I Love My children, I Love My Life, Part Deux

I recently wrote about the New York Magazine article, “I Love My Children, I Hate My Life.” Kids are awesome but raising them is drudgery. A parental dilemma the author seemed to equate with the riddle of the Sphinx. But I readily found two solutions buried in plain sight in her article. The first solution, the subject of my previous column, was essentially that parents spend too much time with their kids these days. The second was that many parents are simply insane, lacking the ability to know when to say when.

If you haven’t read the New York Magazine article, it was about how parents love their kids, but hate their lives more than their peers did 50 or so years ago. Parents love the joy kids bring into their lives but hate the drudgery of the daily routine in raising them. This got me thinking of how many parents I know who do things with their kids mistaking “that’s what you should do”  for “that’s what I want to do.”

For example, homework. One of the studies showed a video of a mom nagging her kid to shut off his game and do his studies. It’s a recurring fight between the two. He ignores her and comes up with excuses as any kids would. But, if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly yet expecting different results then isn’t this woman just insane for having the same argument with her son over and over again?

The Montessori in me wondered if part of our insanity as parents is that we micromanage kids too much these days with no consequences for disobedience. This kid was probably ignoring his mother because there was no punishment for disobeying. Plus, why does it really matter how or when he does his studies if he does them. Why not just tell him he can do his homework whenever he wants but if he gets below a B average, he cannot play the game until his average is back up north of a B.

My brother used to do his homework in front of the TV because my mom got sick of nagging him not to. He ended up getting a partial scholarship to the University of Rochester where he graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors. Sure, he didn’t go to Harvard but he wouldn’t have anyway and my mom didn’t go insane nagging him for 4 years to get the same results.

If something is annoying or a chore, sane people usually stop doing it, limit its frequency or switch methods. But as parents we often plow on through and ergo are miserable. For example, bathing. It’s a pain to do it everyday so I bathe my kid every other day unless he’s dirty or needs it. This shocks so many people who bathe their kids daily because that’s what you should do, whether they want to or not. But you know what, my kid is never smelly or dirty, I enjoy bathing him when I do it, and I’m happier because of it.

Now, all this being said, I realize irony is almost a universal law as a parent so I’ll undoubtedly write a follow-up piece in 30 years when my son is still living at home on the dole in desperate need of a shower. I’ll title it, “The Importance of Nagging Your Children.”