The verge of new parenthood

I’ve enjoyed reading Ben’s work for more than a year now, and his recent thoughts on the verge of parenthood have particularly resonated with me since it was only five years ago that I searched for answer to similar questions. As a means to reflect on my own experience and to give Ben another perspective, here are my responses to his ten questions. Do go read his own answers here, they’re enlightening.

Is it even ethical to bring a child into the world right now?

I’m with you Ben. The past three years I’ve been systematically exposed to more of the brokenness of our nation and world than I’ve ever wanted to see. There’s so much broken that, at times, the aching in my bones becomes unbearable and a primal noise like the roar of a wounded and dying animal shakes the empty chambers of my soul. I wish that was an embellishment.

In the past I’ve found companionship in the Preacher’s words from the scroll of Ecclesiastes, and he still serves best to put words to my suffering. I’m unsure if anyone who reads this scroll understands who does not also ache inside for the horrors upon the earth.

Isn’t it better never to have been born? For none who see the sun shall escape excessive and cruel suffering.

And what to say of parents? As surely as the sun rises, my own heart shall be pierced through as with a sword. For whether my son suffers amidst the oppressed or raises his hand in oppression of others, I shall be severely tested and grieved.

At this point a more faith-filled Christian might offer some words of hope, but I must not write beyond what I am assured of; precious little these days. This one thing I know and no other: I shall take my primal screams, my paralyzing fears, my hopelessness and faithlessness, and I shall thrust them upon the man who was crucified and yet rose again to life. And in the fleeting moments of freedom that sometimes follow I shall make the hard choices. To bear children unto suffering. To relinquish control. To forgive and accept forgiveness. Because that man, Jesus, he knows. He knows.

What does nationality look like? It’s important to me, but why, exactly?

It’s important to make sure babies interact with a wide range of people while they’re very little, to allow them to develop an understanding that every type of face is part of their circle. Infants learn about race in their first year; by 9 months old, they recognize faces from their own race better than others. By 6 months old, they may exhibit racial bias. So it’s incredibly important that their circles are diverse. While this cognitive wiring is established early, developmental changes obviously continue throughout childhood. For these reasons - and also just because they’re better places to live for all kinds of reasons - it’s important to be in a cosmopolitan, diverse, open-minded location. Homogenous towns and cities are not what I want, both as a person, and for my child.

No, I don’t think ideological diversity is anywhere near as important as actual intersectional diversity. And I have no intention to allow bigotry or small-mindedness to enter their worldview. Empathy, inclusion, love, understanding, and connectedness must be core values. Change is inevitable and to be embraced. Difference is beautiful. The world is to be explored and embraced.

I like the idea and philosophy of free-range parenting. Let the child explore and learn on their own terms, for crying out loud. Let them ride bikes in the neighborhood and hang out with their friends and generally live out The Goonies. But that seems to be out of vogue? There’s a trend of helicopter parents who schedule their child’s every moment? The idea seems repellant to me - doesn’t it mean that they miss out on developing a degree of autonomy? - but am I right to feel that way?

What and why indeed. Such a great question. From Ben’s response, I think perhaps the underlying question is: what part do I play in their identity formation?

Ben, you’ve listed characteristics I long for in my own children: empathy, inclusion, love, understanding, connectedness. So good.

One fact I’ve discovered is this: I can’t depend upon our environment alone to build these qualities into my children. I’ve known rural townsfolk full of kindness and those brimming with hatred. I’ve encountered hardened and cynical cityfolk and those whose lives are full of mercy.

In the last month we moved our two boys, aged 4 and 2, from Evanston, IL to Rapid City, SD. Both my wife Amie and I grew up in quiet, rural, homogenous towns and later migrated to diverse, bustling cities. Neither of our children will remember much of their lives near Chicago, except for the memories we retell and the traditions we keep alive.

I’ve been greatly helped in my own exploration of identity formation by Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development and Jessie Cruickshank’s adaptation of James Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development. It’s heartening to realize a great deal of the first years of development follows brain-development trends. Realistically, trying to develop empathetic listening and consideration for others is mostly formulaic habit-formation in the first eleven years of their lives because they have zero capacity for abstract thought.

So identity development, in my understanding of my children’s developmental stages, falls under two headings: habit-formation and tradition.

Hit your brother? Check if he’s okay. That’s the response that Graham and Royal are being trained to do. So when another person gets hurt, their automatic response is to check how they are. This habit may form their hearts in time, but other-perspective empathy isn’t biologically possible yet.

What does our family do before bedtime? Family-time.

We arrived at this answer through frustration and angst. I want to enjoy reading books to my boys at night, but they need a lot of motivation to get through the bedtime routine and the only consequence that made any impact was taking away book-reading time. But I don’t want to lose book-reading time, so we needed something else. For weeks it was a source of consternation with the boys and arguments with Amie until we finally discovered that we could create something else that they enjoyed to use as a consequence/carrot. And thus family-time was created and book-reading saved.

Family-time might be anything, but it has to be 1) together and 2) fun. A few of our favorites: Red-light, green-light. Simon says. London bridge is falling down / Ring around the rosy.

Lastly, just because my children aren’t even close to old enough for the sorts of identity development that shape empathy and connectedness, I still agonize over their future selves. This is what I’m currently wrestling with:

Inside myself I feel a gulf betwixt myself and most others. The distance has grown with the diversity and depth of my experiences. Not only experiences like moving from a town to a city, but also events like the Highland Park shooting or the deaths of the elderly to COVID-19 in a nearby nursing home.

Each experience, when I let it, also builds compassion for greater swaths of humanity than I had available before.

Thus it is a paradox: the more I embrace what is true, both the beautiful and the horrific, both in myself and in the world about me, the deeper my compassion. Yet also the greater my isolation and the experience of desolation from lonely uniqueness.

If all this suffering is what it’s taken to shape me, will it take any less for my children? I am painfully aware that it’s the discomforts and difficulties which have stirred my compassion.

And this is how I land on the subject of helicopter parenting.

It seems that most helicopter parenting stems from fear. Fear of injury, as the mother who forbids risk-taking and stays close to her toddler at the slightest danger. Later on, fear of one’s brand of failure. Parents who control their children’s schedule, especially when it’s done to ensure the “right” activities, seem to fear their children will not be successful in life, usually financially. Underlying both of these is, I think, a fear that their child will be harmed, and so we try to shield them from what we think is most harmful.

The fear that our children will be harmed affects both helicopter and anti-helicopter parents. The helicopter parents believes, honorably, that they can protect their child from harm through proximity and control. The anti-helicopter parent believes, also honorably, that they can protect their child from harm by allowing small doses of independence and risk-taking in early childhood while the danger is still minimal.

If these things are true, then our parenting style is subsidiary to how we handle our fears. We can tend towards either of these styles with confidence if we’re not ruled by fear, but it’s doubtful that either approach will serve our children well if it’s driven by fear.

I want to keep them healthy and happy. That, in itself, is incredibly daunting. What if I hurt them somehow?

Alas Ben, you and I both know the answer already, though we fear it it. We shall indeed hurt our children, sometimes grievously. Did not our own parents, though their flaws may differ, share a similar desire for us and yet still harmed us, though inadvertently?

Let us become masters of humility, to ask for and receive forgiveness from our little humans.

I’ve spent my life in front of screens. What should their relationship with devices be?

I’ve not had much room for idealism when it comes to screens. Exhaustion has meant that most days our four-year-old watches about 45 minutes of television while our two-year-old naps so that Amie or I can have a limited break. What we’ve discovered from repeat experience is that any viewing that exeeds an hour starts to affect Graham’s behavior. He becomes irritable and petulantly demands more, where he would happily shut it off at just fifteen minutes less.

On my more idealist side, however, I think it’s my duty to equip him to communicate in our Internet-connected world. I’m very privileged in this regard with nearly twenty years of computer programming, administration, and security experience. My aim is that, by the time he graduates from high school, Graham will be capable of safely engaging with others on the Internet to the fullest extent of his interest, whether that’s coding websites or simply using whatever happens in a post-Facebook world.

Graham’s favorites, ordered by time: Little Baby Bum, Stinky & Dirty, Thomas the Tank Engine, Super Wings, Octonauts, and, currently, Fireman Sam.

Should I buy a domain name for them? Reserve a Twitter username? Is that self-indulgent?

I’ve reserved Gmail accounts for my boys, but not more than that. If they show interest later I may spin up subdomains for each of them. What Jeff Kaufman’s doing is fun. Follow the links on his children’s names to go to their websites.

How do we share photos and information with family and friends without compromising on privacy? Social media sites like Instagram and Facebook will be data-mined; email feels insecure because I don’t know who will end up seeing photos and messages. The really private tools and services are too hard to use for a lot of people. What’s the best practice? What does baby infosec look like?

If we were to ask the generation one degree older than our children, I wonder what they would say? I gratefully didn’t face the Internet harassment and injustice that more recent generations take for granted.

Information about our children is easy to publish but very hard to remove, so it’s best to be conservative. I always ask the same question before I send any picture or video to anyone, by any technology. Would I want my version of this content shown to my spouse, my coworkers, and my friends?

My family receives maybe ten photos/videos of the children a month, mostly by direct text message. A larger audience gets what I post on my website; maybe another five photos, though there’s usually some overlap with the ones send via text message. If any family member wants to see more, they’ll have to be physically with us to look at our private repository of photos and videos.

On a more sober vein, auto-generated content has become rampant. Even if we prevent embarrassing photos from escaping onto the Internet, cruel people can still trivially paste our children’s faces onto all kinds of repulsive things, even creating semi-realistic fake videos. Just the thought of it makes me want to burn the whole Internet to the ground, but I think the most effective leverage to combat this kind of heinous abuse is legislation. In this current moment, however, a measure of isolation, if not from the danger of attack, at least from the exposure to the attacker’s content, is necessary.