Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Children in the Marital Bed.

If you are a parent, at some point or another you will have had one of your children sleep in bed with you. It isn't the exactly the biggest parenting issue in the world. However, today it was decided (on telly) that it was a Bad Thing.

What gets me though, it wasn't a Bad Thing because of the disturbed sleep and uncomfortableness, etc, etc. It was a Bad Thing because it impacts on your relationship... Poor old Daddy feels left out, and that he is being usurped from his rightful place in his marital bed and he can't have sex in it, so Mummy can't love him anymore and that's bad and it's all the fault of the child sleeping in the bed with them...

Umm. No.

If you do have a child in bed with you, then work out what the reason is for that. Are they ill? Having nightmares? Or are you just too tired to put them back into their own bed? Remember that as that child grows up, they aren't going to be wanting to sleep in the bed with you so why worry about the odd night when they are little. If it is every night, then perhaps there is an issue there, but quite frankly having a kid in the bed every night is a symptom of a problem, not the actual problem...

Mummy doesn't want to have sex with Daddy? That isn't because there is a kid in bed with you. That's a bigger issue, and you are blaming a symptom rather than the problem. If Mummy wants to have sex with Daddy, she will find a way to have sex with Daddy! (NEWSFLASH!!! You don't have to have sex just in the bed!)

Sometimes Mummy doesn't want to have sex with Daddy cos she is too damn knackered and bed is mainly for sleeping in!! If it is purely just tiredness, this is pretty easily remedied with, guess what? SLEEP!! How about getting someone else to look after the kids every now and again, and letting Mum have some peace and quiet? Not exactly rocket science. And if she still doesn't want to have sex, then make the effort to find out why? Is that too much to ask?

This is another way men are made out to be little more than infants. When in fact, they are Grown Ups too. Makes me soooo cross when the act of Parenting is set up as somehow damaging to Relationships. It isn't. So get over it!