Joy? Fun?
I just read an article about parenting in the New York Times: All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting. It got me a little weepy (but then, lots of stuff does that when I have a baby in the house.) It’s a well-written and well-researched article, and I don’t have anything really interesting to add. But I want to go on record now with the resolution that I *will* enjoy my years as a parent. And I mean, right now, not just in retrospect.
It’s actually easy for me to be vibrantly happy with Alden, just as it was with Rosy when she was a baby. I don’t just love the transcendant joy of his smiles and giggles, I love the whole lifestyle of nursing and wearing him and sleeping with him and soothing him when he cries–and taking life slow. But I’m not going to lie, the constant arguments that come with a preschooler (Rosy is not a toddler any more) can wear me down. I don’t like conflict and drama, and I don’t like to be in control of someone else. Ha. The books (yes I read a lot of books) suggest that a zen, non-attachment (take that Dr. Sears) method of parenting is possible, that I can leave the drama and conflict to her and not partake of it. That I can give her the gift of self-discipline through reasonable choices and reasonable consequences, that I can make her happy and self-confident by letting her know how much she is loved. And I *do* believe in all this stuff, I do think I can be a good parent this way. But day-to-day, it still feels like all I do is make thousands of very insignificant decisions and then fight for them with my life and sanity.
So today, I’m going to focus on playing with her and having fun. Because sometimes, it *is* fun and today is going to be one of those days.
July 30th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
I was full of pop up objections when I started the article but think, overall, it was really balanced and circling around important issues and insights, taking pretty much everything into consideration that needed to be there. But that’s the rub. It seems to me that slicing and dicing parenthood necessarily ends up with the parts of the whole, not with that Whatever that is greater than the sum of its parts. Some, but not too much, use of the L word in the article–and yet I think that love, that desire/ache to be connected, trumps day-to-day happiness every time–and parental love has a leg up beating other kinds of love cause it’s a hardwired thing. Where lovers might hesitate, moms and dads will throw themselves over a cliff for their kids.
August 3rd, 2010 at 2:30 pm
We definitely do this more, the longer we are parents. Cort has pretty much no rules whatsoever, gets away with all kinds of mis-behavior and rowdiness. We do have lots more fun though- many games of hide and seek, piggy back rides, sword fights- can all be done in 10 minute spurts and make for very happy days. Billie had all kinds of rules and even time out as a 3 year old- now fun is more important and the rule is easily learned as a 5 year old.
He’ll be a bad influence when we come to visit for sure. Sloane will be such a sweet playmate and hopefully Rosy will pay more attention to that.