Last year there was a small group at our church called "Mother to mother." The idea was to talk about topics mothers would be interested in, like nutrition, marriage, mentoring, how parenting has changed over the past 100 years, and so on.
One I especially was interested in was "Raising a lifelong learner." I wanted to hear what other people were doing, any tips they had for keeping kids interested in the world instead of getting tuned out, etc. The speaker had lots of ideas---none of which I was doing. She gave her kids themed birthday parties (right down to costumes for the birthday girl) which were based on books they read. They had "Children's Day" (like mother's day and father's day) when their favorite activity was to go to the art museum and sketch the paintings in the exhibit. They went to the free orchestra practices every Thursday.
What surprised me was the visceral way I reacted to her suggestions. I felt defensive. I felt guilty. I felt angry that someone was suggesting that I wasn't doing enough for my children (never mind that no one was suggesting that at all). Even reading and remembering the talk right now makes me anxious.
The thing was, all the speaker was doing was trying to give people good ideas for things to try---or maybe even just saying things that she tried, without even suggesting that we try them too. But it felt awful, and I think that many of the talks in that series ended up making moms who were trying to do their best for their kids feel bad. It made me wonder why even well-intended advice ends up making the advisee feel bad, or why there are so many heated debates about even the smallest areas of child raising wisdom, or why even bringing up the mommy wars causes accusations and hurtfulness.
I think there are two main reasons. The first is uncertainty about the wisdom of the practices we currently have. With our first daughter, we used the "cry it out" method of sleep training---it worked, but I still wonder if there wasn't something more gentle we could have done, or if we scarred her emotionally for life (the Friendly Neighborhood Developmental Psychologist has assured me many times that we didn't). When Amanda wasn't growing, I was convinced that there must be something I was doing wrong, and I just didn't know what it was, and that the Child Police were waiting at the end of the block to take her away and give her to some other parent who could do things the right way.
The truth is that there are no double blind studies for parenting techniques, and even if there were, knowing that a technique works on most kids wouldn't mean it works on your kid. So even if your neighbor (or worse, your mother or mother-in-law) tells you that attachment parenting is the only way to raise a kid, or that organic vegetables are important or that she knows how to potty train kids by the time they are 9 months old, what they are saying is that they think they know some kids it seemed to work for. You know your kid better than they do, so listen to their advice, consider it, and then take it or leave it.
The second reason I think parenting advice can sometimes leave us cold is that sometimes it's not clear that our carefully thought out parenting strategies have any effect, much less the effect we thought they would. We know of great parents with rotten kids, and vice versa. The events that have the biggest effect on our children's love of learning may have less to do with the trip to the museum and more with the spur of the moment walk in the park. We can't control what the kids remember and internalize, and it might end up being the parenting moments we have thought least about. And that's not a bad thing.
About the talk: I eventually managed to convince myself that much of what the speaker was talking about didn't apply. Her kids are 10 and 14, not 6, 4, and 2. She is intensely interested in art, music, and organizing, but mathematics and science in everyday life don't come naturally to her. My angry reaction wasn't appropriate at all. The best part was, once I tamped down my defensiveness, I was able to listen to what she was saying for what it was, and make my own plans to take Eleanor to the art museum. Sometimes advice that doesn't come naturally is worth listening to, if you can make yourself do it.
One I especially was interested in was "Raising a lifelong learner." I wanted to hear what other people were doing, any tips they had for keeping kids interested in the world instead of getting tuned out, etc. The speaker had lots of ideas---none of which I was doing. She gave her kids themed birthday parties (right down to costumes for the birthday girl) which were based on books they read. They had "Children's Day" (like mother's day and father's day) when their favorite activity was to go to the art museum and sketch the paintings in the exhibit. They went to the free orchestra practices every Thursday.
What surprised me was the visceral way I reacted to her suggestions. I felt defensive. I felt guilty. I felt angry that someone was suggesting that I wasn't doing enough for my children (never mind that no one was suggesting that at all). Even reading and remembering the talk right now makes me anxious.
The thing was, all the speaker was doing was trying to give people good ideas for things to try---or maybe even just saying things that she tried, without even suggesting that we try them too. But it felt awful, and I think that many of the talks in that series ended up making moms who were trying to do their best for their kids feel bad. It made me wonder why even well-intended advice ends up making the advisee feel bad, or why there are so many heated debates about even the smallest areas of child raising wisdom, or why even bringing up the mommy wars causes accusations and hurtfulness.
I think there are two main reasons. The first is uncertainty about the wisdom of the practices we currently have. With our first daughter, we used the "cry it out" method of sleep training---it worked, but I still wonder if there wasn't something more gentle we could have done, or if we scarred her emotionally for life (the Friendly Neighborhood Developmental Psychologist has assured me many times that we didn't). When Amanda wasn't growing, I was convinced that there must be something I was doing wrong, and I just didn't know what it was, and that the Child Police were waiting at the end of the block to take her away and give her to some other parent who could do things the right way.
The truth is that there are no double blind studies for parenting techniques, and even if there were, knowing that a technique works on most kids wouldn't mean it works on your kid. So even if your neighbor (or worse, your mother or mother-in-law) tells you that attachment parenting is the only way to raise a kid, or that organic vegetables are important or that she knows how to potty train kids by the time they are 9 months old, what they are saying is that they think they know some kids it seemed to work for. You know your kid better than they do, so listen to their advice, consider it, and then take it or leave it.
The second reason I think parenting advice can sometimes leave us cold is that sometimes it's not clear that our carefully thought out parenting strategies have any effect, much less the effect we thought they would. We know of great parents with rotten kids, and vice versa. The events that have the biggest effect on our children's love of learning may have less to do with the trip to the museum and more with the spur of the moment walk in the park. We can't control what the kids remember and internalize, and it might end up being the parenting moments we have thought least about. And that's not a bad thing.
About the talk: I eventually managed to convince myself that much of what the speaker was talking about didn't apply. Her kids are 10 and 14, not 6, 4, and 2. She is intensely interested in art, music, and organizing, but mathematics and science in everyday life don't come naturally to her. My angry reaction wasn't appropriate at all. The best part was, once I tamped down my defensiveness, I was able to listen to what she was saying for what it was, and make my own plans to take Eleanor to the art museum. Sometimes advice that doesn't come naturally is worth listening to, if you can make yourself do it.
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