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On parenting and delegation
Sep. 3rd, 2012 07:51 amIt stormed on Saturday, so we didn't end up hiking. Hopefully today, though! It's supposed to be nice.
So I just read this article called "Why Intense Moms are More Depressed." It's a response to a study on the same topic, which found that moms of kids 5 and under tend to be, surprise, stressed out and depressed. The inference is supposedly that parenthood is a bad idea because it makes you depressed. Obviously the study isn't looking at the big picture, which is that your kids don't stay toddlers and they actually learn things and it ends up being a good investment, a growing opportunity, and something that is well worth it in the end. Also, just because something doesn't make you deliriously happy every second of every day doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. Anyway, the article I've linked to goes on to discuss the difference between "intense" and "deliberate" mothers, and how one is all about being a control freak and the other is all about being a facilitator. You can probably tell already which one is going to lead to more overall happiness.
I really enjoyed this article. Parenting IS intense, and I think it's crucial to realize that it is not all about you, and about how perfectly you do this, and how much you can control the situation. That does not make for happy moms or happy (or capable) kids. But I see this in other settings, too. My first teaching job was a minion-styled one. We all got the same lesson plans to teach different groups of students. We were not allowed to vary the plan, get behind or ahead, change anything, or adapt the lesson to the needs of the particular students we had. One employee even had a class labeled "slow," but was not allowed to actually slow down the lessons. We were not trusted to see more of the tests than the two problems we contributed to it (for fear of cheating and teaching it to our students), and we were evaluated on how well our students did. If our students failed, we were basically threatened that we would be "written up in a little book." This was particularly bad for some teachers, as it was their way of funding their education themselves. This was a method that was all about the person in charge and nothing about the people supposedly learning to be teachers. It certainly wasn't about the students at the end. And I can tell you, it definitely brought about some pretty intense feelings of antipathy!! On a less drastic scale, I've seen this with people who are in charge of, let's say some kind of parent committee at school, or a church committee to put on some event. The person in charge wants everything to be perfect. So they use a lot of pressure techniques to get people to do more than they really can without losing their minds. (Note: that's different than encouraging people to do more than they thought they could.) Or maybe that person in charge feels they can't really trust anyone to do as good a job as they need done, so they stay up late, doing everyone else's jobs, feeling inwardly resentful of what they "have" to do, etc. They collapse in exhaustion, the event is a success, but there are a lot of hard feelings mixed in. I have even occasionally seen this between spouses, when both people are equally capable and intelligent. One spouse treats the other like a baby, resentful that they have to do everything, yet unwilling or unable to relinquish a bit of control in the situation and allow for the possibility that things might turn out differently than expected. (Obviously there are cases where one spouse is mentally or physically incapacitated, and the other carries a heavier load. But what the article is talking about is how to avoid codependency, basically.)
Basically, if you try to absorb all of the consequences of another person's actions, if you try to do all of the hard stuff for them, they will never learn anything, and both of you will be resentful and exhausted. That's sort of what it boils down to. So you let go of perfectionism, but also let go of some of the stress that goes with that, and you encourage someone else's efforts. And then everybody learns and everybody helps carry the load.
So I just read this article called "Why Intense Moms are More Depressed." It's a response to a study on the same topic, which found that moms of kids 5 and under tend to be, surprise, stressed out and depressed. The inference is supposedly that parenthood is a bad idea because it makes you depressed. Obviously the study isn't looking at the big picture, which is that your kids don't stay toddlers and they actually learn things and it ends up being a good investment, a growing opportunity, and something that is well worth it in the end. Also, just because something doesn't make you deliriously happy every second of every day doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. Anyway, the article I've linked to goes on to discuss the difference between "intense" and "deliberate" mothers, and how one is all about being a control freak and the other is all about being a facilitator. You can probably tell already which one is going to lead to more overall happiness.
I really enjoyed this article. Parenting IS intense, and I think it's crucial to realize that it is not all about you, and about how perfectly you do this, and how much you can control the situation. That does not make for happy moms or happy (or capable) kids. But I see this in other settings, too. My first teaching job was a minion-styled one. We all got the same lesson plans to teach different groups of students. We were not allowed to vary the plan, get behind or ahead, change anything, or adapt the lesson to the needs of the particular students we had. One employee even had a class labeled "slow," but was not allowed to actually slow down the lessons. We were not trusted to see more of the tests than the two problems we contributed to it (for fear of cheating and teaching it to our students), and we were evaluated on how well our students did. If our students failed, we were basically threatened that we would be "written up in a little book." This was particularly bad for some teachers, as it was their way of funding their education themselves. This was a method that was all about the person in charge and nothing about the people supposedly learning to be teachers. It certainly wasn't about the students at the end. And I can tell you, it definitely brought about some pretty intense feelings of antipathy!! On a less drastic scale, I've seen this with people who are in charge of, let's say some kind of parent committee at school, or a church committee to put on some event. The person in charge wants everything to be perfect. So they use a lot of pressure techniques to get people to do more than they really can without losing their minds. (Note: that's different than encouraging people to do more than they thought they could.) Or maybe that person in charge feels they can't really trust anyone to do as good a job as they need done, so they stay up late, doing everyone else's jobs, feeling inwardly resentful of what they "have" to do, etc. They collapse in exhaustion, the event is a success, but there are a lot of hard feelings mixed in. I have even occasionally seen this between spouses, when both people are equally capable and intelligent. One spouse treats the other like a baby, resentful that they have to do everything, yet unwilling or unable to relinquish a bit of control in the situation and allow for the possibility that things might turn out differently than expected. (Obviously there are cases where one spouse is mentally or physically incapacitated, and the other carries a heavier load. But what the article is talking about is how to avoid codependency, basically.)
Basically, if you try to absorb all of the consequences of another person's actions, if you try to do all of the hard stuff for them, they will never learn anything, and both of you will be resentful and exhausted. That's sort of what it boils down to. So you let go of perfectionism, but also let go of some of the stress that goes with that, and you encourage someone else's efforts. And then everybody learns and everybody helps carry the load.
