India’s booming economy and 24/7 office culture could harm couples with young children unless they take steps to protect their relationships, say the authors of new book No Sex Please, We’re Parents.
The authors, Oliver Roberts and Melanie Roberts-Fraser, say there is a real danger India could walk into some of the mistakes of the West, where one in five children see their parents separate by the time they’re at school.
Oliver says: “More and more couples are living in cities with less immediate support from their families, and this can create huge strain when bringing up small children. If you combine this with the father working long hours at the office, you’re left with tremendous pressure on the mother to cope with the baby and immense pressure on the father to provide.”
The risk of separation is far lower in India, where families are more strongly inter-connected and divorce rates are a mere fraction of those in the West. However, this doesn’t mean Indian couples are immune to the pressures – instead of divorcing they may simply remain together unhappily. This can have a terrible effect on the children and put a strain on the whole family.
Melanie, the other half of the brother-sister writing team, is a family lawyer and academic. She adds:
“Even though separation is not common in India, the pressures on couples are the same the world over. Bringing up children is tough and parents still need to work hard on making their relationship survive. Too often, parents will pour time and effort into trying to be ‘perfect’ parents and indulging their children, when what children really need and deserve is happy parents and a stable family life.”
No Sex Please, We’re Parents is based on extensive interviews with mums and dads and gives a unique insight into both the female and male points of view. The fact that the authors are siblings meant they were able to argue out these different viewpoints.
Oliver says: “The arguments we had writing the book has helped make it very balanced, as we both had to agree every word. I’m very proud of that, because there is far too little written for Dads – or recognition of how hard it can be for them. While men are often guilty of not understanding the pressures that Mums are under and the sheer relentlessness of day-to-day child-raising, women can often be just as guilty of not understanding life from the Dad’s point of view. A man can go from having an equal partner to suddenly being under huge pressure to provide for a family that he rarely sees because he spends all his time in the office.”
The book offers loads of practical tips on how to cope with the pressures, brace for the bad and really enjoy the great bits about parenthood. That includes having the energy to maintain their life together as a couple, including a sex life.
Some of the topics covered in No Sex Please, We’re Parents include:
- Issues to talk through before they turn into blazing rows – including some that should be discussed before birth
- How to keep talking and make time for each other
- Ways to share the work-load of raising the kids and find a better lifestyle balance
- The importance of having support networks and finding time to spend alone as a couple and alone as individuals
- The effect of parenthood on body image and libido and how parents can get sex back on the menu
- The full-time mum vs those juggling work and childrearing and the pros and cons of each
- How postnatal depression affects both Mums and Dads and what couples can do to overcome it
- Understanding each other’s pressures
- When becoming parents has been a struggle ie IVF, miscarriage and adoption
The book has already received a strong response in Australia and New Zealand, including several television interviews and features in major national newspapers. India is now the third country to publish it.
