Parents

I finally cracked open the newest issue of The Atlantic last night and read an article by Lori Gottlieb which essentially asks the question, “Could it be that by protecting our kids from unhappiness as children, we’re depriving them of happiness as adults?”

While not a parent myself, I have tons of friends these days who recently had babies or are pregnant, so it has led me to think a lot about my own upbringing and how I might want to raise a child myself one day. One thing I noticed growing up is that Persian parents are a unique species unto themselves—any Persian kid will tell you: Once a Persian couple has kids, they basically put aside everything else in their life and devote themselves to this new being, to an extent that might be unhealthy. Case in point: When I was in my 20s living by myself in the same city as my parents, my mom would drive over every single day to bring me dinner and take my laundry. I begged her not to do this, but she seemed hurt, so I just let her do it because it made her feel good. My first year of college, I went to a school in New York and my mom cried so much and fed my homesickness that I finally transferred to a school that was closer to Seattle. To this day, my mother makes my 22-year old brother’s bed every morning. I LOVE MY MOM, don’t get me wrong. Does she go overboard though? Yes. Do I worry for her own happiness separate from mine? Yes. Do I feel responsible for her happiness? Absolutely. But over-coddling Persian parents are very much the norm. The boys get it the worst (they are NEVER allowed to cry when they are babies--that's akin to murder!).

I used to think this form of parenting was just utter selflessness, but Gottlieb boils this down pretty succinctly:

“We’re confusing our own needs with our kids’ needs and calling it good parenting.”

This follows through with the age-old Persian Parent desire that their child become a doctor.

“We’re not so happy if our kids work at Walmart but show up each day with a smile on their faces. They’re happy, but we’re not. Even though we say what we want most for our kids is their happiness, and we’ll do everything we can to help them achieve that, it’s unclear where parental happiness ends and our children’s happiness begins.”

Of course, I’m not saying that only Persian parents are like this. I see this phenomena in my demographic on a daily basis. 

“Many parents will do anything to avoid having their kids experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment—anything less than pleasant—with the result that when, as adults, they experience the normal frustrations of life, they think something must be terribly wrong . . . What starts off as healthy self-esteem can quickly morph into an inflated view of oneself—a self-absorption and sense of entitlement that looks a lot like narcissism. In fact, rates of narcissism among [American] college students have increased right along with self-esteem . . . This gives them an inflated view of their specialness compared to other human beings. Instead of feeling good about themselves, they feel better than everyone else . . . The irony is that measures of self-esteem are poor predictors of how content a person will be, especially if the self-esteem comes from constant accommodation and praise rather than earned accomplishment. According to Jean Twenge, research shows that much better predictors of life fulfillment and success are perseverance, resiliency, and reality-testing—qualities that people need so they can navigate the day-to-day.”

In the end, I think I came out pretty okay in the "resiliency" department though, but mostly because my dad was a hard-ass (of course, producing its own unique trauma)—another Persian phenomena, perhaps equaling out the Coddling Mom archetype—and because I had to learn on my own how to deal with being first-generation (something my well-meaning mother could never help me with or shield me from). Mostly, I think that parents are just fucked though. No matter what you do or what culture you adhere by, you’re going to mess up your children one way or another.