> what I find fascinating is how the author seems to inadvertently be displaying the very behaviour the article is describing, even though with all their research you'd expect they'd be best equipped not to.
The article is about how parenting is stressful but (ultimately) rewarding, and you're surprised that the author of it finds parenting stressful but (ultimately) rewarding? Did you expect she'd find it not stressful, or that she'd find it not rewarding?
The article is almost entirely about the fact that parenting is terribly stressfulamd parents are actually far less happy than they seem to be able to admit to themselves.
The only bit that attempts to redeem parenting is right near the end, in a way that always to me felt like rationalization, in the way a parent might rationalize their choice just as previously described in the article.
This meta nature to me, given it was written by a parent, seems to highlight that very conflict: its a written embodiment of the mental contradiction parents experience.
I guess I don't see the contradiction you see. Parenting is stressful, and definitely can cause unhappiness. But it is rewarding. That's not a contradiction; they're separate axes. (The author discusses this when making the square of rewarding-vs-enjoyable).
I guess you can claim that the feeling that it's rewarding is a false rationalization, but... I'm not really sure how you'd argue that. "You only think it's rewarding, but it's not!". I'm not sure how you could demonstrate something like that.
The article is about how parenting is stressful but (ultimately) rewarding, and you're surprised that the author of it finds parenting stressful but (ultimately) rewarding? Did you expect she'd find it not stressful, or that she'd find it not rewarding?