Kevin delivers a sincere indictment of those that responded to the Venomous Kate post in the manner that I did.

So, no retarded "advice" or "solutions" from me, no pithy lists, no reading recommendations, none of that. Just go read and think. Those of us who are a little older and in relationships (even if we don't have kids) can sympathize, and maybe we can even take some of it and put it to use.

When I was plowing through it, I was increasingly sympathetic to her plight. Like Kevin, I realize that it's difficult for someone that hasn't been there. But at some point during it, my mind turned and realized that there wasn't anything in here I could put to use. It's a healthy thing to communicate stress and exhaustion, but she takes it a couple steps further.

I suppose I am hopelessly male in the belief that misery cannot be a perpetual state. When a woman is throwing heavy objects at her dumbfounded husband, that qualifies.

Yet then she says that there isn't much that can be done because "that's just the way it is."

Well, no.

Certainly, there are things that she has no control over. She can't dictate what's in the women's magazines or what the trumped up "ideal" parents would do. At first she seems to (properly) rebut these notions, but the more I read the more she seems held hostage by them. More specifically, she seems held hostage by her own sense of perfection. Unless everything is perfect, it's a failure.

By all appearences, Kate is a good mother. I greatly admire her (and people like her) for putting their career aside to devote their time and energy towards the kids. She goes far above and beyond the call of duty. Too far and simultaneously regrets that she cannot go farther and resents the toll that it's taken to go as far as she has.

I think that's what turned my mind. People that do that often touch a raw nerve with me. In part because I've been there. While I've never been a mother, I have worked 50 hours a week, worked two minor part-time jobs, taken a 15-hour courseload, worked on my college thesis, and had a full-time girlfriend all at once.

It took a major automobile accident before I finally due almost entirely to exhaustion before it finally got the attention it deserved. Before I was able to give myself the attention I deserved.

Kate glosses over that part and goes into asking her husband (and men in general) to do more. Instead of lowering her own expectations to a reasonable level, she seems to be suggesting that the other half raise his to help meet her unreasonable one.

There is a service in all of this in reminding men that most single mothers don't just spend their time around the house watching soaps. Unfortunately, the sheer ferocity of it is enough for me to believe that their are other issues involved.