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What I’ve learnt about motherhood Maternal love isn't always a curse

(Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

(Chris Jackson/Getty Images)


December 15, 2023   6 mins

Life as a mum is rarely dull. Yesterday I begged my daughter to go back to sleep and my sons to get up; watched Moana with one child and Succession with another; poured Calpol for the youngest and wine for the eldest. Once upon a time, there lived two giant teenage boys and a small toddler in the very same family — and I’d love to tell you what I’ve learned by being a parent to all three of them.

I’d love to tell you, except that a lack of sleep during significant periods of the past 18 years seems to have prevented the laying down of long-term memories. What I can do, however, is compare having a young child now to what I vaguely remember of my time in the trenches in the 2000s. Some things are the same — the joy of first smiles, the food embedded into the cracks of the highchair, the assault on your fragile, sleep-deprived immune system as a walking germ bomb coughs delightedly in your face — but others are very different.

One thing that’s obviously changed is the tech. There’s an app for everything: meeting other mums; tracking sleeping, feeding, defecating (theirs) and alcohol consumption (yours); enticing you to buy products out of FOBMO (Fear Of Baby Missing Out), and then helping you to sell them on to other poor saps in an environmentally conscious manner once you’ve realised that they’re pointless.

There’s an app that monitors “tummy time”, an apparent obsession of modern new mothers which I swear did not even come up once 18 years ago. There’s another that tells you about developmental “leaps” and what unusual behaviour to expect when one happens (cue lots of anxious reassurance-seeking between parents: “do you think she might be leaping at the moment? I definitely think she must be leaping…”). And you can also use your phone to complain to your mum mates and make playdates, construct lullaby playlists, connect a night light to the WiFi, doomscroll childhood diseases, and replicate hairdryer white noise in order to mimic womb sounds. I have no idea how I managed to bring my first two kids up without a smartphone, though I do have dim memories of standing in a daze over a cot holding an actual hairdryer.

The kit has been updated too. New purchasing trends ripple round the motherworld faster than you can open up Instagram. Baby monitors have nightvision as well as sound; bath toy ducks have thermometers built in; crawling can even be enhanced with anti-slip kneepads. A recent addition to our house has been a “travel carry potty”: roughly, a suitcase decorated in the shape of a friendly penguin for a toddler to carry about, then open up and sit upon whenever nature calls. As a suitably environmentally conscious citizen, I could not have predicted that encouraging kids to quite literally take a shit on an endangered icon of the natural world would become so widely sanctioned —but it seems that here, yet again, the zeitgeist is moving way too fast for me.

The cast of experts is also impermanent, along with their advice. When I first had my babies, someone called Gina Ford was the authority of the moment, insisting on an exactly timed rotation of sleeping and feeding throughout the day, and advocating reduced cuddling and “controlled crying” in the evenings.  Though I personally didn’t have the inner steel to see this through, one mother I knew used to take her naked sleeping baby out into the garden to wake him if he passed the time allotted for a daytime nap. For older kids, back then the behavioural expert du jour was the equally strict Supernanny, a very watchable TV expert called Jo Frost who was fond of boundaries, princess reward charts and naughty steps, and famously prone to telling both children and their shamefaced parents that their behaviour was “unasseptable”.

If Ford and Frost sound like Victorian throwbacks, they are in fact pushovers compared to the guru my grandmother followed in the Thirties — a terrifying figure from New Zealand called Dr Truby King who advocated leaving a young baby alone all night, unfed and uncomforted, and held that cuddling should not exceed 10 minutes per day. These days — thank God — parents are encouraged to be much softer and more intuitive, with “gentle” being a big buzzword. The Gentle Sleep Solution is a popular book and “gentle parenting” has been on people’s lips for a while, described on one website as “a parenting approach that encourages a partnership between you and your child to make choices based on an internal willingness instead of external pressures”.

Basically: you remain endlessly patient; talk over every emotion of theirs and every decision of yours; give them lots of choices so they feel in control; and eventually produce neurotic mini-despots with huge emotional vocabularies, tailor-made for success in the modern world. Being a big fan of the “because I say so” method, I find this degree of parental pusillanimity incomprehensible — but in any case, there are signs that it too might be on the way out. The New Yorker, no less, has expressed doubts; and this week a confessional article appeared in The Cut, relating how gentle parenting was — surprise, surprise — in fact leaving parents resentful and depleted.

There’s a school of thought, increasing in popularity, which says that parents have become too anxious about their children, and about how to parent generally, and that it’s harming children psychologically. Most prominently, Jonathan Haidt has made a connection between overanxious, perpetually hovering parents and rising problems with mental health in young people. I’m certainly sympathetic to the argument recently offered by Ashley Frawley that if such a link is established, it’s the fault of the experts not the parents, who have been positively encouraging the latter to think of themselves as de-skilled in the upbringing of their offspring for decades. But still, I also don’t think there is any going back now.

Over generations, know-how in parenting — in the sense of relatively intuitive skills, passed on by direct observation and emulation of others around you plus a lot of practice — has been replaced with “knowing-that”: technical, relatively abstract rules that we first read or hear about and only then try to put into practice, more or less imperfectly, until the next set of instructions comes along. As conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott might have said if he were talking about parenting not politics, practical skill has been hollowed out by rationalist technique. So now, even if a parent deliberately tries hard to be less anxious, and to hover less, she is still in the realm of self-consciously adopted technique not skill. At most, “not listening to experts” is now becoming a conscious technique too, only as secure as its endorsement by whoever the new experts-about-experts are deemed to be.

Partly, this situation is a product of an overload of information via the internet, distance between generations, reduced family sizes, and the fact that many of us don’t know anyone who has children until around the time we ourselves start to procreate. But I also think that the natural facts around motherhood don’t help. (Indeed, it seems significant that the most prominent voices urging parents to be less anxious are men).

For honestly, why wouldn’t a mother be somewhat nervous, risk-averse, and second-guess herself at the slightest insinuation of her own lack of reliable knowledge? Typically, you have carried a child for nine months, invested huge amounts of physical resources in the process relative to the father, and are now centrally implicated in the child’s future prospects for surviving and thriving for years and years to come. You have, almost literally, put your egg in one precious basket. And maternal hypervigilance is arguably in a young child’s interests, adaptively speaking.

Some scientists even speculate that, despite its chilled reputation, increased oxytocin pre and post-partum — otherwise known as the “love hormone” — can make anxiety disorders and OCD in mothers more likely. There’s also research suggesting that listening to your baby’s cry can activate neural networks associated with OCD. When it comes to motherly love and motherly anxiety, then, it can be really quite hard to tell the difference.

Yes, we might hearken back to a supposedly glorious past where mums would let their offspring roam around the woods all day, only calling them in for tea at dusk. But perhaps this is not because these women were particularly relaxed and self-assured about parenting, but rather because family sizes were on average bigger, and because there’s a psychological limit to how much laser-like attention you can focus simultaneously on lots of children before your mind just gives up. Now that family sizes are reducing, maybe the maternal psyche is understandably freed up for (yet) more worrying.

In conjunction with capitalism, modern therapeutic discourse simultaneously pathologises anxiety in mothers and passive-aggressively feeds the thing it criticises: are you protecting your child sufficiently from preventable illnesses, or from the wrong school, the wrong friends, the wrong experiences, the wrong products? Are you, indeed, sufficiently protecting her from your problems, including from your own anxiety? One reasonable response to the pressure is indeed to try to ignore it all as best you can, and just do your thing — assuming you have any independent sense of what that thing is.

But another, perhaps more achievable goal is to stop positively trying to get rid of anxiety altogether, and to just accept its permanent presence in your life now; to admit to yourself that, in motherhood, worrying that you are doing the wrong thing has always gone with the territory, and always will. Yes, it’s absolute hell at times — a relentless personal torment, and particularly during crises  — but that’s partly a recognition of your babies’ intense vulnerability and need for you, and of your deep and loving investment in them. Yes, your propensity for anxiety means that you are now perpetually vulnerable to the prompts of other interested parties about what might be going wrong, or what you could be doing better; but it also means you really, really care.

Or at least, that’s what I’ll be saying to myself, the next time my teenager is on a road trip with his mates and my daughter has the croup.


Kathleen Stock is an UnHerd columnist and a co-director of The Lesbian Project.
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Geoff W
Geoff W
11 months ago

Many years ago, I read an article in (I think) “Punch” which said that there are only two rules for parenting:
1. Whatever you’re doing, it’s probably wrong somehow.
2. This probably doesn’t matter.

Dominic A
Dominic A
11 months ago
Reply to  Geoff W

One of the truly great experts (they do of course exist – it’s just that the ‘market’ is rather crowded these days…) – Donald Winnicott – called this ‘good enough parenting’, which really the best outcome for two basic reasons: perfection does not exist, and is therefore not a good goal (the more you strive for it, the more likely you are to go nuts); and when parents ‘fail’, the kid has an opportunity to learn about real people, and real life, and take a step away from being helpless.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
11 months ago
Reply to  Dominic A

I was convinced from a very early age that all adults, except for the Beatles, were completely bonkers. That revelation has served me well for sixty-odd years. “Helpless” I was not.

Last edited 11 months ago by laurence scaduto
David Morley
David Morley
11 months ago
Reply to  Dominic A

The evidence is also that apart from the extremes of abuse and neglect, parents have almost no impact on their children’s personalities long term. The big influences are genes, peers and pure chance.

Mark M Breza
Mark M Breza
11 months ago
Reply to  Geoff W

I wanted my boomer parents and in-laws to respect my parenting choices, so I set boundaries with them. Other millennials should do the same thing.Essay by Jane Ridley 

Glynis Roache
Glynis Roache
11 months ago

Unfortunately, hormones aside, women’s neural networks have evolved to be very sensitive to certain factors because the female of the species has been necessarily involved with minutiae. In pre-history, as gatherers of herbs and roots and seeds, we had to observe closely in order to avoid confusing the edibles with the poisonous doppelgängers.  
Similarly with raising children. The survival of the species depended upon our ability to safeguard the offspring – to respond to the slightest hint that something could be amiss. Anything from incubating an infection, to emotional upset, to a suspected lag in language acquisition. In a competitive, connected world overloaded with conflicting information and the latest theories, this level of evolved vigilance (already under pressure from hormones and sleepless nights etc.) can tip into real anxiety. At the very least, it can take the joy out of life. 
    I think that the type of safeguarding that men evolved to do followed a different path. They had to sit tall in the saddle and survey their homesteads with an appreciative and benevolent gaze whilst keeping a more hawkish eye out for armed men in the garden and wheeler dealers on the stock exchange. 
    Our own children are middle-aged now and, like the author, I’ve forgotten a lot of detail but I have just been reminded of it  because three days ago we got a new puppy. This is the sixth dog we have had, plus we were once practising veterinary surgeons. Yet today, my husband, in taking this puppy round the garden, allowed it to fall into the pond twice and then run headlong into a brick plinth and almost knock itself out. But he didn’t come across any armed men. So I guess that’s a win.
  (PS The puppy is fine. Undaunted. Reinvigorated even. As is my husband. Perhaps men and dogs evolved similarly.)

Nell Clover
Nell Clover
11 months ago
Reply to  Glynis Roache

I recognise those two different styles of parenting by mothers and fathers. However, I’d suggest the difference isn’t higher levels of risk surveillance in mothers vs fathers but simply a higher level of risk tolerance in fathers. I can see as well as his mother that our child might fall off the climbing frame, but I’m going to let him try climbing it anyway.

Children need independent boundary-expanding experiences, to evaluate and confidently tackle risk on their own, otherwise they will become anxious, reluctant adults constantly seeking reassurance from others. Allowing these inevitably risky experiences is something fathers, generally speaking, seem a little more at ease with. The mother sees it as lazy dad, but dad sees it as promoting independence. There is a real tension in parenting styles, but one that with compromise offers the child a healthy balance of risk experience and the best of both worlds.

This is not to say fathers don’t worry, they do very much, but their higher tolerance of risk makes it slightly easier to dismiss the anxiety gremlins. I also recognise that not all mams and dads fit these stereotypes. We are talking generalisms here and behaviour is a spectrum. Indeed, dads might actually be more anxious about some risks than mothers, e.g., the classic one of a daughter dating an older boy.

Last edited 11 months ago by Nell Clover
Glynis Roache
Glynis Roache
11 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

All true. Allowing risks for the purpose of building resilience comes under the male evolutionary banner of rearing young warriors. Obviously consistent with the more generalised role of the male. Similarly, the problem of an older man dating one’s daughter would come under the male remit of homestead protection. Natural suspicion of predatory males. But how about: ‘is he going to put that in his mouth and swallow it?’ and ‘are those pink cheeks about teething or a slight temperature?’ Or both.
We found it noticeable that if farmers’ wives were rearing the calves, low grade symptoms of disease or lack of thriving were noticed much earlier. (We didn’t even have children then, so we weren’t primed.) But it doesn’t have to be a battle of the sexes. Poking fun at my husband for letting the puppy fall in the pond doesn’t mean I’m calling him lazy. Surely we can recognise that whilst individuals vary enormously there is also an element of ‘horses for courses’ in this world. If there weren’t, evolutionary selection theory would be a crock. 

Glynis Roache
Glynis Roache
11 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

All true, of course. But on the theme, I would suggest that allowing risks for the purpose of building resilience comes under the male evolutionary banner of rearing young warriors and is consistent with the more generalised role of the male. Similarly, the problem of an older man dating one’s daughter would come under the male remit of homestead protection. Natural suspicion of predatory males. But how about: ‘is he going to put that in his mouth and swallow it?’ and ‘are those pink cheeks about teething or a slight temperature?’ Or both.
We found it noticeable that if farmers’ wives were rearing the calves, low grade symptoms of disease or lack of thriving were noticed much earlier. (We didn’t even have children then, so we weren’t primed.) But it doesn’t have to be a battle of the sexes. Poking fun at my husband for letting the puppy fall in the pond doesn’t mean I’m calling him lazy. Surely we can recognise that whilst individuals vary enormously there is also a strong element of ‘horses for courses’ in this world. If there weren’t, evolutionary selection theory would be a crock. 

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
11 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

And, of course, the confidence that the child learns from Dad’s greater risk tolerance is valuable to daughters as well as sons.What parent doesn’t want a daughter who can (and will) stand up for herself?

Daniel P
Daniel P
11 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

I was absolutely the parent that was more encouraging of risk taking and more likely to challenge if a hurt was really a hurt or significant enough to matter.

I remember being at a park with my 3 yr old daughter and a bigger kid, probably 5 or so, was bullying her. The older kid was standing over her like she was gonna push my daughter down. I was tempted to get up and intervene, but instead I sat still to see how my daughter would deal with it. My daughter stood there for a second and then she stuck her finger up in the face of the bigger girl and said “You do not treat me like that.” in a very stern voice, like she was ready to throw down. The bigger kid looked surprised and then walked away.

I just smiled with pride and I kinda knew in that moment what I had in my daughter. The last 20 yrs proved me right.

I remember when my son was 3 or 4 and he was taking swimming lessons. The kids were told to sit on the stairs in the pool and not move until the instructor arrived. All the parents were sitting on benches 10 feet away. My son decided to show off and start climbing along the wall of the pool. I spoke up and told him he should sit back down. He smiled and ignored me. Sure enough, he slipped off the wall and went under. I counted to 3, then tossed my phone and keys on the bench, and then casually walked over the pool as he was freaking out, I kicked off my shoes, and then stepped down into the pool and grabbed him by his bathing suit and lifted him out of the water. I did not get angry. I did not panic. I just lifted him up to eye level and asked him if the thought that had been smart. My ex would have panicked and gotten frightened and angry. I knew he would be fine, he just needed to scare himself a bit. He had to learn the hard way to listen when adults tell him to do something, particularly when it has to do with his safety. He learned something about risk taking and consequences that day. Again, I knew in that moment what I had in my son. So far, he has been true to form. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
11 months ago
Reply to  Daniel P

I wonder how it is for a father raising a son who is gay.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
11 months ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

So you’re a man, Nell. Good to know.

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
11 months ago
Reply to  Glynis Roache

I find myself very grateful to my wife for what she seemed to understand about bring up our daughter and everything she endured in terms of menstruation, pregnancy and menopause.
It seems so miraculous to me that I have regarded my role as a father as secondary though still essential.

Of course, there are some women unsuitable for motherhood but, in general, fathers are wise to trust their wives and do what is necessary to make the home possible. Just get to work.

This, absolutely, is not an attempt to confine women to family and home but a recognition that one of a father’s duties is to ensure that the mother of his children has choices. I recall an interview with Christopher Hitchins who had just become a father. To his interviewer’s horror he said he didn’t want his wife to work; “if she wants to that’s fine”. He expressed to opposite of confinement, his wife should do what she wanted, stay with their child or go work. He didn’t have a choice, he was obliged to work. But that’s fine, it’s what men owe women who bare (bear? I can never remember) their children.

Does this make me a sexist old fool? No, men and women are different and while some couples will run their households in a very different way, we cannot escape nature.

Isabella Gennarelli
Isabella Gennarelli
11 months ago

Why couldn’t he? The higher paid parent should def go to work that is if economics allows. Dads are fine parents often better

Isabella Gennarelli
Isabella Gennarelli
11 months ago
Reply to  Glynis Roache

Women are forced to care for everyone that is why they are anxious about the details. It will always be their fault

Daniel P
Daniel P
11 months ago

I disagree. Women force themselves to take care of everyone, to take charge, even when others wish they would back the heck off.

Genetics, socialization, whatever, most women seem to have a desire to intervene and even provide care when it is not wanted.

Most women drive themselves insane putting demands on themselves that others are not putting on them.

And, to be honest, too many of you have convinced yourselves that other people are unable to survive without your involvement. The reality is, other people can, they just may not do it the way that you think it should be done or lived the way you think it should.

I keep a house better than my ex wife ever did. I can cook at darn near a gourmet level when I want. My kids and my ex mother in law could not get away from my ex fast enough because of her desire to interfere in every aspect of their lives, to have an opinion on everything, to get involved when she should have backed off.

David Morley
David Morley
11 months ago
Reply to  Daniel P

To be fair it’s not all women, but it is recognisable to a lot of men. And men do have to put in an enormous amount of emotional Labour dealing the meltdowns of various kinds that result. I wonder if the driver isn’t control more than duty.

Daniel P
Daniel P
11 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

I think it is a bit of both.

I think many of them are driven by a kind of perfectionism that they have internalized. They want to control for fear of being judged. I also think they fear being run over and one way to avoid that it to be the one doing the controlling, being out in front.

I think we guys are better at blowing off other people’s opinions and judgements. A guy is much more likely to shrug his shoulders and move on or say “FU” to someone who wants to judge what they do or how they do it. But then, we are also less likely to judge what others do or how they do it too.

But, I also think that there is an element of biological drivers.

Either way, the result is the same. They make themselves crazy and then the people around them crazy.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
11 months ago
Reply to  Daniel P

Get some therapy.

miss pink
miss pink
11 months ago
Reply to  Daniel P

I agree. My husband is much better than I am about shrugging off stuff especially inter personal spats at work. His classic line is “Who cares what that person thinks of you”

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
11 months ago
Reply to  Daniel P

You’re making a huge generalization about women based on a bad marriage that you sound bitter about.

Pat Price-Tomes
Pat Price-Tomes
11 months ago
Reply to  Daniel P

Reminds me of listening in amazement to mothers at the school gate complaining. They described the care they’d taken to freeze lovely meals for their families when they themselves were going to be away for a few days. When they returned home, they discovered fish and chips had been consumed daily and the meals remained in the freezer. ‘Ah well,’ I thought, ‘lesson learned’. Wrong. They went on doing it! Were they needing to prove their men (in those days it was usually men) were helpless and needed them? Or were they heaping up oportunities for resentment? Or what?

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
11 months ago
Reply to  Daniel P

Something hugely visible at this time of year. All the women in my circle are driving themselves nuts to deliver a perfect Xmas. An exercise in minutia control that includes much grumbling about men’s lack of participation.

If men ran Xmas it would start on Xmas eve thereby saving us 2 months of listening to Mariah Carey amongst many other benefits. It is true decorations, food and gifts might be inappropriate, haphazard or non existent but the experience would almost certainly be more fun.

Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
11 months ago

My wife is busy writing Christmas cards. All are from me as well and I probably don’t know half of the addressees. Some she hand delivers. Women in other families are sending us cards and I know less than half of them. She is very busy but is there a point? We even get a lot of cards from dogs.
They take it upon themselves to do these things every year, woman to woman, with big sighs, as if they alone are keeping the world in shape. But is there a point?

miss pink
miss pink
11 months ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Well managing to teach dogs how to write and send Christmas cards sounds like a huge achievement

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
11 months ago
Reply to  Glynis Roache

Time have changed
“But perhaps this is not because these women were particularly relaxed and self-assured about parenting, but rather because family sizes were on average bigger, and because there’s a psychological limit to how much laser-like attention you can focus simultaneously on lots of children before your mind just gives up.”
Back in the day there was no constant stream of news stories about harm befalling children so we were allowed to get on with form a very early age. Out in the morning an back at tea time, then out again

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
11 months ago
Reply to  Glynis Roache

People tend to become more risk averse, the less risk in their lives. Working in forestry, commercial fishing and mining require far more willinnesss to accept risk than office work, just look at death rates. People growing up on a farm in a remote area with dangerous animals and harsh winters will cope far better than urban office workers with stress. When one works with large animals say stallions, bulls, large dogs and rams and have to face dangerous wild animals such as bears, wolves, leopards, snakes, scorpions, lions, etc one has to be alert, calm and authoritative but not fearful because animals pick up fear.
Does working with animals make children more alert and calm ?

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
11 months ago

Is it any wonder the Western birthrate has fallen below replacement levels, when the culture of parenthood, and motherhood especially, couldn’t be more designed to induce guilt and even self-loathing?

Someone as intelligent and strong-minded as KS can lay out all the nuances of this culture (i think the only aspect she missed out is running the “school gates” gauntlet) with some degree of equanimity, but what chance have most mums got?

For most young women, raised in the ultra-competitive atmosphere induced by being “online” the prospect of motherhood must seem far more daunting than it need be; but it’s not just online. My daughter gave birth to her first child earlier this year, and a great job she and her husband appear to be making of parenthood, but she tells me of other women “tutting” at her and even offering unsolicited advice in the street! She’s able to ignore it, but the sheer effrontery of it is ridiculous.

Recent articles about book-burning have rightly been critical, but i’d make an exception for parenting manuals. Burn the lot.

Ali Maegraith
Ali Maegraith
11 months ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Most liberating day I had as a new mum was to chuck out all the books!

Lone Wulf
Lone Wulf
11 months ago

According to Joyce Benenson, an evolutionary biologist, women are more likely to be worriers.
In the past, moms who worried had more probability to succeed in transmitting their genes to the following generation. So a healthy amount of anxiety gives an evolutionary advantage.
What many moms are lacking, is the presence and reassuring advice of a grandma. Our ancestors who lived in tribes were always surrounded by older moms and some grandma. Such real presence cannot be substituted by any AI or online group.

Last edited 11 months ago by Lone Wulf
Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago
Reply to  Lone Wulf

Grandpa’s? If I become one I will bl-y well share my experiences.

John Solomon
John Solomon
11 months ago
Reply to  Anders Wallin

Let me give you one invaluable and inviolable rule for grandads.
Grandads don’t change nappies. Ever.

Nathan Kendrick
Nathan Kendrick
11 months ago
Reply to  John Solomon

I don’t know about grandpas, but as a dad, our general rule was, she takes care of inputs and I take care of outputs. (Which was only when I was home from work, anyway.) It’s just a little poo.

John Solomon
John Solomon
11 months ago

I agree – up to a point. When I was a mere dad, I took a fair share of both bottles and nappies. I took care of too many nappies to count (not to mention toddlers’ bottoms.) That included not just my children, but also children we were looking after for friends (more innocent days – I don’t think I would do that now!).
However, the quid pro quo is I paid my dues as a dad, so I opt out as a grandad.

Steven Targett
Steven Targett
11 months ago

Speaking as a parent but not a mother albeit married to the mother of my children for over 40 years I still worry about the children even though they are now successful in their careers, in stable relationships and have children of their own. I also worry about the grandchildren. I think it’s part of being a family.

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago
Reply to  Steven Targett

My ol’man does worry more than my late mother did. As a mum in a block of flats she became, I suppose, rather hard hided. I used to worry a bit the first years my kids were in their adolescence meeting the temptations of life, but nowadays (both in their twenties) they seem more robust than I ever was and I have full confidence in their decisions. Of course shit can always happen but that goes for everyone everywhere.

Last edited 11 months ago by Anders Wallin
Alison Wren
Alison Wren
11 months ago

When I took my first child home to meet my mother she said “Well, dear, now it starts…”. The niggling awareness at the back of your mind is always there even as your 42-year-old daughter boards a flight, or your 37-year- old son jumps on one of those awful scooters. Loving deeply carries penalties and it’s unsurprising many these days shy away from that kind of commitment!

Right-Wing Hippie
Right-Wing Hippie
11 months ago

My parents were firm devotees of the GOAP school of parenting: Go Outside And Play.

E Wyatt
E Wyatt
11 months ago

Yes, and locking the front door to ensure compliance!

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago

Being old enough to have my childhood in a 2 TV channel no internet world there were really nothing that forced you to be inside. Being outside was what kids did do big parts of the day and noone had to twist our arms to be outside. Internet is basically what held my kids inside. Its pretty eery walking about wherever nowadays and seeing few kids playing.

Rae Ade
Rae Ade
11 months ago

I thoroughly enjoyed this article. Although the mention of Gina Ford should have a trigger warning.

Amelia Melkinthorpe
Amelia Melkinthorpe
11 months ago
Reply to  Rae Ade

My parents had the Dr. Benjamin Spock book – it was big in the late 60s/early 70s, and doubles as a handy doorstop, too. No idea if they ever used it though …

Caty Gonzales
Caty Gonzales
11 months ago

Ah, but he had great advice. “You know more than you think you know”.

Guy Pigache
Guy Pigache
11 months ago

Loads of parenting books down the generations. No time to read them

JOHN KANEFSKY
JOHN KANEFSKY
11 months ago
Reply to  Rae Ade

Whenever I read the words “trigger warning” my heart sinks.

Jane McCarthy
Jane McCarthy
11 months ago
Reply to  Rae Ade

I found Gina Ford’s advice helpful at a time (first baby, new parent) when all was chaos. I like to think that I’m intelligent and independent thinking enough to take what I read as suggestions, use what I want and disregard the rest. In other words to use critical thinking and be confident about my own judgement when confronted with advice. The outcome was very satisfactory in my view.

Saul D
Saul D
11 months ago

Supplied without instructions (not even an allen key). And I’m sure I didn’t tick any consent boxes or sign any paperwork to show I’d been trained on SOPs. I didn’t even get a copy of the receipt, and they let me take it home with no inspection of my facilities. Or faculties – no test or exam that I would need to pass before being allowed to be in possession of an untrained living thing. Me, a complete amateur. Everyone knows dealing with these things is something only qualified professionals should do after a full four years of education. Who can expect a member of the public to have any expertise on appropriate development theory or nutrition science? And so it’s not surprising you get cranks and crack-pots feeding you with mis-information and old wives tales – grandparent’s knowledge is so passe. The apps help, but you should see the latest in AI-driven toys – 24hr talking machines – Wikipedia on demand. Fill them up with education I say. Once they add a bit of robotics for feeding and cleaning you won’t need to do anything. Pop them out and let the machines do the messy bits. Straight back to important things things like work and career. Plato would be proud.

R S Foster
R S Foster
11 months ago

Two things:
1 I became parent late in life, and in consequence what I knew was from my mum and dad, of the wartime generation, both of whom had travelled far and seen great and terrible events giving them wisdom and perspective…and I thank God for it!
2 I wish I knew where Professor Stocks local is, so I could buy her a large one. She writes brilliantly on every subject her fancy lights on…and I thank her for it.

Caty Gonzales
Caty Gonzales
11 months ago

Great article.
My MIL used to note how parenting had changed since she was little and that she couldn’t believe how she was allowed to wander and roam as a 9 year old. Off you go and be back for dinner. No phones, no GPS tracking your child. MIL said she thought nothing of it at the time, but as she got older she figured her mother must have thought, well, I have five girls, so if I lose one there’s always a spare!
She was kind of joking, but truly I do think we tend to have fewer children and invest more in each one. In turn we tend to be more anxious about the safety of each one and the prospects. So we see ever increasing safety rules: no swing sets on the school playground, no walking yourself home from school, no outdoor recess when it is cold, no failing grades, everyone gets a trophy… and more pressure on children to succeed in extracurricular activities, hobbies, to get ahead. This creates anxious children and anxious parents, but I think mothers in particular.
I would also add for mothers, that being ‘just a mom’ isn’t really seen as job or role in and of itself. So, I can imagine if you are having a hard time as a mother and find it stressful – which it is! – then you are more likely to feel depressed and anxious. And who do you turn to when you need help? The internet with mom-influencers and their allegedly perfect lives with their Pinterest inspired home decor, their perfectly dressed children, with their perfect husbands and the picture perfect instagram-photo-shoot ready lives. Kiddo A got an A+ #SoBlessed! Rockin my beach body #MILF Teacher gifts done #Thankfulforyou Kiddo B scored the winning touchdown! #SoProud Snow day! Got to spend extra time with my favorite people! #MakingMemories

Last edited 11 months ago by Caty Gonzales
R S Foster
R S Foster
11 months ago
Reply to  Caty Gonzales

…anxiety is also fed by the widespread availibility of news from afar. I read history at university, and in the course of it discovered that harm done to children by strangers is extremely rare, and always has been…so much so that it was recorded even in the distant past…by Justices of the Peace, Parish Priests, Monasteries, and Town Corporations…as was the abject horror of the populace, the rage they experienced…and the terrible retribution they visited on those responsible if caught.
But only people in the locality ever knew…where nowadays, the whole Country does…and the terrible fear of parents for their children grows exponentially…

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago
Reply to  Caty Gonzales

My 25c there, as a guy that remember Neil on the moon is that before the internet all kids were pretty much outside, So no kid wandered about alone. And noone ever got hurt that I do remember. A pity my mum isn’t around to ask.

Faith Ham
Faith Ham
11 months ago

My mom and dad had five of us. Once when I was newly married and my siblings started to have kids, I asked if the worrying ever stopped. “Nope,” my mother said. “It just takes on a different form.” How right she was.

Daniel P
Daniel P
11 months ago

No two kids are the same and they do not come with owners manuals. They have wholly different emotional makeups, physical and emotional makeups, they grow physically, mentally and emotionally at different rates and in different ways.

Mom’s need to stop listening to everyone else and just pay attention to their guts. Your child is fundamentally a little version of you and the child’s father. Some combination of the two of you. You know this baby better than anyone else and most of the things that are gonna drive you crazy are things your mother and father dealt with and are probably the same things that drive you nuts about yourself or your significant other.

God, or mother nature if you prefer, gave parents a basic instinct, a foundational understanding, of how to care for and raise a child. It really is not rocket science. Nor does it need to be a daily panic attack.

Accept at the outset that genetics is gonna determine a lot. Then, accept that as they age and go to school, you are going to have less and less influence on them and outside factors more.

The job is simple. Keep them sheltered and fed. Then, teach them the basics of how to be polite, courteous, respectful and responsible. Hold them accountable for their actions. Reward them when they do something above and beyond the expected. Never let them forget you have their back and love them, even when you are spitting angry, you love them.

Always remember the job is to get them to adulthood equipped with the emotional, physical, and educational tools to provide for themselves if you are gone. Raise them for the world they will live in, not the one you wish was going to be there for them.

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago
Reply to  Daniel P

Mums? What about dads?

Think what you describe is what I saw as my job as a father.

Last edited 11 months ago by Anders Wallin
David B
David B
11 months ago

“…assuming you have any independent sense of what that thing is.”

IMO it is the lack of one’s own thing and the passive transference of such a thing onto impersonal so-called cultural authorities (“the New Yorker no less”) that accounts of a considerable proportion of today’s moral, social and emotional malaise.

Agnes Aurelius
Agnes Aurelius
11 months ago

I couldn’t wait until they turned 18 and they had to take responsibility for their own actions. Of course I still worry, but at the end of the day it’s their lives and I gave them as many opportunities to be well educated and independent as possible.

Cristina Bodor
Cristina Bodor
11 months ago
Reply to  Agnes Aurelius

18 is an arbitrary number with no correlation to brain development. It is at 25 that the brain develops fully. The bond between parent and child is far more profound than the issue of distribution of responsibility

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago
Reply to  Agnes Aurelius

Pretty much the same for me even though I maybe fostered citizenship more than independence. Class marker, maybe. Or maybe the father role.

Last edited 11 months ago by Anders Wallin
Ali Maegraith
Ali Maegraith
11 months ago

After school conversation of the 80’s:
‘Mum can I go outside and play?’
‘Sure, as soon as you’ve done your jobs’

After school conversation of the 2000’s:
‘Mum can I go on the computer?’
‘Sure, as soon as you’ve had some time outside playing’

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago
Reply to  Ali Maegraith

Absoluely spot on.

Melissa Martin
Melissa Martin
11 months ago

My grandmother trained as a nanny under Truby King. But she was lovely with us & perhaps the reason I slept, well, like a baby at least until menopause.

Drew Gibson
Drew Gibson
11 months ago

Following Geoff W, my two rules for parenting are
In any disagreement between parent and young child – Mummy (or Daddy) always wins.At the dinner table – That’s all right dear, you don’t have to like it, you just have to eat it.

Geoff W
Geoff W
11 months ago
Reply to  Drew Gibson

Do you have more than two rules for the relationship between Mummy and Daddy, or is that more complicated?

Drew Gibson
Drew Gibson
11 months ago
Reply to  Geoff W

See rule 1 above without the brackets.

Geoff W
Geoff W
11 months ago
Reply to  Drew Gibson

Clearly, you are the smartest man in the world. (Which means that Mrs G is lucky to have you…)

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago
Reply to  Drew Gibson

As considered a pretty authoritarian father I did not agree with rule 1. What is right wins, and as they got older and observed this I gave them the victories deserved.

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
11 months ago

Didn’t Kathleen find she was much less anxious with No 2 son than No 1? That’s what normally happens.
Yes, let the little blighters cry themselves out at night. They soon learn to go back to sleep. And by all means give toddlers choices – but just two, both of which you will be happy with. Never ask “What would you like to do?”, ask “Would you like to do A or B?”
What’s your earliest memory? Mine dates from about the age of four, so any ghastly mistakes my parents made with me before then are lost in the mists of time. So just do your best and don’t worry, the little darlings will grow up just fine.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
11 months ago

That’s a little trite and so not true. Many of the little darlings don’t grow up just fine.

Karl W
Karl W
11 months ago

“Basically: you remain endlessly patient; talk over every emotion of theirs and every decision of yours; give them lots of choices so they feel in control…”

What in the name of all that’s holy? When did everyone get this stupid?

Dominic A
Dominic A
11 months ago
Reply to  Karl W

Seems like it’s a psychological version of the old ‘spoiling mistake’, whereby adults who were, or felt, deprived as kids, decide that their own kids ‘will want for nothing’…..with predictable results.

54321
54321
11 months ago

The conclusion I came to about parenting advice books is the same as William Goldman’s on the subject of Hollywood:
Nobody knows anything.

CF Hankinson
CF Hankinson
11 months ago

I see some little elephants in the room. What seems to be missing in the article, and the comments, is that this is the report from a mother who is not the birthing parent of the baby/ toddler, only of the older sons.
Interesting observations on whether the non physical involvement of pregnancy and birth factor in on this sometimes overwhelming motherhood caretaking is not mentioned. Is her relationship to the young daughter not the same or closer to that of husband/ father? If not why not? Is her maternal caregiving because she is a female rather than because she gave birth to the child? Is there a difference between paternal and maternal caregiving? And is it because of the parents sex or because one is the birth parent? Surely she has reflected on this, but it is entirely smudged over. Which is a shame because it is a reality.

juliamonro
juliamonro
11 months ago
Reply to  CF Hankinson

A

Last edited 11 months ago by juliamonro
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
11 months ago

I am so glad I grew up in the sixties and seventies when kids were free. In the summertime, at the tender age of six, I was kicked out of the house to play. I only returned for lunch and dinner. In other words , my mom didn’t have a clue where I was. We also went out play after dark to play flashlight tag , to catch lightning bugs and gaze at the stars. Playing with other kids taught all of us how to negotiate rules, settle disputes, fight off bullies and work together. It’s a tragedy that modern kids have no freedom. No wonder they are so messed up.

William Davies
William Davies
11 months ago

Hunter-gatherers today raise their children in a variety of ways. Most, however, let children find out about their world in order for them to gain independence quickly: climbing trees, playing with sharp blades, lighting fires, etc.–often to the distress of watching western ethnographers. Much childcare is done by other, older, children, rather than just the parents. (Groups tend to be small, so industrialised societies’ obsession with treating children in large groups organised by birth year, is not feasible.)

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago
Reply to  William Davies

Thing now, they find out pretty much about the world by being on internet. Thats different than for us that remember Y2K well

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
11 months ago

Parenting, the most important job of all.

Its worth listening to a range of advise, as long as you can ignore most of it.

Ray Andrews
Ray Andrews
11 months ago

> and eventually produce neurotic mini-despots with huge emotional vocabularies, tailor-made for success in the modern world.
Yes! Absolutely, positively tailor-made for success in the woke academy, the woke globalist corporation’s DEI department, and most government bureaucracies.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
11 months ago

Seen written on a onesie “I’ve been inside for 9 months, yours is a life sentence”.

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago

A highly interesting and informative article, that to a father of now young adults in their twenties, and himself raised in a block of flats in a boring Stockholm suburb raises some thoughts.

There’s a lot of things I recognise – at our debute in parenthood there were a lot of opinions from the Silent Generation, on feed intervals, sleep tacktics and what not. There was some dr Spock.. And a lot of confusion and ambivalence on our side. Our son was in and out of bed during most of his babyhood while his daughter pretty much could sleep whole nights after a while. First one is the guinea pig…

Those mobile gadgets, I’m at least techically a Nerd but they did not really sound that marvellous. If I become a grandparent I might find the blessing of using them. Who knows.

I liked the part where the author described the motherhood as an investment, carrying the child for nine months and so on.

My role as a father was very much different. Our first son was born and due to some complications I found myself sitting alone with this 30 minutes old little guy alone in a room. And well – he was a little guy. A unique person with is goods and bads. He was – and came to be – much more a human in my vicinity than My Child.

And well, I was raised in that distant history where yes, you could roam about freely as a 5yo, shouting to mum at the 8th floor to toss down a toy car you wanted. And well, we were just two kids, and my family was by no means living in any village, but in a building where families live now too.

and I have a strong feeling (please correct me if I’m wrong)that the sentiments on ”wanting the absolute best” for Your Child is something of a class marker.

I think maybe, that a father that lets say want the little person to become more of a Good Citizen, than a Liver of Dreams, might be a good complement to a mother that, well, has carried that little person for those nine months.

Last edited 11 months ago by Anders Wallin
William Edward Henry Appleby
William Edward Henry Appleby
11 months ago

My advice: try to parent the first child as if it was your fourth.

Juan Manuel Pérez Porrúa
Juan Manuel Pérez Porrúa
11 months ago

I have to say I was surprised and puzzled by the subtitle to this piece. I confess it never would’ve occurred to me to call or consider maternal love a curse. I’m used to considering a mother’s love as inherently good.
Perhaps it’s that on this I’m hopelessly biased, for being a man I can never a mother, and can only experience maternal love as a son, which is to say only on the receiving side of it than on the giving one. But still, even so, despite the fact that I can never expect to feel the way my mother or any mother feels, what I do feel, and what convinces of the goodness of maternal love, is the gratitude I feel towards my own mother and the admiration towards other women who act and feel that way.

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
11 months ago

Not sure my parents gave us much quality time. But they did do large, random chunks of quantity time, which seemed a pretty good swap.

Last edited 11 months ago by Roddy Campbell
Jessica King
Jessica King
11 months ago

The middle of this essay seems to be influenced by the very recent conversation between Jordan Peterson and Dr. Sarah Hill; Stock is of course adding her own insights but I would think some reference to it would be relevant. Maybe it’s just a coincidence! I’m sure Hill didn’t invent those ideas, but it just seems to be a pattern lately that I hear an idea on a podcast then immediately read about it on The Free Press or Unherd, or vice versa, with minimal crediting.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
11 months ago

It seems a big difference between now and then, as far as raising children goes, is that now children are more important than parents and adults in general.

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago
Reply to  Clare Knight

I doubt that very much, think maybe in upper middle class. Would very much want to read reaction on this good take by Claire.
Myself, I found that we gradually moved to become just four people and with our kids now in their 20’s its very much so. My kids just calls me up just to chat. To avoid the Parent/Child dictonomy as much and as early as possible and striving for whats right is pretty class- and timeless. Things have to work. If mum is tired and needs rest. Or if the child is right. Good ol’common sense has been wrought out in thousands of generations.

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago

One thing pretty separate from my longer post – for me, albeit hesitant being from a rather (european version of)conservative family, kindergarten from 1,5yo did do really good things. To socialise with other little peers, from different backgrounds, that do not take any of your bs is a very good school of life.

Marissa M
Marissa M
11 months ago

100% agree: There is a fine line between motherly love and motherly anxiety for some women.
I adored my children, still do. And yet I noticed women who were more distanced and, yes, somewhat colder, seemed to have a much easier time of things.

June Davis
June Davis
11 months ago

As a boomer grandma I am exhausted watching young moms try to make everything perfect and safe for their kids. For my kids a birthday party was a cake from a mix, pin the tail on the donkey and duck duck goose. Christmas, one larger gift, maybe a bike, and two small ones. Their dad and I had adult time with adult beverages and the kids were told to go outside or to their room to play. We had great camping trips and hikes, we could not afford Disney vacations. We taught them how to swim, cook, and eat good meals that never catered to special demands. Eat or go hungry.They grew up just fine, in fact better than I anticipated.

Glynis Roache
Glynis Roache
11 months ago

Duplicate post removed

Last edited 11 months ago by Glynis Roache
Forrest Lindsey
Forrest Lindsey
11 months ago

Wonderful essay but I believe that it leaves a few things out:
The reciprocal love from our children and the unique experience of learning with them, all over again what it’s like to be young and to experience new things.The world is actually more dangerous to our children than it was when we were young – so paranoia is just good common sense when someone is really after you.It’s what we were born for, the last 50 or so thousands of years – so suck it up, buttercup!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
11 months ago

The world is actually less dangerous than when we were children – check the crime and accident statistics. There is more fearmongering now, which we need to resist and form our views solely on the facts.

David Morley
David Morley
11 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Yes – as if the safer things become the more we worry. And the rarer real disasters, the more we sweat the small stuff.

Dominic A
Dominic A
11 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

Why did peanut allergies soar in the 1970s/80s? Turns out it was overly-anxious adults ‘protecting’ their charges from the humble legume, with the result that their immune system had no exposure to it, and reacted to it as though it was a toxin, sending kids into anaphylactic shock. The psychological immune system is not so very different – if you are not reguarly exposed to challenges, you will likely switch into Fight/Flight/Freeze threat mode at slights, and the real kicker is the vicious cycle: your mind concludes that the slight must have been really dangerous because that is what you felt (how you perceived it).

Last edited 11 months ago by Dominic A
Clare Knight
Clare Knight
11 months ago
Reply to  Dominic A

Challenges are one thing, trauma is quite another.

Dominic A
Dominic A
11 months ago
Reply to  Clare Knight

That is understood. The F/F/F reaction has been honed over millions of years of evolution to deal with real threats (likely to produce physical and psychological trauma). It is generally excellent at doing so (none of us would be here if our forebears lacked it). However, it is calibrated in childhood, and I argue that overly-sensitive calibration is more of a problem than under – particularly as it is a covert problem, one that may actually lauded (what a dedicated, protective parent!) even as it damages the kid.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
11 months ago
Reply to  Clare Knight

Two words meaning the same thing.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
11 months ago
Reply to  Dominic A

Have another upvote. Spot on.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
11 months ago

I believe you’ve been unfairly downvoted for your point about “more dangerous” (which may be incorrect) since your point about “learning with them, all over again what it’s like to be young” far outweighs it in significance. Have an upvote.

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Thats’s fair enough but good ol’common sense from the start does the job even better

Anders Wallin
Anders Wallin
11 months ago

Well, having a MIL that was a Statistican, I read old statistics collections from the 70`s where people died in car crashes 5 times more than now, accidents were abundant, crime more usual, not to mention the death in injuries, illness…
what is so much more dangerous now?

Last edited 11 months ago by Anders Wallin
Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
11 months ago

Such hormonally-driven emotions must be a problem for the culture today because they don’t involve gay men becoming transwomen. I sometimes suspect that this drive turn ourselves all into simulations- real cyborgs, effectively, after Donna Haraway- can only run parallel to the creation of Artificial Intelligence capable of giving superior instruction to our minds and bodies.

Mike Buchanan
Mike Buchanan
11 months ago

Given that two of the primary goals of feminists have been the destruction of the nuclear family and forcing women out of the home into paid employment (against their wishes), sub-contracting childcare to others (always other women), there is something faintly absurd and hypocritical about feminists writing about motherhood.
Mike Buchanan
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS
http://j4mb.org.uk

Last edited 11 months ago by Mike Buchanan
David Morley
David Morley
11 months ago
Reply to  Mike Buchanan

To be fair to the author, she is smart, reflective and always worth listening to. And she lays her cards on the table in such a way that agreement or disagreement is possible. She’s not your average loopy, dogmatic feminist.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
11 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

Aye, far from it. There’s more dogmatism and one-sided rhetoric in the single sentence of Mike Buchanan’s post above than in several of Dr. Stock’s articles stacked together. Close call anyway.

Last edited 11 months ago by AJ Mac
AJ Mac
AJ Mac
11 months ago
Reply to  Mike Buchanan

I don’t find much of substance at your linked SubStack, Mr. Buchanan, just a lot of self-promotion, gushing over ideological compatriots, name dropping, and soliciting 5 pounds over and over. Five minutes of my time is plenty.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/young-men-should-be-furious-inside-worlds-largest-mens-rights-activism/

Last edited 11 months ago by AJ Mac
Billy Bob
Billy Bob
11 months ago
Reply to  Mike Buchanan

The biggest cause of farming children out into childcare centres is the ridiculous house prices meaning most families now need two wages coming in in order to pay the bills. This has nothing to do with feminism (which I’m no fan of the more militant variety) and everything to do with successive governments having no policy around building enough homes, neglecting their responsibilities by lazily believing the market would fix everything

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
11 months ago
Reply to  Mike Buchanan

OMG!!!