I think my previous posts make it clear that, by nature, I am a scientist who likes to investigate and understand things based on evidence. But I don’t just like investigating things because I enjoy knowing how they work. I like gathering data to understand things when I think there is a problem that needs solving. I believe that science-based approaches can help us understand patterns and mechanisms, to move past our biases and filters to see what is really going on in a system and this can guide us to solve problems. By nature, it seems I’m also an advocate in a sense, for ideas that I think need a voice and I lend a voice of scientific evidence to build a case for those ideas. Specifically, I get passionate about being a voice for ideas, for data, for evidence that identifies a problem that seems otherwise ignored or under-voiced, or for solutions that might address the problem.
As such, so many of my posts to this point are about or inflected by these aspects of my nature and I am certain many more will be. I suspect this one will be too, despite other aims. But, alongside these sort of intellectual tendencies, I have also come to find somewhat to my surprise, that I am really drawn to nurturing, to mothering, to a very heart-centered approach to family and what follows is maybe more a reflection of that than usual. I sometimes find that I expect to find a conflict between these callings for my time and effort. This blog is one place I can unify these seemingly disparate sides of myself, and to explore why exactly it is that these aspects feel disparate or I’ve been lead to think they are. I find this kind of question interesting- why does it seem so often that we believe or are fed these dichotomies, the sometimes oversimplified, black-and-white thinking. It seems this if often the case when it comes to parenting.
One thing I’ve been pondering lately is why so often the perspective we see presented, about parenting, in our culture, popular media, blogs, etc, is so grim. Beyond the mommy blogs that instruct of how to make healthy kid-friendly snacks that look like zoo animals, or design Montessori style home activities to entertain kids during the never-ending upstate NY winter, so much that I come across about parenting presents a grim view of the experience. There’s a good bit out there that aligns with the book title “All Joy and NO Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenting” (by Jennifer Senior, and this is not by any means a criticism of this thoughtful book, but simply a use of the clever title!). Why is it that so often articles and anecdotes about parenting all include what some of my favorite journalists call the “To be sure…” paragraph of disclaimers: to be sure, I love my kids or kids are a great joy and so on, but… Followed by all the things that are that are so utterly brutal and hard and desperate about modern parenting.
To be sure 😉 there are parents and families out there coping with real and intense struggles. But at the moment I’m thinking about some reasonably large swath of families in the middle of most graphs of metrics that matter. I’m trying to understand why we emphasize the struggle, the difficulties, the strain, of parenting so much in out cultural communications and representations. Maybe it’s our negativity bias that we emphasize the grim and gritty so much. Is there a feedback loop, when one sees the hardships more when the messages you receive keep drawing your attention to their shape and color.
I do find parenting full of joy. And fun. And happiness. And almost all positive words in the thesaurus that I won’t bore you with here. I don’t feel so much grimness, so much strain, so much hardship when it comes to parenting. And I feel like there’s something wrong with me when I say that. Undoubtedly, when it comes to the challenges of choosing how to address professional security or progress and a commitment to my family, heck yes do I feel strain and challenge, even with my fortunate life circumstances- and I do believe I have fortunate circumstances in so many aspects of life. But when it comes down to parenting itself, I utterly love and enjoy approximately 99.99% of every minute of it. And I feel like some kind of strange monster saying that because it feels like that is not allowed to be uttered, or that anyone who reads this will simply assume I’m lying, I’m painting with rose colored brushes (to mix metaphors). Yet, I’m certain I cannot be alone in this. There must be others out there that feel this way, that feel that it is largely not just an enormous joy but the source of happiness and fun and all the good stuff much of the time. So why don’t we hear more from them? Why don’t we see more blogs and articles when the “To be sure” disclaimer reminds us that of course not every moment is perfect and there are challenges but…an enormous amount of wonderfulness? Can we talk about how much we enjoy being with and raising our kids without being imagined to be bragging or hiding the truth?
I do wonder if some of this bias- this bias toward a negative portrayal of parenting that I believe I see in so much media- has something to do with the experience of parenting amidst increasingly invasive and unreasonable work and career demands for so many parents. Would more of us find parenting not just full of joy but also fun and light-hearted and energizing if we weren’t feeling the pressure of those Saturday emails from the boss or late night texts about upcoming meetings, if we weren’t struggling with that zero sum time game between our kid’s special performance at school and the last minute work meeting at 4pm on Friday, that expectation of a 50 or 70 or 90 hr work week?
I want to explore this topic further, among so many others. But for now I want to go out on a limb and do the thing I’m saying I think “society” should do more of. I’m saying out loud, straightforwardly, without the “To be sure” caveats to undercut my message, that I find parenting absolutely awesome. I wish we said and heard this more. I wish we spent time seeing, feeling, and noting the positive parts of this gig. I wish it didn’t feel like a faux pas to do so. I wish we spread this message, and maybe then began increasingly to live as if it were true. I wish we would really begin to question the things that shift us away from this feeling. I think openly enjoying- or at least striving to enjoy- parenting can only do good for our kids, our marriages or partnerships, our families and communities. And it would certainly make me feel like a bit less of a weirdo when I say it.