There is an excerpt from Norah Ephron (Harry Met Sally etc) in today's Mail (yes, I know, but bear with me), about being a parent, which I think is so funny and wise. I particularly liked this stuff:
In any event, suddenly, one day there was this thing called parenting. Parenting was serious. Parenting was fierce. Parenting was solemn. Parenting was a participle, like 'going' and 'doing' and 'crusading' and 'worrying'. It was active, it was energetic, it was unrelenting.
Parenting meant playing Mozart CDs while you were pregnant, doing without the epidural, and breast-feeding your child until it was old enough to unbutton your blouse.
Parenting began with the assumption that your baby was a lump of clay that could be moulded (through hard work, input and positive reinforcement) into a perfect person who would some day be admitted to the university of your choice.
Parenting was not simply about raising a child; it was about transforming a child, force-feeding it like a foie gras goose, altering, modifying, modulating, manipulating, smoothing out, improving.
(Interestingly, the culture came to believe in the perfectibility of the child just as it also came to believe in the conflicting theory that virtually everything in human nature was genetic ? thus proving that whoever said that a sign of intelligence was the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts simultaneously did not know what he was talking about.)
And by the way, all sorts of additional personnel were required to achieve the transformational effect that was the goal of parenting - baby whisperers, sleep counsellors, shrinks, learning therapists, family therapists, speech therapists, tutors - and, if necessary, behaviour-altering medication, which, coincidentally or uncoincidentally, was invented at almost the exact moment 'parenting' came into being.
In any event, suddenly, one day there was this thing called parenting. Parenting was serious. Parenting was fierce. Parenting was solemn. Parenting was a participle, like 'going' and 'doing' and 'crusading' and 'worrying'. It was active, it was energetic, it was unrelenting.
Parenting meant playing Mozart CDs while you were pregnant, doing without the epidural, and breast-feeding your child until it was old enough to unbutton your blouse.
Parenting began with the assumption that your baby was a lump of clay that could be moulded (through hard work, input and positive reinforcement) into a perfect person who would some day be admitted to the university of your choice.
Parenting was not simply about raising a child; it was about transforming a child, force-feeding it like a foie gras goose, altering, modifying, modulating, manipulating, smoothing out, improving.
(Interestingly, the culture came to believe in the perfectibility of the child just as it also came to believe in the conflicting theory that virtually everything in human nature was genetic ? thus proving that whoever said that a sign of intelligence was the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts simultaneously did not know what he was talking about.)
And by the way, all sorts of additional personnel were required to achieve the transformational effect that was the goal of parenting - baby whisperers, sleep counsellors, shrinks, learning therapists, family therapists, speech therapists, tutors - and, if necessary, behaviour-altering medication, which, coincidentally or uncoincidentally, was invented at almost the exact moment 'parenting' came into being.
rest of it is here!