All Joy and No Fun
The Paradox Of Modern Parenthood
Editorial Review
Over the past two generations, parenthood has gone through radical readjustments. As children went from helping on the farm to being the focus of relentless cosseting, they shifted from being our “employees” to our “bosses!” Even the most organized people have little to do to prepare themselves for having children. They can buy all the books, observe friends and relations, review their own memories of childhood, but the distance between those proxy experiences and the real thing, ultimately, can be measured in light years. Prospective parents have no clue what their children will be like; no clue what it will mean to have their hearts permanently annexed; no clue what it feel like to second-guess so many seemingly simple decisions, or to be multitasking even while they’re brushing their teeth. Becoming a parent is one of the most sudden and dramatic changes in adult life. A father with two young kids describes the whole experience as “All Joy and No Fun.” This might be familiar with the description used by the social scientist William Doherty which summarizes parenting: “a high-cost / high-reward activity.” There’s no denying that our lives as fathers and mothers have grown much complex, and we still don’t have a new set of scripts to guide us through them. Even scholars are mainly concerned with the effect of parents on their children. But it’s time now to swing the telescope around and ask this question from the reverse perspective: What is the effect of parenthood on adults? After all, we’re all the sum of our experiences. Raising children plays an enormous part in shaping our vision and making us who we are.
Book Reviews
Books on Related Topics
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Wisdom to Share
But now, parents live in a society that gives them the sense that their kids have to give them permission to do things.
The contemporary home has become a place of perpetual liminal tension, with everyone trying to work out whether adolescents are adults or kids.
When prospective mothers and fathers imagine the joys of parenthood, they seldom imagine the adolescent years.
Being considered precious and irreplaceable gave children more power in the family hierarchy than they had ever had.
extravagant parental involvement in the children’s activities and life routines is referred to as “concerted cultivation.”
It’s fine, though, not to find an answer; after all, questions are the true revelation, not the answers.
It’s a fact that children strengthen the relationship between parents and make them less apt to divorce.
The difficulty is that they allow many “professionals” to work from home, reducing their ability and chance to develop and get promoted!
The difficulty is that they allow many “professionals” to work from home, reducing their ability and chance to develop and get promoted!
Adults find children a bit difficult to synchronize with their own agendas.But most of life with young children doesn’t have a script.
The extravagance of children’s wishes, behaviors, and energies all become a threat to the parents’ well-ordered lives.
When parents spend a great deal of time fighting their urge to sleep, they are more vulnerable to scream and yell, and then feel mad at themselves!
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