Anxiety in parenting

[Well, we had the holidays. We had the post-holiday cleaning and "where are we going to put this?" phase. And then we got besieged for over a week by some sort of awful illness which I maintain must have been three different viruses we caught simultaneously. But I am hoping to now resume blogging on a regular basis... if there's anyone still checking in here after all this time!]

I've been enjoying our homeschooling group a lot lately. There is no discernible competition between the moms, and if you reveal some shortcoming they give sympathy and advice, not raised eyebrows. This is very different from my experience when Anya was in preschool. Hanging out with those moms, I never felt comfortable and always felt Anya and I were being judged.

There are a number of forces at work in making parents anxious, in inducing that background level of competition and comparison which can make parenting a lot less fun. It starts off with the pregnancy books, carries on with parenting books, is stoked by visits to the pediatrician (a friend was just told her son is "ahead on fine motor skills, but a little behind verbally"-- both being utterly pointless observations), fueled by sports (which now start before kindergarten) and of course fed and encouraged for 13 years by public schooling. All of it is based upon the idea, and further solidifies the idea, that there is a "standard" course of development, discovered by scientists, which we are all supposed to meet. And the excuse for imposing this psychologically harmful apparatus of "milestones" and "competencies" is that it's better for the child if we find out they're falling behind as soon as possible. Constant vigilance, is the motto of the experts-- constant testing, constant observation, and for the parents and kids, absolutely constant anxiety.

At our homeschooling group, mothers talk about when a child learned to read -- typically between ages 5 and 8 or thereabouts -- the same way they mention that he or she loves reptiles or has been obsessed with astronomy. There is no "standard" time to learn to read. Everyone learns to read anyway. You don't actually need the fear and testing (so... what is their real purpose?).

The standardization of human beings is not, of course, actually attainable. Everyone will have shortcomings, because everyone has their own individual collection of strengths and weaknesses. But using individual variability to create feelings of anxiety and inferiority makes us more likely to seek and accept the advice of experts. (It also destroys much of the natural solidarity we would feel with other parents.) It's not a conspiracy, but it's damned convenient for schoolteachers, doctors, coaches, authors, toy manufacturers, and the Gerber company if we're all feeling a bit uncertain about our parenting skills, a bit worried, a bit inclined to spend big bucks on an educational gizmo if it might help our kids outperform the neighbor's kids.

The public schools play a larger and larger role in this parental culture of fear, due to increased testing, increasing numbers of kids diagnosed with ADHD, increasing numbers of kids diagnosed with learning disorders, and so on. The assembly line and quality control models weren't quite so prominent when I was in school, I don't think. Nowadays normal human variability is used to tell virtually every parent that their child has an "area of concern." I mentioned my friend whose son is supposedly slightly behind verbally, at the age of 18 months, although he's ahead in other areas. Well, what kid isn't "slightly behind" in one area and slightly ahead in another? What is the point in even saying so? Doesn't this go without saying? The point of announcing that a kid is slightly behind some average is to make sure you bring them back in for the next well visit, out of fear that something might be wrong, or because you want to hear them say that the verbal skills are now normal.

So many "experts" on children ultimately depend on this same model: first we assume that "standard" is the goal, then we scare you (we can always find something that isn't standard in your kid), then you feel compelled to continue working with us to solve the imaginary problem. Which, incidentally, is exactly how advertising works: we define the goal, we suggest you're deficient, we induce anxiety, and we tell you our product is the solution.

There's no way to be within the system and to beat the system. Mainstream medicine and mainstream schooling-- I've checked out of both.