Parenting Through All of…This
Hmmmm…how to describe raising children right now…
Maybe it’s like being Ginger Rogers, dancing backwards in heels, twirling and leaping without the benefit of being able to see what’s coming or to plant our feet firmly on the ground. Or maybe it’s more like a “we’re building the plane while we’re in the air “ sort of affair? I guess it could be likened to the dream in which you’re late for an exam, and the hallway keeps getting longer, and you haven’t got a pencil, and you didn’t study because, to be honest, you never made it to class.
TLDR, I don’t think I know what I’m doing, parenting-wise. I didn’t know what I was doing before we got dropped into this freaky alternate timeline, and I’m really in the dark now. I know I’m not alone. Parenting through an ongoing plague (with others potentially on its heels) is hard. Parenting through climate change is hard. Parenting through political strife, and weird technology, and cuts to education, and a mist of dissolving human rights is hard. It’s all hard. When people use the phrase “unprecedented times”, this is what they mean.
I’ll admit, right out of the gate, that I’m lucky. I have one kiddo (just one) who is old enough and reasonable enough to not make things more difficult than they already are. I’m also sitting on some privilege. I have a safe and comfortable place to live. I have resources. I have people, including a partner who is a true co-parent. Things could be much, much harder for me.
And even with all of this on my side, I’m still struggling to dance backwards/build the plane/write my nightmare exam. When I send my kid out into the world each morning, I have to fight the urge to pack body armour and bubble wrap in with lunch. I feel like I am chronically the bearer of bad news, the town crier that everyone wants to slap and hurl tomatoes at. I struggle to explain the madness of this broken world to myself, even though I’m a philosopher and that’s my job. Then I struggle even harder to explain it to my kid.
So, I’ve been doing what a philosopher is supposed to do when things get unprecedented. I’ve been taking apart and putting back together my views on all things related to parenting. As is often the case, when you crack something open, a whole lot of creepy things tend to scurry out. I’m guilty of holding onto a lot of assumptions about kids and parenting, and it’s been adding layers of nonsense to what’s already been unprecedentedly difficult.
Parents out there, please join me in scraping off some of these layers.
It's probably time we changed the way we think about childhood, in general. The whole concept of being a kid, and not just a tiny adult, is relatively new. For a long time, it was a label reserved for the well-to-do. The age at which we stop being kids, as well as the capabilities and responsibilities of a kid, have always been blurry. Hundreds of years into child psychology, we still don’t spend enough time thinking about what they’re like, outside of the dimples and squeaky voices. Don’t even get me started on the slimy labels we like to slap on teenagers.
A couple of months ago, at medieval faire, I watched a toddler walk by a cosplayer dressed as a demon executioner, complete with gnarly mask and a giant plastic axe. Wee munchkin didn’t even flinch. I welcome this kind of reminder that kids know stuff. They notice, they think, they adapt, they deal. They can detect a fake smile or a half-truth from a mile away, even if they’re too polite to point it out. If our strategy for raising the next generation to be functional in any way, we need to stop thinking of them as cute little goofballs. Fellow big people, they’re onto us.
Even if we wanted to keep a lid on the world for our littles, we can’t anymore. Can open, worms everywhere. All the stuff that I grew up thinking would never happen in real life is happening to my kid, and to other kids. The world has become stranger than fiction. It simply isn’t possible for us to rewrite the narrative fast enough or often enough to cover this up. I bolster myself with platitudes like “Never feel sorry for raising dragonslayers in a time when there are actual dragons.” I no longer scramble to hide the mess, I just put my energy and love into helping my child find ways to grow around it, to find joy in spite of it, to stay curious and empathetic, even “woke”.
It's time to stop buying into the “ugh, young people these days” schtick. Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and whatever comes after neither scare nor annoy me. I’m amazed at and inspired by them. While I’m not at all impressed by what grown-ups are doing in the face of climate change, public health crises, and political upheaval, I’m greatly encouraged by children and youth. The new batches coming through have their darker moments, but they’re aware of and engaged in the world around them in a way that previous generations haven’t been. They’ve been given leave to say no to what doesn’t serve them, and they’re far less likely to put up with ignorance or injustice. They give respect where it’s earned, not where it’s demanded.
Around my kiddo, I don’t even pretend that all of this isn’t hard for me. How on earth could it be otherwise? My kid knows that I’m human, that I am bewildered by so many things, that I have hard days/weeks/months/years, and that I feel little bit broken too. I invite my kid to help in the finding of solutions, and I reinforce that 24/7 happiness is neither necessary nor sufficient for a good life. Slapping on a fake smile in the face of adversity does little to help, but learning to innovate, collaborate and problem solve does.
While I’m worried about my kid getting sick or falling behind in one of a million ways, I’m keenly aware that there are parents in other parts of the world who breathe a sigh of relief every time their kids live to see another day, full stop. They must wonder if their kids, if they live to see adulthood, will be whole enough to function. Their kids are made keenly aware of how brutal and unfair the world is, that people might discriminate, but misery does not. In some parts of the world, there is no smokescreen behind which to sweep the ugly stuff. There’s absolutely no choice for them but to face things head-on, together. What I’ve learned about parenting right here and now, in the thick of everything that’s happening and has been happening, has only sharpened what I feel for them.
Parenting right now is hard, in so many ways and on so many levels. But as I tell my kid, and probably many others tell theirs, we can do hard things. In these unprecedented times, we can parent in unprecedented ways, and raise unprecedented kids who find unprecedented ways to live. They’re smart enough, and so are we.
Courage, mes amis.