Parenting #4: Long Live Dr. Becky

A not-really book review

I’m 100% with Dr. Becky’s philosophy on parenting, which, as I understand it, boils down to empathy first: given any given crisis with kids, your job as a parent is to first validate and reflect their feelings, and then make the best decision you can — but that doesn’t mean I always do it. I’d say my interpretation of Dr. Becky is to look at my daughter’s request with tired eyes and say to myself: I know I’m supposed to be doing better in this moment, but maybe I can’t. What if I just want to say: can you please go in the other room so I can watch the Love Is Blind finale by myself, under the covers, and also the reunion.

Still, I was shocked to read that Judith Newman, in the NY Times asked not just: OMG but how hard and is it worth it and instead ask: yeah, but does it really work IN THE REAL WORLD? That’s the whole point, guys, the goal post has shifted away from us, as parents getting what we want to happen, to us as parents being able to question what we think should happen and whether it’s really in our child’s best interest. Also there is no objective “real world.” That’s what we’re going for now, people, can you get with the program? See, I’m terrible at this practice of acknowledging when situations are hard and admitting change is difficult, even for, or maybe even especially for adults. 

But OK, frustration aside, here’s an example of when Dr. Becky showed up for me.

A few weekends ago, Olive had been saying she was lonely and so I organized some time with two of her old friends and their parents at a playground nearby. I did wonder, in advance, whether this feeling was even something to fix, and whether her loneliness needed more to be honored, but maybe, because lonely is SUCH a hard feeling to face, I got into action and put the gathering together. 

At first, all seemed to be going as planned. The adults drank beer and ate snacks and the kids climbed and ran in the adjacent forest, hiding things and uncovering them, as they saw fit. Idyllic, really, if you ask me, until the end, when it was late and the two year old had something to say about being out near her bedtime, which, you know, is at 6:30pm. As we gathered up our stuff, I looked up at my kid who was sitting with her arms crossed refusing to hug her friends goodbye, and I knew that we, too, we in store for an unpleasant transition. 

I paused, and thought to myself: OK, so obviously I had not been paying attention when I drank beer and ate snacks, and I had consciously overlooked that it had gotten chilly and that Olive hadn’t eaten the food I’d brought for her dinner because in zero out of a million times we’ve tried to have a picnic she has eaten the food I’d brought for her for dinner, but that doesn’t mean I don’t keep trying. Her brain, though, was not talking to her about the dinner she missed or the jacket she wasn’t wearing. No, her main concern was that her friends hadn’t helped her find Peter Pan, who she has been searching for, avidly, since she began watching the old movie from the 50’s many times in a row on Saturdays. 

An aside: There are so many problems with this movie, but by Saturday evening, I just say: this movie is racist and also sexist, and we know that right, O? And she will nod yes while her eyes glaze over and she turns into a Wendy looking for a shadow to mend. Then, she’ll spend Sunday looking longingly out of a window until Monday comes and she’s ready for me to push her out the door to school, which has gotten better, ever since I got her some reading support THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Suffice it to say, Olive started to cry and I told everyone to just go ahead while we sat by the slide and I tried to convince her to eat something or put on her jacket and it wasn’t until I said that I’d make another round of dinner when we got home that she agreed to leave the playground and walk to the car. I am aware that this small person has too much power, but by now I’m also cold and embarrassed that I initiated the picnic and now it’s ended with our drama. So, Dr. Becky wasn’t EXACTLY on my mind, as we drove home. Let’s just say I was feeling more, well, resentful. It’s not like I didn’t already know that doubling up on adult conversation and parent duties doesn’t really work, and even though I had been desperate for conversation with adults who have their own thoughts about art practices and religion and parenting concerns, it seemed, again to be true that I had tried to have fun AND be with my kid and now I was going to pay the price. Can you see who the child is here…

In a moment of divine intervention, I looked into rearview mirror and used the only tool for connection that has ever really worked for anyone, which of course is compassion. 

You really wanted their help finding Peter Pan, I said, in a calm friendly way.
Yeah, she said, with her first note of reasonable since before the scene at the park.
Hm, I said. And then I made a suggestion.
They maybe didn’t know how much you wanted to find him, how important it was to you.
Yeah, they didn’t, she replied.

And sure, she was hungry, and yes she was cold, and probably she was getting sick for the millionth time. But in this short conversation her whole attitude shifted, and all I did was dig down past my judgement and find somewhere to sit with my understanding.

…Now, do I get a gold star?