I recently watched a fascinating TED talk on parenting and some of its modern dysfunctions. It got me thinking.
One of the speaker's points, as I understood it, was that parents often directly seek to make their children happy and in so doing they stress out both themselves and their children. It kinda sucks all around. It's a great talk; I recommend you watch it. I'll most likely be a dad some day, so her points felt relevant.
The happiness point led me to critique this parenting style from a more theoretical standpoint: if I take for granted, as I do here in the USA, that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are elevated among each individual's inalienable rights, does parenting with the primary goal of a happy child abrogate the child's right to pursue happiness?
I guess I'll find out one day.
Interesting article. Since you asked, here are my 2 cents:
ReplyDeleteIt seemed she had a really pessimistic view of "what the world has become," especially where she was citing that study about relationships-producing-happiness (friends are better than spouse is better than parents, etc.), and I really disagreed with her on that. From my own experience, I don't think things are as crazy as she made them out to be.
That said, I think she's right that the bar is set too high - to an impossible standard - for parents, but I also think just "not hurting them" is too low.
As far as happiness goes, you can't decide whether or not your kids are happy. You can influence the good things that happen in their life, and teach them things like gratitude and kindness that lead to happiness, but whether or not they are happy about it is up to them. So, she was right on that front, that stressing about whether or not your kids are happy won't help you as a parent.
My own personal philosophy (that I have yet to implement, and therefore yet to test... take it as you will) is to simplify. Fewer scheduled activities, less homework, more playing outside and getting dirty. Just let them be kids, and don't try to micromanage their childhood.
The job of the parent is to keep them safe, be kind and loving (golden rule for the win!) and teach them to be good people. They will decide their own level of success in life, and their own degree of happiness.
Jonathan - thanks also for asking my opinion on this; it's an honor.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the poster that "happiness" is the wrong goal, and agree with Savannah that "just not hurting them" is too low a goal; not maliciously inflicting pain should be so standard as to be unremarkable, at least in the physical sense.
But that goal - not inflicting pain - is pretty insidious for other reasons too: pain is a necessary element of our struggles, our growth, and, ultimately, our happiness. Labor, delivery, and (for many) initial breast-feeding are all painful! experiences that have to come before we can have the joy of having a healthy child in our arms. You can't have one without the other. Similarly: self-esteem does not come primarily from how we are thought of by others (though that certainly influences it). A far, far stronger predictor is our own self-efficacy: how well we know we can do hard things.
In that regard, allowing our child to experience pain seems to be not only justified, but absolutely essential, to their happiness. Look at how our Heavenly Father treats us: He gives us no experience beyond our capacity to bear, but He does try, test, and prove us in all things. Interestingly, succeeding in those trials is living "after the manner of happiness" in Nephi's words.
I think that the religious perspective answers the speaker's primary problem: in a secular ideology, when children are not workers, there are no core principles upon which to base parenting. Nor do I think, honestly, that the pursuit of happiness argument is sufficient either: again, happiness being so ephemeral, fleeting, and subjective, literally any parenting pattern or set of behaviors can be claimed and demonstrated to conflict with a child's pursuit of happiness. It's a subset of the Liberal/Libertarian paradox: a system that truly accepts everything and everyone cannot survive beyond meeting someone who does not also accept everything and everyone - and any non-acceptance is hypocrisy. Our American - and, in my experience, Western European - cultures have embraced a cultural relativism that is in the midst of experiencing just this paradox; hence, the crisis in parenting.
But the Gospel does give standards for parents to follow. Parents teach their children to live in righteousness, help them know how to access God, and teach them their (the parents') testimonies. They teach them correct principles, and then the children govern themselves - at least partially by age eight!
I would suggest that preparing children for some sort of economically productive activity is a necessary part of helping children know and fulfill their responsibilities in the Gospel - but without the overarching goal of helping their children know "to what source they may look for a remission of their sins," I don't think that any other theory of parenting (or human development, or self-actualization, which is what we are talking about here, ultimately) can be complete.
Or, in other words: I think that having the right goals as a parent requires an answer to the question: "What is the meaning of life?" Without that answer, parents will always be in crisis; with it, they may still be, but at least they will have the tools to identify what that crisis is, why it is there, and how to deal with it.