The current discourse on parenting seems to follow some particular trends including parenting is hard, parents these days overparent (i.e. helicopter parent), and being a bad mom is ok (whatever bad means). Parents from other generations like to criticize those of us doing the raising these days, and we in turn like to criticize how it used to be done. The truth is, parenting styles and child development research, and well, the status of children in society, evolves. So, we’re all wrong, and we’re all right.
The parenting from sufficiency conversation takes a look at what it means to be a parent out of the chaos of right and wrong, good and bad, and nestles it into the paradigm of the inquiry framework. And though I admittedly got triggered at a family gathering and engaged in some typical intergenerational blame gaming, I eventually pulled myself out and up into the light of inquiry. Here are some questions to consider:
- Why did you or would you have (a) child(ren)?
- What assumptions and expectations do you have about yourself as a parent?
- What assumptions and expectations do you have about your child(ren)?
- What does your “job” as a parent entail? Write your Parenting Job Description.
- How do you relate to your partner, your parents, your friends, your community inside of your role as parent, inside of the domain of family?
I ask myself these questions because I was stunned when I watched a child I care about get shamed, and proceeded – rather unskillfully – to address it with the person who did the shaming by saying that an alternative to resisting and shaming the child is to get on their level and in their world to find out what’s going on and what they are needing. The person said, “I don’t think that’s my job, and didn’t when I was a parent.” This person, like many in her generation and in the generations that came before her, saw children as something to have and own, and expected the child to be pleasant – all the time.
It’s true that children were just released from the labor force about 100 years ago. Cognitive and biological evolution takes time to adapt to policy and social change. And yet, I am left asking: Why bother? Why bother feeding and clothing and caring for someone who will not bring you money and who will not be pleasant all the time?
What makes parenting so hard is that children are demanding. To grow up and learn all that there is to learn in a complex world, to cope with all the ways the the human brain and limbs and organs develop and often need extra support, to attend to the emotional needs of a child experimenting with what works in social systems – it’s not easy. It can be fun, interesting, and joyful. It’s why we keep doing it. But to only do it for the pleasantness is risky and disappointing, and like some wise lady said to me recently, selfish.
Parenting from sufficiency is an invitation to ask questions, to tell the truth, to get out of our fantasy and accept the risk we take on by bringing in a complex being into a complex world. It is also the opportunity to see the possibilities for personal – and dare I say it – spiritual growth of the parents. And that just may be the best reason to become one after all.