I can't count the number of arguments my wife and I had as I tried to work out my "ideal day" like a typical productivity bro when we were months away from becoming parents.
Now that my kids are here though, it's amazing how everything changes...and how I've learned to let it.
Sometimes it's ok for the world to end. As Paul Virilio say, somewhere, religion for him meant believing "we lose, we die, then we do something else." Same is true for becoming a parent, I think.
I love this article so much, thanks Kristina!!!! Such a valuable perspective. Yes, parenting is the end of our world, but it leads to a better one. The world is better because my kids are in it. We are scared to imagine how parenting will change us, because we can’t imagine it. We just find that we do change, after taking care of them day by day.
I’m a millennial but one thing I have kept from my own upbringing- send the kids outside! I am not my child’s playmate, I am their mother. I want them to know how to occupy themselves and as well as be self-reliant, able to self-soothe. The kids will not be able to do that if we feel like they have to be entertained 24/7 and it’s their parents’ responsibility to entertain. Let the kids play! My kiddos are 11 and 7.
This is a great way to frame what many are experiencing. I am not a mother yet and I hope to be one in 2 years.
But one thing I would like to add. The idea that we cannot bring a child into the suffering we experience is actually counterentuitive to meaning creation.
My argument is this, ask yourself. What are the events that shaped you the most? Made you stronger? Made you be able to stand up for yourself? Only in adversity or challenge or struggle do we become better humans.
Jordan Peterson speaks about this often. There was also a study done on human brains and the sector that lit up and created the most dopamine a brain could handle, is the one of over coming a challenge. Furthermore, current studies on stress releave reshaping how speak about stress can actually change the way our bodies handle it and become a tool.
The question should rather be. Why would you not bring a child into a world of struggle? Why would you not want to create stronger humans that with aid and community become beter people if they allow the growth of challenges?
It’s strange alright. We have 1 child. Neither of us have younger brothers or sisters or nieces or nephews etc. when the hospital handed her over to us all I could think was how totally unprepared I was. Nothing actually prepares you for any of it.
" . . . being stopped by a bouncer at an event with a 5-month old asleep on her chest: “He said the problem wasn’t my baby per se — it was that other people would see the baby, and thereby be reminded of the babies they might have left at home, and it wouldn’t feel to them like an adult night out.” The spaces where children are not welcome (or considered inappropriate) might also be those places where a parent once had found meaning."
Any locale employing a bouncer was not a place where I once had found meaning. Not even once. At least this bouncer was insightful. Perhaps guides to successful parenting philosophy could provide a list of places providing meaningful philosophical bouncer encounters. Just so we can be ready for what comes next.
Love this post. My child, Hank, was born 12 weeks premature and we're still in the hospital and have been for 8 weeks. I honestly don't even recognize the person I was 9 weeks ago.
"The panel of non-parents, which included Cohen, discussed starting a family in a world of grim circumstances: climate change, genocide, structural racism, poverty, etc. They also described a culture leaning away from family-making, as the media portrays parenting as too hard, too tiring, too expensive, and too mentally draining."
Nice article overall, but could we let loose of the doom and gloom? Life has never been easier. That may not be entirely a good thing, but it's true. Climate change is a continual thing (We're still in an ice for gawd sake!), but now it's been transformed into a political football. That's in addition to all the other political footballs.
Another of those political footballs is racism. This country has never been LESS racist. Today's poor are richer than the middle class of the nineteenth century. Don't think so? Check out the healthcare of the nineteenth century. And the housing. And remember they had no electricity or running water. They largely made their own clothes (which they washed in a tub), chopped their own firewood, and mostly walked, as there were no cars or buses. They had no central heat or AC. How many people live that primitively today?
Wars? Check out the USA civil war, the deadliest war ever fought by Americans. And don't forget both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam. Genocide? Nothing matches Hitler's efforts. But there were also the Armenians, running up to WWI. Check out the mass starvation under Stalin and Mao, and try to find anything today that even comes close.
But, yes, our culture is leaning away from marriage and family making. Why? Because it's so hard? Seriously? It's never been easier. No, it's never been easy but, today, it's easier. One other detail in that regard: In the nineteenth century it was not uncommon for women to die in childbirth, yet they took that risk. Half their children died before the age of five; so should they have just given up and not even bothered?
Best reason to have kids is so they can take over your ethnic militia after the world ends. Or at least the dynasty fantasy baseball league in case the world doesn’t end.
I can't count the number of arguments my wife and I had as I tried to work out my "ideal day" like a typical productivity bro when we were months away from becoming parents.
Now that my kids are here though, it's amazing how everything changes...and how I've learned to let it.
Sometimes it's ok for the world to end. As Paul Virilio say, somewhere, religion for him meant believing "we lose, we die, then we do something else." Same is true for becoming a parent, I think.
I love this article so much, thanks Kristina!!!! Such a valuable perspective. Yes, parenting is the end of our world, but it leads to a better one. The world is better because my kids are in it. We are scared to imagine how parenting will change us, because we can’t imagine it. We just find that we do change, after taking care of them day by day.
I’m a millennial but one thing I have kept from my own upbringing- send the kids outside! I am not my child’s playmate, I am their mother. I want them to know how to occupy themselves and as well as be self-reliant, able to self-soothe. The kids will not be able to do that if we feel like they have to be entertained 24/7 and it’s their parents’ responsibility to entertain. Let the kids play! My kiddos are 11 and 7.
This is a great way to frame what many are experiencing. I am not a mother yet and I hope to be one in 2 years.
But one thing I would like to add. The idea that we cannot bring a child into the suffering we experience is actually counterentuitive to meaning creation.
My argument is this, ask yourself. What are the events that shaped you the most? Made you stronger? Made you be able to stand up for yourself? Only in adversity or challenge or struggle do we become better humans.
Jordan Peterson speaks about this often. There was also a study done on human brains and the sector that lit up and created the most dopamine a brain could handle, is the one of over coming a challenge. Furthermore, current studies on stress releave reshaping how speak about stress can actually change the way our bodies handle it and become a tool.
The question should rather be. Why would you not bring a child into a world of struggle? Why would you not want to create stronger humans that with aid and community become beter people if they allow the growth of challenges?
It’s strange alright. We have 1 child. Neither of us have younger brothers or sisters or nieces or nephews etc. when the hospital handed her over to us all I could think was how totally unprepared I was. Nothing actually prepares you for any of it.
" . . . being stopped by a bouncer at an event with a 5-month old asleep on her chest: “He said the problem wasn’t my baby per se — it was that other people would see the baby, and thereby be reminded of the babies they might have left at home, and it wouldn’t feel to them like an adult night out.” The spaces where children are not welcome (or considered inappropriate) might also be those places where a parent once had found meaning."
Any locale employing a bouncer was not a place where I once had found meaning. Not even once. At least this bouncer was insightful. Perhaps guides to successful parenting philosophy could provide a list of places providing meaningful philosophical bouncer encounters. Just so we can be ready for what comes next.
Love this post. My child, Hank, was born 12 weeks premature and we're still in the hospital and have been for 8 weeks. I honestly don't even recognize the person I was 9 weeks ago.
"The panel of non-parents, which included Cohen, discussed starting a family in a world of grim circumstances: climate change, genocide, structural racism, poverty, etc. They also described a culture leaning away from family-making, as the media portrays parenting as too hard, too tiring, too expensive, and too mentally draining."
Nice article overall, but could we let loose of the doom and gloom? Life has never been easier. That may not be entirely a good thing, but it's true. Climate change is a continual thing (We're still in an ice for gawd sake!), but now it's been transformed into a political football. That's in addition to all the other political footballs.
Another of those political footballs is racism. This country has never been LESS racist. Today's poor are richer than the middle class of the nineteenth century. Don't think so? Check out the healthcare of the nineteenth century. And the housing. And remember they had no electricity or running water. They largely made their own clothes (which they washed in a tub), chopped their own firewood, and mostly walked, as there were no cars or buses. They had no central heat or AC. How many people live that primitively today?
Wars? Check out the USA civil war, the deadliest war ever fought by Americans. And don't forget both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam. Genocide? Nothing matches Hitler's efforts. But there were also the Armenians, running up to WWI. Check out the mass starvation under Stalin and Mao, and try to find anything today that even comes close.
But, yes, our culture is leaning away from marriage and family making. Why? Because it's so hard? Seriously? It's never been easier. No, it's never been easy but, today, it's easier. One other detail in that regard: In the nineteenth century it was not uncommon for women to die in childbirth, yet they took that risk. Half their children died before the age of five; so should they have just given up and not even bothered?
Best reason to have kids is so they can take over your ethnic militia after the world ends. Or at least the dynasty fantasy baseball league in case the world doesn’t end.