A short post about parenting

In my introductory post, I mentioned "parenting" as one of the topics about which I'd occasionally blog, so I'll go ahead and start making good on that promise.

The direct inspiration was an article that's evidently all the rage right now, Amy Chua's essay on "tough love" parenting (which I assume is either from or based on her book). If you read the essay, make sure to read the follow-up for crucial context - her style sometimes leaves you wondering whether she's being serious or tongue-in-cheek, so it's useful to find out. And there's no shortage of responses to it: here are responses by Lisa Belkin and Judith Warner.

I liked Warner's observation that what the various parenting systems share in common is the "article of faith" that "parents can have control." While I believe parents should do their best with this incredibly tough job, I'm often having to remind myself that so much of what happens in the development of my children has nothing to do with anything I do. (And sometimes it's useful to reread Philip Larkin's blunt, crude classic "This Be The Verse": a nice cynical reminder that you're destined to fail in some way or another no matter what you do...)

I suppose my philosophy of parenting these days is a kind of pragmatic bricolage. I suspect an astute anthropological observer could probably identify some fundamental patterns in my approach (and I've dabbled in a few "systems"), but I tend to see parenting as a kind of "muddling through," experimenting with various tools that may or may not work from one week to the next.

(An example that pops to mind: last fall I introduced the "Meep Meep" response to insults. Basically, if my brother insults me, I can reply "Meep Meep" in a Road Runner voice, and my brother is then compelled to re-enact Wile E. Coyote's fall into a canyon, using body or voice or both. This worked rather well for a few weeks, until the older brother found a loophole: doing the Wile E. Coyote fall, but landing on the head of his younger brother. Once the younger brother picked up on this violent retort, the "Meep Meep" tool no longer functioned. Insults have once again regained their power. On to a new experiment.)