As I've been seeing to other business over the past couple of days, the business of child-rearing has remained in my mind. As I mentioned in a comment yesterday, creativity is an important element of the undertaking.
Ever since I was old enough to notice it, I've despised the idea of parents treating all their children the same. Not being the oldest child, I felt that my parents unjustly, and unjustifiably tied my options to my elder sibling's behavior -- and I had no control over that! My focus has shifted since then, of course, but I still dislike the practice.
I'm not saying that some children "are more equal than others". I'm saying that children, just like adults, are individuals, and that forgetting that, especially for a parent, can be problematic. Adults don't generally think much about the variability that babies show in acquiring certain skills -- learning to walk and talk chief among them -- as long as it isn't unusually delayed. It's accepted as normal that some children will learn to walk at nine months, and others won't until twelve or even fifteen months. So why is it apparently acceptable to try to use the same learning or disciplinary techniques on different children, just because they're in the same family?
Many people will respond that doing so is only "fair", especially to the children involved. And even though I too railed against the unfairness of the world when I was younger, it didn't take me too long to realize that fairness is one of those grand-sounding schemes that reduce to sucking the uniqueness out of life. Life isn't fair; it is random and capricious and opportunistic, and I think we do ourselves and our children no favors if we expect otherwise. Trying to keep discipline "fair" among children means that square, heptagonal, and decagonal children all are expected to fit into a round slot. It also encourages the children to accept (or endure) such attempts at pruning. Neither of these ideas sits well with my goal of trying to help my children discover and capitalize on the best within themselves.
It took a few attempts at using time-out with my daughter to really bring this lesson home to me. She, unlike her older brother, simply didn't care about being in time out. Thus, a warning of an impending time out wasn't sufficient to get her to rethink her current actions. However, she very much enjoys special mother-daughter time. Thus, telling her that I wouldn't be willing to spend time combing her hair or reading poems to her is highly effective.
Many parents also don't seem to recognize that they can learn a lot from even their young children. The flow of knowledge seems to be thought of as unidirectional, with the parents imparting insights and the children soaking them up. But both are active participants in that dynamic activity, and I think it's very important for children to experience their parents learning new things, rethinking existing ideas, and such. So my children get credit from me when they help me learn something new, or when they enable me to make a connection between things I hadn't seen before. Since everybody gets a turn, so to speak, at being "leader" and "follower", they learn more about social interactions (including how those can differ for girls and boys) and dynamics in addition to whatever subject is under consideration.
I've a feeling I'm not communicating all that I want to very well this morning. But, rather than ramble on, I trust anyone wishing to explore further will ask or comment.
More on Child Rearing
Daniel says:
Sunni, you've met my dad, and if you asked him, he'd tell you that when there were four of us children at home we were terrors about this idea of fairness. Any deviation from what we saw as perfectly even-handed parenting behavior would result in vast tumult and unhappiness and screeching and argument.
Being the youngest, I remember only the part where my teenaged sisters would complain bitterly that I didn't have to do as many heavy-labor chores as they did. The fact that I had just turned five -- as I had at the earliest memory I have of this bitter complaining -- cut no onions with them.
It caused my father to tear his hair out, because of the wide separation in our ages and personalities. "Life isn't fair" became his parenting mantra. And yet, in hindsight, he says he regrets being *too* fair -- as his children were demanding -- instead of parenting differently as our personalities and circumstances seemed to warrant.
Wolf DeVoon says:
Sunni said: "Life isn't fair; it is random and capricious and opportunistic..."
Correct and essential, basic. Ought to be carved in gold on every schoolhouse. I very much appreciate your writing (and Jorge's) on rational parenting.
Laura says:
Tagging onto the concept that "Life isn't fair; it is random and capricious and opportunistic..."
I also feel a common (unfortunate) theme among parents is that of seriously overprotecting and over delivering- basically trying to make childhood risk free. As a mom, I can understand the sheer fear associated with the possibility that something bad could happen to your kid - still I steel myself and let my kid "go for it." At his young age (under 2), this means letting him climb away(spotted but not held), allowing bumps and bruises (as Sunni said about the cold, we don't allow him to get into an overly dangerous spot of course), not helping all the time no matter how cute he is when he says "hep? hep?", and letting him throw what we call a "fit" when he's genuinely sad or frustrated about something without always rushing in to "fix it." I am rewarded with his obvious pride, even at such a young age, you could not mistake the huge beam grinning out from under that egg on his forehead when he finally made it all the way down the stairs on his feet all by himself!
Later it will probably be much harder - doing things like "letting" him pursue physical activities he chooses (even if they make me feel fearful), "letting" him make difficult choices with his money and not bailing him out even if it's really a big deal, etc etc. Those are relatively benign examples, there are tougher decisions facing me, I know.
My point is this - life is not a zero risk proposition, far from it, and I'm not sure when it became good parenting to so woefully underprepare our kids for reality. In an overzealous attempt to protect our kids, so many parents have limited the palette of experiences for them, robbed them of chances to make choices and build confidence, taken away key learning oppy's, and I also think with teens in particular, virtually destroyed any chance of having meaningful coming of age moments that can really only bloom when something has been risked, perhaps lost and then celebrated or mourned.
Sunni says:
Hi Daniel! I grok your father's predicament to some degree, as issues of "fairness" continue to rise in our household. Despite that, I stubbornly refuse to engage anyone on the issue, other than to repeat that mantra. Please pass along my warmest regards to your father at your earliest convenience.
Wolf, thank you for your encouraging words.
Laura, you've definitely pegged another difference between my and other parents' styles: overprotecting one's children. It is a difficult challenge as they grow, but in all honesty, the greatest challenge I see is trying to find a workable path between what my children are capable of doing, and want to do, and what the busybodies around would be horrified to see them doing. In some areas, simply playing outside by themselves without obvious adult supervision is apparently unacceptable. But how else are they going to learn self-sufficiency if they don't experience situations without some sort of guardian waiting to intervene on the smallest pretext?
Laura says:
Thanks to everyone who's commented so far on my question. I've gotten a lot of good ideas and food for thought.