say their children. Similarly, many would argue that in a fast-paced, overstuffed life, the needs of their spouses can wait while the needs of their children can’t. Suggest otherwise, and you cause a firestorm, as the writer Ayelet Waldman did five years ago when she wrote that she loved her husband more she loved her kids.

Those who see this child-centric trend as nurturing and responsible call it attachment parenting or, simply, parenting. Those who see it as overly enmeshed call it helicoptering. Either way, we tend to argue the pros and cons in terms of what is best, or not, for the children. Are we protecting them enough? Are we keeping them from growing up? Are we supportive? Are we smothering?

via Priorities: Children or Spouse? – Motherlode Blog – NYTimes.com.