Turns out I am an Intensive Parent. Here is My Experience So Far.

I am on vacation with my two children. They are 5 and 7 years old. As I enter into this stage of parenting what becomes more clear is that when you give your children what you did not have, they do not appreciate it like you would hope. They have never NOT had what you are providing them. This is a real source of tension between my children and I, because considerable effort and expense goes into giving them what I did not have and they are ungrateful.

I am not sure if I was meant to have kids in the current-day culture of raising kids. I have heard it coined, "intensive parenting" and this describes the experience perfectly (check out the Podcast, The Daily, episode titled “The Parents Aren’t Alright”). To be an intensive parent is to take on the role of being everything to our children. We are their protectors, teachers, entertainment and emotional gurus. We are expected to be available at all times and to give our children a respected voice in the family even when they are preverbal and have no idea what they are talking about. The result is a kind of exhaustion and frustration where I have to shut down, withdraw, or shout at my children with the hopes they will see I am trying my best and leave me alone. Instead, they whine incessantly thinking that this will reboot me. Intensive parents have a conflicted relationship with anger. Is anger necessary to enforce boundaries? (I think so) but will showing our anger damage our children? (not necessarily, but possibly…gulp!) What to do??

To have kids in this day and age is to give up control (while having parenting "experts" make you feel like you have control, you're just bad at it). This is particularly challenging when you have kids later in life as the trend is going. Many women would have just realized what makes them happy and fulfilled, but because of the biologic clock, suddenly feel pressured to throw the grenade that is having kids into an otherwise balanced and full life. Since having kids, I no longer have access to what makes me happy. The momentum my life had, both personally and professionally has stopped. Unfortunately, what makes me happiest since being a parent is when my kids are not around. I now realize, a little too late, that I need to have at least 2 hours a day of complete solitude to be ok. This may sound unrealistic and fanciful, but I think this is true for a lot of us. I do not know what it says about me as a parent that I am happiest when my kids are gone. I think it means I am happiest when I can connect with myself, something women in particular sacrifice when entering motherhood.

Something else that has surprised me by being an intensive parent is the anxiety that comes with having children who have no hobbies they enjoy or are good at. For whatever reason, I had thought that all children will find their calling or passion if given enough opportunity and then they will excel and build self-confidence. Nope! My kids are squarely mediocre at most of what they do and despite having tried many different activities, they have not wanted to pursue any of them. Some might say I am not pushing them hard enough. I know that is what my parents would say. But my kids do not love anything, just like when I was a kid. As a child, I was pushed very hard and I hated it. The result was that I became very good at the piano and swimming, two hobbies I enjoy now as an adult. But being pushed is counter to the intensive parenting ethos where child autonomy and individuality is paramount. Is it ok for my kids not to excel at anything then? This goes counter to how I was raised, so I also find myself in constant battle with what feels right from how I was parented.

The most significant and profound piece of control parents have to give up is preparing our children for the world in which our kids will be adults. I would argue even just 1-2 generations ago, this was THE definition of parenting: Protect and Prepare. But the real world in 10-15 years will be nothing like the world I grew up in or the world as it is now. Technological advancement and climate change have made many of the skills and values that were useful to me and that I take pride in, irrelevant. For example, the skills needed to delay gratification or persevere at a difficult task are becoming more and more avoidable as adults. How do I convince a child to embrace boredom when there is action-packed, dopamine transfixing entertainment with the push of a finger on a console? Where I am trying to teach my children to have self-esteem and develop a healthy relationship with themselves, social media influencers teach them to prioritize a fanbase and popularity over staying true to oneself. The relevant issues to our children when they are growing up are outpacing parents' ability to keep up. How do I teach my kids how to think on their own when AI will do most of this for them? How do I teach my children about cryptocurrency and deepfakes when I do not know much about them myself? I do not know how to accept that I can not protect my children from online predation and the mental health ramifications of social media. The pace of technology is making each generation of parents obsolete soon after their children learn how to use a touch screen.
I can not help but relate to mother elephants, who learn the routes to different watering holes spanning hundreds of kilometres from their own mothers to ensure the survival of their families during migrations. Is there any better an example of the purpose of parenting? Consider this reality: with the accelerating changes in the world, you guide your herd only to find that water hole after water hole has dried up. The instincts instilled in you as a parent, no longer useful. For elephants it spells dehydration and death. For humans, with all our tools and gadgets, it is a slower erosion of society and the self. Who are we as parents and as a society if we can not protect our children?

But surely the effort and sacrifice is worth it, right? Does being an intensive parent guarantee anything about the future I will have with my children? The answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT. No matter what kind of parent I am, I am not entitled in any way to having a good relationship with them once they are grown up. I can try my best and give my all to improve the odds but I can not take this for granted. I have seen too much as a psychiatrist. I also know that what will matter most to my kids is NOT what I think about how I raised them, but what they think. And that is not something I can control.

This is what parenting is like today: Draining, identity-erasing and uncertain. And like this article, being a parent is disorganized and neurotic. The stakes feel high and petty at the same time, as you wonder how much control you have. Would pushing your child make them better? And if we don't know, is it worth it? What parts of my own experience of being parented are relevant here? How do I protect my kids? How do I prepare them for a rapidly evolving online world, where I am outpaced and outdated? And if it isn't the parents, who else will step into this space? And after all of this hand-wringing and research, it might be for nothing since the judgement on our parenting is made by our children.

I can see why many people have opted out. There are no guarantees except that the life you have created for yourself, will no longer be. What has surprised me the most is how deeply miserable and lonely I can feel since having children because I did this to myself. This is what it is to be a mother. No one can save me. Does this mean I regret having kids? Not always. I have moments where I know I am unhappy because I have children. But then, it gets better and there are moments I know I am very happy because I have children, and that I have MY children. There are moments where they snuggle with you and love you like no one else could. They love you like their lives depend on it, because they do. And it is in these moments I feel so full of gratitude and delight my soul could burst.

So this is what it is like to be a parent: When things are good and when they are bad, my soul is in pieces, with no clear sense of when I will feel whole again.