You my friend, seem to have so deep hatred towards children your self. You seem to mistake the need for a little alone time, for hatred of ones children. Any parent who is angry or jealous of their child's experience at camp should, honestly just grow up. Your time has passed; you had your time to have all the excitement of camp and now it is time to love the experiences that your children are having. The fear of your own child is not a manisfestaion of your hatred. It is a natural feeling of protection. That protection is needed; not in excess but it is needed. Anderegg seems to be the sadist writing his own horror novel of living in a world where parents don't know if they love or hate their own children.
Now to give credit where credit is due, Anderegg does make a valuable point in saying that present day parents are not honest with them selves. It is okay to want and love that alone time, and when your children come home miss it a little, but to hate and loathe your children because you don't have enough time for yourself is quite honestly - selfish. Make time in your day for "Me" time and those weeks the kids are at camp won't be so highly coveted. Raising a child is hard enough, and adding to their fears when their child is gone to camp that they really hate their child does not help. You, Anderegg, have a PhD.. You should know better.

I love my kids. They're bright, creative, funny, and great to be around.

I hate how: everytime we get in public, they seem to forget they've got a little thing called home-training, and go haywire; they whine too much, especially my son who should know better since I consistently reinforce how much mommy hates whining (especially from four year olds); they take up way too much of my money--in fact, if I didn't have to spend so much on them I could go to the mall and buy ME things instead of always paying bills, feeding them, clothing them, buying THEM things; they take up too much of my time, and I can't even have a relay call with my deaf friend without him realizing I've got crying kids in the background, much less go out on a date without having to find and pay for a baby sitter, or just spend time with my paints and canvas without having to say "No" in 50 different ways times 150 times per hour; they make me feel dumb, since every time people see me with kids they invariably ask next "So wait, as smart as you USED TO BE, you mean to tell me you're just a mom and not a doctor, or lawyer? What a waste of brains!"; they're the reason I've got stretch marks, cellulite, and varicose veins; etc, etc.

I love my kids. I wouldn't trade them for the world. Do I hate my kids too? Come on, do you hate your mom? My answer is (and I'm guessing/hoping yours is, too) NO. Having kids is a huge sacrifice of me-time, me-money, me-social life, and me in general. Fact is, you can have a love/hate relationship with anything or anyone who requires that much of your time and energy. It's not selfish, it's human. I don't hate my kids. I don't hate being a parent. I do realize some of what I could be missing out on as a mom instead of a fly-single-chick with no worries. It doesn't make me a bad person to be honest(ly not selfish) and say that those some darlings that make my heart feel like it's about to burst out of my chest with joy with a simple "Look, mommy, I fixed you a mud pie"--make me wanna scream when they cry for two hours straight for the same Star Wars toy I said No to in 50 different ways 150 times for two hours.

Frankly, I can't say that I get exactly where you're coming from Dr. Anderegg. But, if you're just saying that being a parent is hard and sometimes we can only admit that subconsciously by focusing on what could go wrong just to make life seem a little bit easier if things go right, I feel ya. Is thinking the worst maybe a little bit of unconscious pay-back for the mental beat-down of being a parent? I hadn't really thought about it that way. I WILL say that being a parent is a bit of a mental beat down. Sometimes our kids really do bug the hell out of us, and admitting that isn't selfish. And, everything with pros and cons comes with a love/hate relationship. Just be---well, honest about it.

You reminded me of a column I read by Ellen Goodman about the reality show, Kid Nation-- where fifty children are left adultless in New Mexico to survive and build a community. Goodman writes: "Cutthroat competition, class divisions, unrelenting consumerism. Maybe it is reality programming after all. Aren't these the basic three C's of the culture in which we are all raising children? Parent bashing is the favorite indoor sport these days. It's behind the voyeurism that makes Supernanny popular and Britney Spears unpopular."

Kid Nation was a revelation in how far we have come in exploiting (and hating our children).

But parents are fed a high-anxiety diet of horror stories about every imaginable danger constantly by the media. Peanut allergies are real, but
you have to wonder if banning peanut butter from school cafeterias is a true sign of love for our children.

Goodman says, "The back story is that America has privatized child-raising. We regard children as the wholly owned subsidiary and responsibility of their families. Parents, in turn, can become so absorbed in worrying about the side rails on cribs that we lose focus on the cultural environment that encases all of us. "

As you suggest, it's time to refocus on that cultural environment.

Hate is a loaded word and--these days--a taboo concept. Considering all the baggage it comes with, it's no surprise that people are going to be a bit defensive when hearing about the idea of hating one's children.

But let's be realistic here. Not everything is black and white like love and hate, life is more complex than that. I think Anderegg's concept of feeling something other than 100% love towards our children is an important one to explore. Perhaps if there we didn't feel so much need to be perfect, happy parents we could actually acknowledge these feelings. Maybe the sentiment described here could better be labeled resentment (or is that just a softer word for hate?). Let's not get so caught up in the language that we can't see the concept.

I had to share this joke I heard today about the difference between a girl and a woman. The woman is the one who had a little person come out her birth canal and stomp on all her dreams.

Is it OK to sometimes wonder what life would be like without them? Yes.

Is it right to try to appreciate every moment of the limited time you'll have with them? Absolutely.

I have 2 severely disabled children. Life is a nightmare. I wish them the best, I wish someone else could take care of them. I live in Illinois, the 51st worst state in the country for taking care of the disabled. There are scant programs once your child ages out of school. I will be changing diapers and cleaning my children's behinds until I die. I fantasize every day about how life would be if we never had children.