All Joy and No Fun
You want to spend more time with your kids. Do they feel the same way?
All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior
When I was 8 years old or so, I asked a grown-up why there was no "Kid's Day" if Mom and Dad both had days. "Every day is kid's day," they replied. I didn't get it.
I get it now.
All Joy and No Fun is about the modern experience of parenting. And unlike most books on the topic, it's focused on the parents as opposed to the kids
I read this about six months ago but purposefully held off writing about it until I had a few months of parenting under belt
So, what happens to your life when you have kids? According to Senior...
First, you lose a lot of autonomy. You are no longer on your own schedule. Things that seemed so simple before – walking to the grocery store to pick up some milk – become much harder to do
Relatedly, it’s harder to do “flow” activities: ones where you are fully immersed and tuning out the outside world: like playing an instrument, skiing, or writing something for fun. Especially when kids are young, it’s generally hard to be able to fully ignore the world, assuming you don’t have around-the-clock help
You might be bored. If you are on paternity / maternity leave with your kid, you might not have many adult conversations with people other than your spouse for a month (unless you make an effort to do so). Reading a book to your 2-year old for the 100th time is not intellectually stimulating in the same way reading a novel is.
You are humbled and learn that your influence is limited. Even if your 3 year old can speak, they cannot reason with you. Your baby might cry no matter what you do. And just wait until they are teenagers…
It also impacts your marriage:
There are tons of logistics to deal with on an everyday basis. What should the baby wear? Who is picking them up from soccer practice?
And given how much work parenting entails, it exacerbates the “chore wars”: arguments between couples on how household chores are split. And even if the amount of work is the same, there is then an argument over whose work is “harder.” Is it harder to work until 11pm or change diapers? Put the baby to bed or give the baby a bath? We find it hard to perspective take and assume that whatever we are doing is harder. We also see 100% of our chores and might not notice nice things are spouse is doing for us. In the book Cribsheet, Emily Oster talks about how she took her husband’s weekly task of taking out the trash and recycling for granted – until she had to do it and saw the multi-step complex instructions he had left for her
At some point they become teenagers. This brings its own challenges:
Kids start pulling away from us. This is hard in and of itself, and if you’ve neglected life outside of parenting, you might realize it for the first time
It’s hard to accept part of their personalities when there is not much we can do about it
It touches many emotional triggers for parents. Let’s say your son, like your husband, has a bad temper. It’s natural for you to “blame” your husband for teaching or giving it to your son. It can also make you more aware of your husband’s tempter. And it might be hard for you to see your daughter go through the same struggles you did when you were her age, as it makes you relive the experience
And more broadly, we’ve changed what it means to be a good parent. Our children are projects that need to be worked on – “if he plays lacrosse, he will be better-rounded and more likely to get into Harvard.” In the past, our children used to work for us; now, we work for them.
Parenting used to mean feeding, clothing, and teaching our kids. Now, we want them to be happy. How can you do that? Can you do that? As more and more of parenthood is outsourced, we hold onto (and expand) our role as emotional caretakers for our children – it’s all we have left
OK, this all doesn’t sound too fun. What can we do about it?
First, some parents are better at being efficient / making time for themselves than others. Obviously, you can’t have 6 hours of leisure time with a newborn
One way to make time for yourself is to be comfortable being a “good enough” parent and not feeling obligated to spend every minute with or in service of your child. Don't pay attention to external standard of what a "good" parent does - just like Instagram posts, they don't reflect actual reality. Senior notes that this is one area where women can learn from men. Many mothers feel obligated to live up to the idea of capital-M Motherhood and that anything less than perfection makes them a bad mother. Most fathers, though, come to parenting feeling much less pressure and are generally more OK with being “good enough.” An example of “good enough” might be putting your baby in the swing (contraption that moves them back and forth, which ideally keeps them from screaming) while you eat a quick dinner with your spouse as opposed to playing with them nonstop that night.
Realize that our kids need space, too. 85% of American adults think that they do not spend enough time with their kids – but only 15% of kids feel that way about their parents
She also talks about the tremendous joy of being a parent – seeing the world through their eyes, getting the chance as an adult to act silly, watching them develop and learn new things. They ask you questions like “what’s water?” And in retrospect, they do make people happier
I really liked the book. Even if you don’t have kids, read this and call your parents afterward to thank them for everything they’ve done for you. A few of my reactions:
First, being a parent is fun! Not all the time and often accompanied by frustration, exhaustion, or other emotions, but still, I imagine most parents enjoy parts of it. This “fun” is at the expense of much of your leisure time. So maybe it’s a different kind of fun.
She does a service in the book by "naming" the fact that many aspects of parenthood are challenging and frustrating. I imagine many parents might feel guilty for finding parts of parenting unpleasant, given 1) it's seen as a virtuous and good thing to do and 2) not wanting to sound ungrateful for being able to have children. But I think admitting that it can be frustrating is probably more productive than telling yourself that it's not.
I loved the point around “good enough” parenting – I think it can be applied to plenty of things in life as a way to free up time and make us feel better about ourselves. For example, I love to cook and especially enjoy cooking time-consuming dishes for family and friends. But since becoming a parent, I’ve accepted that for a while, 99% of my cooking is going to be “good enough” – and any guests to our house will still be fine with it.
I wonder how the evolution of work has impacted the chore wars. 60 years ago, work was viewed as…work. It was something you did because you had to, not because you wanted to. But now, many people expect work to be fun, interesting, and fulfilling. You do what you love. If one parent works at a job that they truly love, should they get less “credit” for it and have to do more chores? What about if they hate their job?
Rule of parenting: if you have n children and somebody has n+1 or more children, don’t complain to them about how busy or tired you are unless you want to hear how easy n children is and how good you have it
As she notes, this book is generally focused on middle class to upper-middle class families
In the past, I’ve written about how various “productivity” and life hack books can strip some of the spontaneous joy and pleasure out of life. Wonder if we are doing the same with children, given how hyperscheduled and regimented their lives are (I have no idea if this is true, this is just based on 300 The Atlantic articles I’ve read on the topic). The counterargument is that 1) the world is increasingly competitive and 2) the world is increasingly winner-take-all in terms of benefits to a good education and a good job, so if you want your kid to be happy, this is the only option. But does going to a good school make your kid happy? No, according to the Atlantic (which seems to have a monopoly on these upper middle class How We Live Now pieces)
One area she didn’t touch on (or I don’t remember) is the impact of children on friendships. I imagine there are 2 changes. First, you have less time so you see your friends less. Second, you are likely to spend more time with people who have kids as you now have something in common and your lifestyles are similar. I think parents who are able to make their existing friendships “work” post-kids are probably happier
The book in 1 sentence: Chill out and enjoy yourself - your kids are going to be fine!