SEX, LOVE AND PARENTHOOD PART TWO
HOW TO GET YOUR GROOVE BACK NOW

Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic, is back
in part two of our three-part series on putting the X back in sex. And by X, we don’t mean
x-rated, per se. Read on to get the real deal on spontaneity and overzealous parenting and
here this world renowned licensed marriage and family therapist’s take on what moms really
want from their partners.

TFG: Practically speaking, our lives are so scheduled. Do you recommend scheduling a time
for playfulness or does that conflict with the spontaneity that we're lacking?
EP:  That's a really good question. What I tell couples with whom I work is that it's interesting to see that on the long list of what children need, parents with a healthy sex life isn't featured. This is not just something that adults want. It is important for children to know that their parents have an intimate, erotic life of their own because it relieves the children of a certain emotional burden that gets placed on them when parents turn to them instead of turning to each other. There is a way in which modern parents have become very uncomfortable with the idea that they'd take away time or close their bedroom door and say this is our time now and we are not to be disturbed. They feel guilty that they are not available 24/7 to their children. They feel guilty and then they become resentful of each other.

There is this myth of spontaneity—like a big bang theory of sex—that it once used to happen, spur of the moment and unplanned. But, if you look at what people describe in the beginning, it was full of anticipation and imagination. It had a plot line: what am I going to wear?; Where are we going to go?; What music will we listen to? We always had a plot, except that sometimes the plot takes place in your house before you go out. It was never just spontaneous. So even when you plan for sex, you don't plan sex, you plan a space where you can meet to experience pleasure for its own sake. A space where you can be as adults, where sex can happen but doesn't need to happen. You don't plan the act itself, you plan the realm of imagination—a realm that is careless, a realm that is not about being responsible at this moment.

Go out, leave your house or stay in your garage an extra half an hour because you don't want to go into your home yet. Give yourself the permission to continue to experience pleasure (not necessarily sexual, but erotic and intimate). Taking a little extra time requires a motive of selfishness—of attention onto yourself—which is one of the things that modern mothers grapple with a great deal. There is a tremendous sense for mothers that stepping back and giving to themselves will damage the children. However, it actually enhances the life of the children. If adults are there to take care of each other, they don't turn to th children to compensate for what they no longer receive from one another. It actually frees the kids to not have to experience the certain emotional burden of providing their parents with something that adults should provide for each other.

TFG: What are the potential long-term effects—emotionally and psychologically— on the children whose parents don't have that intimate sexual connection? What kind of adults does that breed?
EP:  I think that when children are aware that their parents have an intimate relationship and that their parents are fostering in them a respect and a healthy curiosity for sexuality, it creates a much different and healthier situation than something that is dealt with as secretive, shameful, hidden and fearful.

TFG: When do you think this shift into overzealous parenting happened? In your book you talk about how it wasn't always this way—our grandparents would shudder to think about how indulgent we are with our children.
EP: Probably in the last thirty years or so. I think that it links to a number of things. There is a cult of youth. There is a sentimental idealization of children. Today children are no longer an asset. They don't participate in the work on the land. They are vested with meaning. It keeps growing because it is market-driven and youth-culture-driven. It is driven by a desire for people to be perfect parents. It's the Judith Warner book A Perfect Madness. It takes place at a time when families are much more isolated than they have even been, historically speaking. At the time when you actually need more community, you have less of it. You are living in a society that provides very little actual help in the transition to parenthood. No affordable childcare, no substantial maternity leave, no affordable health care. So the responsibility is more and more onto the parents. Americans tend to privatize the problems. If something isn't happening with your child, you blame yourself. You no longer look at society and what it is not offering in terms of social support. You look at it as your own personal inadequacies.

TFG: What do you think moms want out of their relationships with their partners?
EP: It's developmental. I would say the first thing they want from their partner is help. And more companionship and partnership. They often feel extremely alone. They grow to be resentful that their partner is not more helpful because it is easier to be angry at the one who is right next to you then to look at the massive lack of social support that is putting you in this place. At the same time, you have a basic conflict: on the one hand, you have an unprecedented child centrality; and on the other, family life that depends on the healthiness of the couple. So if you put all your resources intothechildren and don't root anything through the couple, the couple will be left gasping. Often it's a matter of age. I look at women and I see that theywait for the time when the children enter nursery school. When the kids start to have a life of their own, separately from their mother, what does the mother want at that point? Is she happy that she got some space and time back? Is she happy that she has the freedom to think about herself again? Will she actually do that? Or will she continue to intensify the need for her presence in the life of her children because otherwise she wouldn't know what to do? Women want warmth, affection and a connection with their partner. There is something in the sexuality between the mother and a young child that is actually often more akin with female sexuality to begin with. It is a full-body experience; it is more contextual and more relational. It is not genitally-focused. At the end of the day, when a woman tells her partner that she has nothing left to give, she is also saying that there is nothing more she needs. That is the unspoken story. The connection between mother and child is also different from how it was 50 years ago. When the partner then comes home, the mom often experiences it as one more needy child she now needs to take care of. She doesn't experience it as an invitation on his part for togetherness or something for them as a couple. She's also often very willing to forgo her own sexuality and desires, partly because motherhood has been associated with chastity, selflessness and sacrifice and not with lustfulness. A lustful woman is never associated with a good mother. So, she has all kinds of historical plots that she needs to overcome to begin to integrate motherhood with sexuality. Often she didn't see it in her own house growing up. It is certainly not in the media images or the images in the public sphere or the culture at large. Often the men have difficulty eroticizing the mother of their children.

Need a Part One refresher? Click here.

Join us next month, when Esther tells us how to help dads find their grooves, how to talk to your kids about sex, love and parenthood and more.

For more from Esther, go to www.estherperel.com.

To pick up a copy of this life-changing book, click here.