Signs of parenting burn-out - yelling at the kids, feeling at the brink of breakdown, never taking time for yourself, feeling like you're failing at parenting, at relationships, at work. You can't sleep, can't relax, can't get on top of the housework or the finances. You've lost perspective.
Like health professionals, teachers and social workers, parents are vulnerable to burn-out. A lot of us have been there.
How does it happen? On one level, it's pure martyrdom. Refusing to take a day off without the kids just to wander around the shops, have a massage, see a movie, visit the gym or play a round of golf; not even considering a childless weekend away (you see so little of the kids during the week); refusing to take even 20 minutes for a nap or a hot soak in the bath; refusing to put yourself first.
On the face of it, such martyrdom is selfless. Beneath, it however, refusing to look after yourself is at best counterproductive and at worst, it is actually a sign of selfishness.
In 1982, Henry Lawton published The Myth of Altruism, an account of social work practice in the US which can also be applied to parenting. His main thesis concerned the "selfish" aspects of seemingly altruistic motives in the personal and professional lives of people in the "helping professions".
Instead of finding the altruistically minded people he expected to see, he found social workers to be needy practitioners who were working out their own problems through their clients. The more social workers did to help others, the less satisfaction they got out of it. It's the same with parenting - sometimes the more you do, the less good it feels.
Lawton's research into the motivation of social workers led him to the conclusion that helping others was not a selfless act, but served the needs of the helper. These needs came from the helper's own family of origin and the social work agency became a theatre in which the meeting of these needs was played out.
It's the same with parenting. We tend to play out the problems inherited from our families of origin in the theatre of the family, with our children as puppets. The question is: Are you really putting yourself out for your children's sakes or are you trying to comfort your own inner child? Did you have children because you wanted to love, or because you desperately needed to be loved?
An appalling example of false selflessness and using children for self-fulfilment is the scandal over baby-buying via the Internet in the US and Britain. It's obvious that parents who acquire babies by such means are meeting their own needs, not the children's needs.
Then there's the case of Calista Flockhart, star of Ally McBeal, a single woman who adopted a baby boy. She felt she was ready for a baby to fulfill her life, but she couldn't be bothered ruining her figure or finding a father with whom to have a secure and loving relationship. Whose needs are being met there? Certainly not the child's.
These are extreme examples. Most parents who fall into the trap of false selflessness do so in more subtle ways. Sometimes, without realising it, we do things "for" our children which are serving our needs, not theirs.
We do this when we spend too much money on presents, clothes and holidays that our children don't really need or even want. It's a cliche that the parent from a poor or even modest background tries to compensate by giving his or children everything under the sun - the violin lessons they never had, the wardrobe they never had, the pony they never had, the holidays they never had.
Likewise, parents who were deprived of love and nurturing as children run the risk of giving their children an overdose of the "love" they never had. The parent who worries too much about a child's welfare, ostensibly in the child's interests, makes the child feel insecure.
You know you're doing this when you cannot let the baby cry for 10 seconds without picking the baby up (which leaves the baby bereft of learning the art of self-comfort); when you cannot draw clear boundaries for your toddlers (leaving them confused and tantrum-prone); or when you are terrified to insist that your 15-year-old be in by 8 p.m. (leaving your 15-year-old feeling insecure).
We do this because we're afraid that our children will stop loving us and will abandon us. Psychologists will tell you that one of the hardest and most important lessons a parent needs to learn is not to feel bad or retaliate when a child says: "I hate you". You need to let them hate you sometimes if you're going to draw firm boundaries for their behaviour, whether they're aged two or 12.
It's a truism worth remembering: we don't own our children, we only borrow them for a while. They are allowed to abandon us. If we do our parenting job well, they'll have the confidence to do so and, one day, they'll come back. In the meantime, we have to look after ourselves if we're to like the person that's left behind when the children go on to build their own lives.
