A Teachable Moment

Thank you. I have thought for many years that parenting classes would go a long way toward helping children succeed. I think this is one of the most important steps we can take as a society, and I wish that there was more interest, more funding, more programs, and more incentives for parents to be involved in these programs, regardless of socioeconomic level. I have seen people at all socioeconomic levels make absolute messes of their children, crippling their futures, sometimes by enabling dependency on drugs and alcohol, as they attain young adulthood. I have also seen excellent parenting on all socioeconomic levels, with love and consistency. It would be great if we, as a society, with all of the research that's available, could band together to support good parenting. What a gift to future generations!

Helping fathers is just as important as helping mothers. With all your mentions of "parenting" I assumed you were referring to both sexes, but at the end I realized you just were referring to mothers. Perhaps if fathers had as much support in society as mothers they'd step up instead of checking out.

I also wish we would start teaching our youth about parenting - before they conceive a child - so they can make better decisions and be better prepared right out of the gate. Children deserve the best possible beginnings in life. My organization, Education for Successful Parenting, offers this type of research-based program for high schools, and it's become clear that teens are hungry to know what parenting is all about. I hope more people will join Ms. Quindlen in recognizing the importance of parenting and advocating for more thoughtful focus on the challenges, strategies, and resources for doing it well. - R. Rubenstein, www.eduparents.org

I didn't mean to comment so many times and I couldn't figure out how to delete the ones that didn't come out correclty.

I take issue with a couple of your points in this article, Anna.
Issue 1: Mommy Blogs. ???It used to take a village to raise a child, but there isn???t a village anymore. Instead of extended family, there???s a playground where everyone pretends everything???s fine, and a computer screen behind which women can say, under cover of mommy blogs, ???How come this is so hard for me??????? First of all, I???m not convinced that you have actually read any ???mommy blogs.??? Because (1) we are not all ???under cover??? and (2) This is our ???virtual village.??? As one of the first among my group of friends to have a child, and then to have to raise her by myself, turning to blogs has made me feel less alone; like others ???get it.??? Since I had few friends at the time of my daughter???s birth to ask for advice, etc., it was great that I had other people to turn to, and to realize that not every mother out there was overjoyed 24/7.
???The prevailing ethos about being a parent is that it???s mostly intuitive?????? Hence, what led to the creation, at least in part, of this ???virtual village.??? Finally, mothers had a chance to express and then realize that it wasn???t just hard for them, it???s also hard for everyone else out there doing it. We???re not keeping quiet about it anymore, and that doesn???t mean that we???re terrible mothers, and it doesn???t mean that we???ve ???made an utter mess of actual human beings.??? While we may be making connections via our computer instead of the park at least we???re doing it.
Issue 2: Fertility Drugs. ???We???ve so bought into the mass delusion.... ???
You seem to be contradicting yourself here???you had just said that parenting IS hard, but most pretend it???s not. Now you???re saying that it???s not hard, but we???re making it hard by having multiples through the use of science. I wonder if you have ever had, as I have (count them: four), young, healthy, early 30s women friends who could not get pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term, and so they turned to science. They were not trying to make their lives harder. It seems unnecessary and cruel to judge such decisions. What about a woman who births 4, 5 or 6 kids without science? Is she trying to make her life harder on purpose? No, I would guess that she just loves kids. I wonder what you find so offensive about that? I wonder if I am offensive to you because my life must be ???so easy??? with just one? You also forget that there ARE ???smart, helpful television shows about how to set limits and manage sibling rivalry:??? See Super Nanny and Nanny 911. Not to mention that every parent deals with those issues, from a mother of two to Jon & Kate Plus 8.
You end with: ???It can be a great job, motherhood, but it would be nice if everyone could be more honest about how overwhelming the job can be, and more willing to find ways to support and inform the people who are trying to do it.??? That???s just what we ???mommy bloggers??? are trying to do, Anna. You migh

I take issue with a couple of your points in this article, Anna.
Issue 1: Mommy Blogs. ???It used to take a village to raise a child, but there isn???t a village anymore. Instead of extended family, there???s a playground where everyone pretends everything???s fine, and a computer screen behind which women can say, under cover of mommy blogs, ???How come this is so hard for me??????? First of all, I???m not convinced that you have actually read any ???mommy blogs.??? Because (1) we are not all ???under cover??? and (2) This is our ???virtual village.??? As one of the first among my group of friends to have a child, and then to have to raise her by myself, turning to blogs has made me feel less alone; like others ???get it.??? Since I had few friends at the time of my daughter???s birth to ask for advice, etc., it was great that I had other people to turn to, and to realize that not every mother out there was overjoyed 24/7.
???The prevailing ethos about being a parent is that it???s mostly intuitive?????? Hence, what led to the creation, at least in part, of this ???virtual village.??? Finally, mothers had a chance to express and then realize that it wasn???t just hard for them, it???s also hard for everyone else out there doing it. We???re not keeping quiet about it anymore, and that doesn???t mean that we???re terrible mothers, and it doesn???t mean that we???ve ???made an utter mess of actual human beings.??? While we may be making connections via our computer instead of the park at least we???re doing it.
Issue 2: Fertility Drugs. ???We???ve so bought into the mass delusion.... ???
You seem to be contradicting yourself here???you had just said that parenting IS hard, but most pretend it???s not. Now you???re saying that it???s not hard, but we???re making it hard by having multiples through the use of science. I wonder if you have ever had, as I have (count them: four), young, healthy, early 30s women friends who could not get pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term, and so they turned to science. They were not trying to make their lives harder. It seems unnecessary and cruel to judge such decisions. What about a woman who births 4, 5 or 6 kids without science? Is she trying to make her life harder on purpose? No, I would guess that she just loves kids. I wonder what you find so offensive about that? I wonder if I am offensive to you because my life must be ???so easy??? with just one? You also forget that there ARE ???smart, helpful television shows about how to set limits and manage sibling rivalry:??? See Super Nanny and Nanny 911. Not to mention that every parent deals with those issues, from a mother of two to Jon & Kate Plus 8.
You end with: ???It can be a great job, motherhood, but it would be nice if everyone could be more honest about how overwhelming the job can be, and more willing to find ways to support and inform the people who are trying to do it.??? That???s just what we ???mommy bloggers??? are trying to do, Anna. You migh

i second westwingpotus. anna is not the type to find info, shes the one who makes it up herself. just like her "End of swagger" article. seriously, that article pissed me off. read it

Newflash: In another study from the University of the Blatantly Obvious, parenting is difficult.

I seriously thought this was a headline from The Onion when it popped into my inbox. What planet has Quindlen been living on where the prevailing sentiment is that parenting is easy? Has she never walked down the parenting aisle in any bookstore? It's like she wanted to write a column on the subjec of parenting--which is fine -- and instead of just doing so, she just made up an issue and then tried to refute it. What's next, an expose on how brain surgery is not as easy as it looks?

Nice to see someone confront the gorilla in the modern parenting room head on. I'm no parenting expert, although I might be an 'uncle expert' (not sure that counts for much...). At the core of today's parenting issues (and so much more) is the way human nature tends to make us feel that however we've modeled our society's culture at the moment is 'natural/'normal' and best for us all, from relationships to child-rearing. I thought Anna's most insightful quote was from Koplewicz "Parenting is a much more separate, solitary activity than it used to be," and "there isn't a village any more." What is glaringly apparent is that parenting is not, and never has been intuitive, it is managed best by a group that includes elders with experience and influence.

In the realm of social anthropology it???s commonly accepted that all human society used to be centered around a small number of families living in a tribal group, the principle work of parenting being shared by the elder women AND men, while the more able-bodied women and men were working on daily tasks to support the nomadic or semi-nomadic group. (The notion of the isolated 'pioneer' family emerged with America and Australia's colonization of their vast interiors -- pre-"civilized" humans simply did not have sufficient technology to exist in isolated families, they needed the support of their tribe.) Interestingly, most so-called "primitive societies" (fascinating, our tendency to denigrate 'otherness') studied around the world during the past century share the notion of 'serial monogamy': the kids grow up in the group's 'daycare,' knowing who their biological parents are, who those parents were currently 'committed to' and what their relationships to their step-siblings and cousins are. In the evenings, both mothers and fathers (and aunts, uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers) gather together to share a meal and their parenting experience and advice. EVERYONE in the group influence upon how the tribe's kids are brought up.

So parenting, in our most natural societal state, was vastly different than what our current culture commonly insists is 'ideal': stay-at-home MOMs (apologies to single-parent dads!) isolated in their single-family suburban homes, driving their brood around in mini-vans, being exposed to different kids/mothers/fathers in playgrounds at a variety of scheduled times. What this suggests is that moms AND dads who drop their kids off at daycare centers where a variety of 'early childhood education experts' of varying experience levels 'parent' kids of different ages mixed together all day long, have hit upon the closest approximation of what we humans need in order to grow up in the most emotionally/experientially healthy way. (Gasps of horror! Yes, we hate to have out preconceived notions turned upside down. We HATE change and crave what, in our most natural state of nomadic seasonal treks, we didn???t have: constancy, stabi

(Continued from comment above...)

This also suggests that the most appropriate way to bring stability to underprivileged/disadvantaged and single parent families is to de-isolate them from spending evenings alone at home and ensure the parents AND the kids spend as much time as possible in a situation similar to the daycare I describe above, in the company of a mixed group of other adults with varying levels of parenting experience who influence the upbringing of all the kids and help educate the parents. Providing and encouraging the latter kind of social interaction situation would likely result in a radical change upon the future of African-American (and other) kids growing up without participating fathers.

The 'group-think' we humans are prone to runs VERY deep, however. Once we've collectively agreed upon what is currently going to be 'normal and acceptable', it is extremely difficult to change our collective notions, like the idea that parenting is intuitive. If the latter is the case, then it is the inviolate right of every parent to do whatever they want with their kids in isolation (think religious cults), regardless of how damaging their inexperience and their naturally unique, individual eccentricities might be upon their innocent children who are incapable of speaking up in their own best interests. (Michael Jackson, a known pedophile, 'purchased' 3 kids who do not share any of his own DNA -- look at the photos -- and are forced to sleep in his bed every night and live in total isolation, yet our society continues to revere him and takes a "we can't interfere" stance because parenting is intuitive and therefore is an individual "human right" of the adults involved.)

A radical, simple notion, I guess, but then those are the kind of ideas my brain spits out. Just a thought about something that might matter, http://advertisingbusinessmodelredefined.blogspot.com/

As a parent as well as a professional who work with special needs children, mostly from disadvantaged homes and communities, I would suggest that parenting education begin with elementary school children. Many young people are having children. Most have no idea of the responsiblities required for proper parenting from a social, intellectual, financial, medical, or behavioral perspective. By the time their child is in school, even if they are lucky enough to have a program like "parent corp", a lot of very damaging parenting has already had an impact on their children.

Yes, a little honesty would go a long way in supporting and nurturing parents and children today. I write parenting advice articles, and my friends often admit guilty feelings of joy when I complain about my own parenting struggles. Oh, I struggle, but I'm also lucky that I have a background in child development, which offers me more resources to fall back on during our struggles.
Why do we need to pretend we've got it all under control? Parents today grew up during the self-help movement. Maybe we have trouble acknowledging these struggles when we don't have a clear solution. Just a thought. . .
http://www.childperspective.com

Firedad, are you surprised?

Wow. Another article that says "Moms are the parents, Dads are irrelevant support structures"

Great article Anna! The importance of teaching good parenting cannot be overstated!

Teresa de Grosbois

Teresa de Grosbois is a relationship expert and international speaker. She writes leading edge books for children on the topic of law of attraction.

http://tdegrosbois.wordpress.com/
http://www.smallshifts.com

Fantastic article Anna! The importance of helping parents learn how to nurture the parent-child relationship cannot be understated!

Teresa de Grosbois

Teresa de Grosbois is a relationship expert and international speaker. She writes leading edge books for children on the topic of law of attraction.

http://tdegrosbois.wordpress.com/
http://www.smallshifts.com

Our children is the product of society. If the society is good then the product will be good.

Amen! As a new mom of a 3 month old, I don't know where I would be with out my hospital and my neighborhood's New
Moms groups. I started bringing my daughter to playgroup when she was two weeks old. In the group we are way past pretense and I feel very supported and very grateful to be a mother. I have been a clinical social worker for over a decade and my respect and profound admiration of single mothers has deepened and become much more personal.
My mother always said to me that being a mother is the hardest and most wonderful thing she has ever done.