The Ignored Child and the Intensive Parent

The Ignored Child and the Intensive Parent

Recently, I’ve been seeing more articles coming out about “Intensive Parenting”. One that I ran across just yesterday “The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting” by the Atlantic (an article I found to be completely judgmental), had me thinking about my own parenting style. According to them, I am an intensive parent because I play with my daughter doing crafts and reading her books - or due to my intention to put Ahsoka into at least a couple of classes throughout her childhood. But what the article fails to really cover, is why parents have become this way. I mean, they talk about why rich parents are this way, but they fail to look at the middle class and what may drive us to make sure that our children get the most out of well, their childhood. They fail to talk about why those of us who grew up in vastly different households may choose to be more hands on with our own children.

I didn’t grow up middle class. I grew up poor. I wasn’t so poor that we were homeless at any point, but we were poor enough that my bi-polar, often absent, mother struggled to keep things afloat. We were poor enough that I can remember not always having food in the house (even if sometimes it was due to my mom simply not caring to buy food). And we were poor enough by the time I came along that things like classes and quality time with mom simply didn’t happen. I was fortunate that there were nearly free things in my community which enabled me to be in a Children’s quoir, or that my church had enough activities that allowed me to do fun things, such as girls’ camp when I was a teenager. But even so, I was raised with a large sense of detachment from my mother.

When I was six months old, my mother had her first mental breakdown, and was hospitalized for the first time because of it. After that, she suffered from migraines, and general depression that kept her in bed for long periods of time. When I was six years old, and my father passed away, she worked full time, and I saw even less of her. While I had an imaginative childhood spent exploring the woods behind my house, I also had a childhood spent largely in front of the television. My brother referred to me as “The Ignored Child” because being 10 years old than me, his early childhood experience was vastly different than my own. His memories of me as a baby and toddler are of waking up, changing my diaper, feeding me breakfast, and putting me in front of the TV before school. When he would return home from school, I would still be in front of the TV, often times still in the same diaper.

So when I read articles about this intensive style of parenting… It kind of pisses me off. Yeah, I do read parenting books, and articles, and have really thoughtfully considered the type of parent I want to be. And I did “breastfeed exclusively” for her first six months because, um, guys, that’s not a new thing… that’s a thing most developed countries do well beyond the 1 year mark that the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) recommend. Why is that even part of this article?

Yes, I do read to my child daily, and try to be present with her. I also encourage her to play by herself. I encourage her to explore the safe spaces in our house we have created for her. And when she is older, I will encourage her to explore more freely (she is only one year old after all). Yeah, I did make her a sugar-free birthday cake for her first birthday because I like her teeth to be healthy, and as this article may judge me for that, there are a million other articles talking about how prevalent childhood obesity has become in our society. There are so many damn contradictory articles and studies and books, it makes my fucking head spin. Why do I do all of this? Because I believe that my daughter deserves a better childhood than the one I had. While I do appreciate my childhood in many ways because I like who I am as a person at this point in my life, it took so much struggle to get here, and many MANY experiences, that frankly, I could have done without. I had plenty of “life experiences” to craft me into a strong person that occurred prior to the dumpster fire that was my 20s. So if I can give my daughter a childhood filled with the magic and wonder and exploration I had, but subtract the death and depression and neglect? FUCK YEAH I’m going to do it.

I don’t do these things because I think that it will make my daughter be rich, or because I think I can prevent all of the bad things from happening to her. I do these things because I love spending time with my daughter, and I want to enjoy this time we have together because once she’s a teenager, I know that I will not have these opportunities. But more importantly, I don’t want her to feel as lonely as I did as a child. I want her to feel loved. I want her to feel supported. I’m not going to spend countless hours doing her homework as this article states modern parents do, but I am certainly going to be a resource for her because frankly I did poorly in school throughout my childhood because I didn’t have resources. My siblings were teenagers by the time I really needed help in school, and being children themselves, they had their own shit to work through.

I’m also not planning on putting her into all of the classes, or doing all of the activities. But I do think that there’s some fun and learning to be had by doing some fun things together or independently. I believe that there is a healthy balance there. I think parenting is a constant balancing act between what we want for our kids, being there for our kids, and also letting our kids experience and make mistakes. And I think that instead of being helpful, these articles are painfully judgmental of what modern parents are experiencing. We have so much more data and information to sort through. In some ways, it’s amazing because it does allow me the opportunity to see what kind of parent I want to be. In some ways, it can be maddening because sometimes as a new parent, I just need some fucking help figuring out if it’s, for instance, diaper rash or something worse. Sometimes I just need some fucking help getting my house clean! But what I don’t need, is one more damn article telling me that I’m doing something wrong – too much this, but too little that! Fuck you! Parents are largely doing the best that we can with the resources and information we have.

And yeah, it sucks that not everyone has these resources, or abilities to put their kids in classes, or activities. My mom certainly didn’t – although frankly, she was resourceful enough to take advantage where she could, and I think that’s what we should focus on for families doing without. What we can do to offer activities for kids that aren’t so ridiculously expensive in communities that can use them? What can we do to provide these stressed out and busy parents with the information they need to get at these programs that they aren’t aware of - assuming that they even want to take advantage of those types of things, because some parents are happy with a completely free range style.

And that brings me to another point that this article seems to fail to mention. I think more parents would LOVE to leave their children unattended in their yard, or let them go to a local park after a certain age/ maturity level. But guess what? We can’t! In this modern day and age, your neighbors will literally call the cops on you, and you could have a mark on your permanent record for letting your child play in your front yard without you; even if you can see them from your kitchen window. Gone are the days of letting swaths of children plan and explore alone because our society has gotten so fucking judgmental. I hope more states pass free range parenting laws. But until then, some of us parents will have no choice but to always keep our kids in our presence when outside of our home. That’s not intensive, that’s just reality.