In hundreds of thousands of homes in our country, parents are reinventing the wheel … of parenthood.
Upon having a baby, many parents realize that they do not have the slightest idea what to do. They do not feel prepared to care for that baby. Often, after years of feeling competent at work, they suddenly feel incompetent – – – and anxious.
Donald Winnicott, the famous and beloved British pediatrician and child psychoanalyst wrote, “The most important element at any one moment is the ordinary home in which ordinary parents are doing an ordinary good job, starting off with infants and children with that basis for mental health which enables them to eventually become part of the community” (The Spontaneous Gesture,1950, p. 21).
However, in our country, and I suspect in other places as well, there is no “ordinary” way to raise a child. This sort of communal knowledge or this set of common values has been lost.
And the mental health of both infants and parents is affected by this.
Many new parents have focused on their own lives and education and have just not had prior experience with babies or young children. They really don’t know what to expect from a one-year-old or a five-year-old and, as they become parents, they are at a loss when called upon to meet the ordinary situations of child rearing.
Henri Parens, another child psychoanalyst, advocated for parenting curriculum to be instituted in every school. As one of my psychoanalytic mentors, I often heard him talk about this, and quite honestly, at the time, I didn’t see the point. But now that I am working daily with first-time parents, professional parents, and harried parents, I do.
I see that the parents I come in contact with are desperate to know what is developmentally “normal” at each age as well as to know how to handle the inevitable challenges of raising children at all of the various stages of development.
Given the much heralded death of the extended family and the loss of true community for most young families, questions arise: where are people in the early years of parenthood supposed to learn how to parent? Where are they supposed to learn about child development? And where are they supposed to learn how to manage their own internal reactions to the extraordinary stressors of normal parenthood?
Somehow, we have come to a place in history where many kids grow up never once having to take responsibility for a younger sibling or cousin and never having worked as a babysitter. We have put the emphasis on children doing well in school and going to college, and in some cases, even graduate school. In this march toward “success” many young people never learn about babies and children.
I do not know if Henri Parens had the right solution – teaching about parenting in the schools – or if there are other solutions to this problem. But what I do know is that right now, right here in our country, hundreds of thousands of parents are struggling – more than in other generations, I think – to figure out how to do even “ordinary” parenting.
When I was a child I never won anything. I mean never. I went to an academically competitive school and while I suppose I was smart, evidently I wasn’t smart enough to win any awards.
This was in an era, long ago, when it had not yet come into vogue to tell children they were doing a good job. My school was big on telling children they were not trying hard enough.
Often, my parents were told that I was not living up to my potential. And once, my mother was told that I always sat in the back row – and this was in a classroom that only had two rows. This kind of feedback was crushing to my self-esteem, not to mention other aspects of my self-confidence.
It made me feel badly about myself. And you could easily think that this was destructive. However, what actually happened is that it made me mad, really, really mad. And I decided to show them. In high school, I got interested in psychology and in theories of education. I decided I could understand and help children in a way that I had not felt helped or understood. I went to a college that was as different from my high school as possible. It was a wonderful antidote. And then it went bankrupt. I had to find another college. And then I had to convince that new college to accept the credits from my beloved and highly non-traditional, now defunct, former school. Then I decided to go to graduate school to get a doctorate, something the director of studies at my high school would not have predicted. I didn’t succeed the first year. I didn’t succeed the second year. I had to try three years running to get into a program I wanted to go to.
If I wasn’t as “smart” as the kids who had won the awards early in my school career, at least I had perseverance.
And then, at a time when psychologists were not allowed to enter clinical psychoanalytic training at most institutes, I decided I wanted to become a psychoanalyst. Of course.
I say all this for a purpose. Telling kids they are doing a good job is now in fashion. Shielding children from criticism, protecting them from failure and helping them to feel they have succeeded is something parents routinely do. But it is important to keep in mind that motivation and drive do not necessarily come from a lifetime of success. And success is not defined by always succeeding, or by a life lived without suffering.
Henri Parens, a child psychoanalyst and Holocaust survivor, revamped the psychoanalytic theory of aggression. He wrote that aggression comes from an overabundance of frustration. But he also said that there are two kinds of aggression: hostile, destructive and non-hostile, non-destructive. And, it turns out that this latter type of aggression is what motivates us to move forward in life. We need SOME aggression to motivate us. And we need SOME frustration, in addition to our inborn, natural aggressive impulses, to generate that motivation.
So, frustration is necessary for children. Some frustration can lead to a feeling of wanting to do better next time. Shielding children from experiences of frustration and even occasional failure is not beneficial. And telling kids that they have done a good job when they actually have not is not helpful. Kids need to feel motivated by not doing well sometimes and the frustration that comes from that in order to want to try again and try harder.
If you have any doubt about this, read Ernst Papanek’s Out ofthe Fire about the hundreds of children he housed and educated during the early days of World War II in France. These children were separated from their families; some walked across Europe, some went from hiding to hiding until they reached one of Papanek’s homes for children. And what did those who survived become? They became lawyers and doctors and writers and professors.
Winners are not people who do not lose – or suffer – they are people who keep trying.
We all have expectations of our children. We are conscious of some of these – and less conscious of others.
I want to talk about several issues regarding these expectations:
First of all, expectations are not necessarily good or bad. They just ARE. And they start even before conception. As soon as we think about having a baby, we imagine what that baby will be like, what they might look like, what their personality might be like, what talents and abilities they might have.
This is universal – – and it is normal. It is part of the process of becoming a parent.
Often we hope for a child who will be a particular way, and have particular skills and abilities. Whether school was important for us, or whether we missed out on going to college or graduate school, we might hope for a child who is “smart” and does well in school. Or, if we were shy as a child, we might hope for a child who is gregarious or assertive. If we love sports, we might hope they will be talented athletically.
In one way or another, our expectations will be formed by our own histories, values and wishes. And to the extent that they are unconscious, it is a good idea to try to make them more conscious. This allows us to decide whether they want to act on these expectations – or to rework them.
Because our expectations WILL affect our children.
Children naturally want to please their parents – and this is good motivation for them. But when we expect things of our children, we also want to make sure that our expectations are realistic, and that we leave room for our children to be who they are, and to establish their own goals in life.
So, small expectations – like helping around the house, being kind or doing homework? That’s a definite YES.
But regarding our deeper fantasies of what we want our children to be as people? We need to ask ourselves if these are reasonable. For example, if we expect our children to get all A’s, what happens if our child turns out to have a learning disability? What happens if reading or math just doesn’t come easily for them? How will they feel about themselves when they come home with B’s or C’s…or worse?
And how will WE feel?
Will we be disappointed? And will our child pick up on that disappointment? What will this do to their motivation? Will they try harder? Or give up? Will they feel badly about themselves? Less confident?
For a while, everyone was talking about Oscar winning actress, Bri Larson’s YouTube content. She said, famously, “my job is 98% failure”. She talked about how many times she was turned down for parts in TV and movies before she got anything significant at all.
Perhaps we need to spend less time expecting our children to be a certain way and more time helping them to learn how to handle the times when they don’t meet our expectations – or their own. Perhaps we need to help them to be more like Bri Larson. And maybe we need to think less about our own wishes for our children’s success, and instead, help them to learn how to fail – and to survive through failure. Because, after all, Bri Larson is right. Life is full of failures, both little and big. And, if our children are to be successful, we have help them to learn to keep trying, and not let individual failures define who they are.
Perhaps it is more helpful as a parent to think about how we are going to talk to our children when they don’t get an A or when they don’t make the team or get the part in the school play. All children experience these disappointments and all children feel badly about them.
Here are some things you can do as a parent:
1. Make goals small. Starting in infancy, when your baby is trying to learn something new, encourage them. But also, watch out if you notice yourself comparing what your baby is doing to what other babies are doing.
2. Concentrate on your own child. Stay in the moment with your own baby or child. Stay with them where they are.
3. Make your goals small for your child. Help them to accomplish tiny milestones; for example, an extra minute of tummy time, one new word, one spoonful of a new food, or for an older child, getting a B when their last grade in that subject was a C.
4. Help build frustration tolerance. The famous psychoanalyst, Heinz Kohut, coined the term “optimal frustration”. He talked about how important it is for people to learn to tolerate some frustration – not so much that they feel like giving up – but enough that they feel challenged. When your baby or your child gets frustrated, whether it’s building a tower that won’t stay up, or learning the letter R, just tell them, “It’s hard. But it’s OK. We’ll try again later.” Build in the idea that some things are difficult but you can take a break…and then keep trying later….after you’re done being frustrated.
5. Check your own expectations. As children get older, keep checking your expectations, keep setting your goals small and keep helping your child to keep their goals small. For some kids, a more appropriate expectation than getting all A’s is establishing longer and longer periods of doing homework. For a child who can’t sit still for an hour, success might mean doing 20 minutes of homework when they only used to be able to do five.
6. Normalize failure. Tell your child your own stories of failure. Tell them how you reacted. Tell them about Larson and what she said and how she persevered through lots and lots of failure.
7. Talk to your children when they are not in the middle of feeling frustrated. Talk about how hard it is to not get what you want or to succeed in the way they want. Talk to them about frustrated feelings and how hard they are. Encourage them to take breaks when they are frustrated with a math problem or with their average when shooting baskets. Encourage them to come back to the activity later when they feel less tired and frustrated.
We want our children to learn how to live in the real world and to endure both the downs and the ups of life. It is important that we think about how to best do this — and how our own expectations may play a part in how our children do or do not “succeed” and ultimately feel about themselves as people.
Now that the holidays are over, it’s time to start thinking about…the holidays.
Next year.
How do you want to do it differently? What didn’t work? What do you WANT your holidays to look like from here on out?
These are the things many of the young parents in my practice and in my parenting groups are talking about.
The first topic was presents. So many of the parents felt that their way of doing presents wasn’t working. Their children were disappointed, or overwhelmed or both. One mother described it this way: “everybody opened everything all at once. It was chaos…and I had a headache.”
The second topic was relatives: when they came, how long they stayed and how many presents they gave. One mother with three small children had tried to control the overwhelm by having everyone come to her house instead of having to travel. That too was chaos.
So what’s a parent to do?
Perhaps now is the time to sit down with your partner and talk about how you want the holidays to look next year – and to start to prepare family members for any changes you intend to make.
One mother in our group who has older children said she wanted Christmas Eve and Christmas morning just for her own nuclear family. But she was afraid to tell her parents and her in-laws for fear of causing hurt feelings.
Another mother talked about how “bratty” her children were around gifts. She had not wanted them to expect a gift every night of Hannuka, but when there was a night without gifts, her kids whined and complained.
The discussions we had around these issues were really fruitful. The mother with three children told everyone that after numerous years of overwhelming holidays, she finally told her relatives that her family would celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas morning on their own and that she would then have an open house on Christmas afternoon….and to her surprise, everyone was fine with it.
And as for presents? We discussed how important it is to tell children ahead of time what to expect in regard to presents. If you decide you are just going to give each of your children one big gift for the holidays and you are going to let the relatives give the other gifts, tell your children well in advance. If you are going to give a gift every other night of Hannuka, tell your children ahead of time and let them know which nights will be the present nights. You may also want to talk about other things, for example, the meaning of the holiday, and for that matter, the meaning of gifts. You might want to emphasize the good feeling derived from giving, the importance of generosity, the importance of the children giving as well as receiving, and the importance of graciousness when receiving a gift. Your children may not be able to quell their disappointment when they don’t get what they want or when they don’t get as much as they want, but the topics of meaning, gratitude, generosity and graciousness can be discussed repeatedly over the years.
And as for the other disappointments of the holidays? Well, one mother told us her solution: radical acceptance. She said she assumes there will be some disappointment around presents and she also assumes someone – or several people – will get sick over the holidays….and she just accepts it.
And for those who haven’t seen it, it’s a meme of a Mom offering concierge services to her teen returning home from college. She asks whether they would like valet service (ie Dad bringing in their baggage from the car)? Meal service? (OK, you don’t know when you’ll be here? We’ll just set a place in case…). Oat milk or regular? Full laundry service? You get the idea.
It’s funny because it’s terrifyingly close to the truth. So many parents provide so much for their college-aged kids when they come home for the holidays….and then end up feeling used, deprived of appreciation, and angry.
Humor, of course, is one way to vent.
But guess what? Being more direct with your college-aged kids is also a way to respond to their expectations for laundry, meal and cleaning services.
Adolescence is a complicated time of life. Your teen wants independence and autonomy – and at the same time, they can enjoy falling back into the old patterns of dependence. They can enjoy being fed and taken care of.
And yes, we are so happy to see them that we are glad to do some of that cartaking. But perhaps we also need to appreciate the skills they’ve gained while away and ask them to draw upon them while home. They have had to make new friends. They know how – or are learning how – to suss out other people’s needs and wants. And you, as a parent, can expect them to put some effort into recognizing you as an individual with your own needs and wants.
This year, how about talking to your college kids about your own feelings about the holidays and how you would like them to go? How about talking about what you would like from them? Could you even discuss what you’re going to do over the holidays together, when you expect to see them and how you expect them to participate? And what about raising your expectations just a little? Could your kids make sure to have gifts to give everyone? Could they help make the holiday dinner? Contribute a dish? Go grocery shopping with you? Bring in the wood for the fire or take their younger siblings on a fun outing? And maybe, just maybe…could they do their own laundry?
This week, we were talking about smartphones in our parents’ group. Specifically, we were talking about how parents use them to contact their kids all day long. Afterward, one mother commented that perhaps our fondness for our phones has to do with attachment.Maybe having a phone with us, and being able to contact our loved ones at a moment’s notice, has to do with our need to stay connected, and in particular, our old, infantile wish to always be able to be in close proximity to our mothers. As John Bowlby said, this is a matter of survival for all infants – going back to our primate roots, crying in order to make sure our mother comes to us made sure we were not left behind in the forest. Staying connected was crucial!
The mom who brought up this issue is in training to be a psychoanalyst herself. She remembered being told by her psychoanalyst-mentor, that he thought that people carried water bottles and phones everywhere these days because they were a way to gratify our early wish to stay attached to Mommy, and therefore to feel safe and secure.
But is there a cost to adults of relying so much on phones, of indulging in this regressive kind of behavior?
Is it useful to us, psychologically speaking, to be able to contact everyone all the time?
Are we meant, as adults, to remain so tethered to one another throughout our daily lives?
Prior to about 2010, parents often did not know exactly where their children were and they couldn’t necessarily get in touch with them right away. The same with partners and spouses. People had to accept this and tame whatever anxiety they might have had about their loved ones’ whereabouts and activities. Prior to smartphones we had to rely on our object constancy, and our internalized images of our loved one, that is, our ability to keep our loved ones in mind, in order to keep them with us (psychologically speaking) throughout the day.
Aditionally, prior to the advent of smartphones, people had more autonomy. And they had more privacy. If they so chose, they could spend time without anyone knowing where they were. They could not be tracked and they could not be called.
Now, we can text or call almost anyone at any time. And if a parent texts a child or teen, they expect to hear back within a matter of minutes. And if they don’t? There’s panic – or anger – or both. Where is he? Why isn’t he getting back to me? What’s going on?
The mother I mentioned at the beginning of this post suggested that smartphones promote anxious attachment. And I thought this was a brilliant idea. Of course, this is an extension of the original concept of anxious attachment – but I think the term can be useful, if loosely applied here. It is true that we expect to be able to contact and know the whereabouts of those we love at all times. And it is also true that we seem to be unable to trust in the ongoing being of our loved ones. Our ability to hold them in our minds with a feeling of confidence that they are alright and will return to us has been dramatically reduced. We check and we check and we check on one another all day long.
Much has been written about attachment styles, and a great deal of what has appeared in popular literature and online is inaccurate. The originator of this term and the person who did the initial research which led to the coining of the term was psychologist and researcher, Mary Main. She defined anxious attachment as an insecure attachment style that develops when a caregiver is inconsistently available, leading the child to become highly distressed when separated from the caregiver but not comforted by their return. This style is rooted in the child’s uncertainty about whether their needs will be met, causing them to be preoccupied with the relationship, constantly seeking reassurance and often showing clingy or demanding behaviors.
But these days, it’s the parents who show an anxious attachment style. And perhaps smartphones have something to do with this. When our children are inconsistently available, it makes us distressed. We expect to hear back from our kids and our partners immediately after we text or call them. And if we don’t, we become anxious. Perhaps this is like the babies who cry or call out for their mothers and are sometimes left without a response from her. If this happens often enough and for long enough, the infant or toddler can feel that the parent is unreliable, and they can feel worried about whether their mothers will come to care for them. In fact, they can worry about their very survival; they can feel insufficiently cared for. And they can become anxiously attached.
Perhaps it is the intermittent nature of the text messages from our children and other loved ones which makes adults feel the same way. Anxious. Unsure. Wanting to hear back immediately. And we all know that intermittent reinforcement is the most powerful kind of reinforcement. The behavior which is intermittently reinforced increases. Hence more calling and more texting.
If thwarted in their desire to contact their kids or partners, parents can become the ones demonstrating demanding behavior. They are the ones who become clingy and anxious.
We have become so used to being able to locate one another at all times that our emotional muscles have gotten flabby. We no longer rely on our internalized images of our loved ones, we no longer utilize our capacity for object constancy. We are no longer able to tolerate uncertainty about exactly where a child or a partner is. We have become unable to wait to hear a report about how the test went or how the day was.
Is it good for us as parents to be so tethered to our phones – and to our children?
And is it good for kids to be so tethered to their phones – and to us?
And what does this do to the development of kids’ feelings of independence, autonomy and responsibility? And to adults’ feelings of trust and confidence in our kids, and in each other?
These questions may not have definitive answers, but they are worth thinking about.
And as for what you might want to do about this as a parent, how about asking your children, teens, and college-aged kids about how often they want to be in touch? How about asking if they mind that you track them? How about asking what they feel is intrusive and what they find helpful? And if they seem to be the ones texting a lot, how about talking about why this might be and if there are some worries behind this?
Kids of all ages need to feel competent, they need some independence (how much will depend on their age), and it is worth discussing how to promote and encourage this.
And parents, it may be time to reevaluate how much you text and track and check and expect from your kids and from each other.
Evidently there is a TikToc trend where people post photos of luxe dorm rooms.
And evidently kids heading off to college soon see these and want them.
Or, some kids do.
According to The Washington Post, some almost college-students are having their dorm rooms wallpapered, they are getting luxury linens, bed skirts, curtains and framed wall art. And, once they arrive at college, their parents are spending hours putting these rooms together.
Some families are even creating registries so that friends and relatives can give luxury items for the dorm room in advance.
What happened to posters put up with tape and sheets and a comforter you didn’t have to worry about?
Or, for my generation, an old camp blanket, the worst sheets in the house and a trunk for the rest of your stuff?
Not anymore.
Some parents are spending $5 -10,000.
So, I wonder…what does this trend mean?
What is it kids are looking for when they insist on outfitting their rooms this way?
And how do the kids who can’t afford these luxuries feel when they see these rooms?
This leads to a related question:
What are kids and parents trying to accomplish with these rooms?
One designer suggested that custom outfitted rooms would be cozier and prevent homesickness.
Let’s reflect. The idea that the nicer the dorm room is, the less a teen will miss home is interesting. Is what kids miss when they go to college the comfort of home, or even the luxury of home (when they come from luxurious homes)? Well, perhaps this is some of what they miss.
But also, homesickness is part of the college experience. It is part of the point of college. At 17 or 18, at least in our culture, many kids leave home in order to go to college to continue their education – but also to continue the separation-individuation process. They go to college to learn more about how to be independent, to broaden their persepectives, to figure out what they think and what they want for their own lives.
Being homesick is part of leaving. It is part of separating. Missing what was is a necessary part of creating a self that is different from the former self. Missing parents and comforts and familiar friends is a part of mourning the life of childhood.
So, parents, when you send your child off to college, or when you take them to college, think about what message you are sending: if you move everything in for them, if you supply them with lots of new stuff for their dorm room, even lots of luxurious stuff – what are you communicating? Might you be telling them you don’t think they came make the move on their own? Might you be telling them they don’t REALLY have to leave home? Might you be communicating that they can just take home with them? Might you be telling them that they still need you and what you can provide?
Of course, in some ways, your kids DO still need you when they go to college. But you want to encourage them to not need you in all the ways they used to when they were younger. You want to communicate that you have faith in their abilities – even if they don’t have that faith yet.
And remember to check your own feelings as you make those pre-college purchases. Are you giving in to too many requests out of your own feeling of sadness at their going? Or your own anxiety about their going? Or your own fear regarding their ability to separate successfully? Or might you be feeling guilty because you are looking forward to a little more peace and quiet?
Think about it.
For more:
The Over-the-top World of Dorm Decorating, Jenny Singer, The Washington Post, Aug. 19, 2025.
We all know—or had—an older or oldest sister, or we are one, or we have a child who is one, and we know what that looks like: bossy, rule-bound, impatient, controlling, perfectionistic, stubborn, a general know-it-all who needs to be right.
These people can be annoying, even infuriating.
And to be one can be painful.
The oldest sister who tries to control her younger siblings, and then later in life, tries to control others, can be difficult to be around. No one really wants to be bossed, controlled, or to be told they’re wrong. And the superior attitude? Not fun.
At the same time, it is important to remember that the oldest sister may be suffering. She can experience a great deal of internal pressure feeling that she has to be “good,” or that she has to go by the rules and be helpful—and she may feel these are her only ways to get approval.
These traits may be annoying to others but at the same time it is also true that being an older or oldest sister may bring with it some positive attributes. Often oldest sisters have real leadership ability, a strong drive for success, a heightened sense of justice and fairness, and they may be both responsible and conscientious
These are generalities – and one may well wonder: are they true? Does being the oldest girl in the family actually lead to developing these characteristics? Is this a real thing? Is it an actual diagnosis? And has it been written about in the professional mental health literature?
Well, there is no diagnosis called “Oldest Sister Syndrome,” but it has been written about.
Alfred Adler wrote about birth order as long ago as the early 1920s. He believed that social influences were the main determinants of personality and said that children are significantly influenced by their position in the birth order of the family. He believed that a child’s position could affect their perception of themselves and their interactions in the world.
Interestingly, Adler’s own life story may have contributed to his theory. He had been a sickly child who suffered from rickets, while his older brother (the oldest child in a family with seven children) was healthy. Adler recalled an early memory of watching his older brother capering on the beach with ease and feeling intensely jealous of him, inferior to him physically, and rivalrous with him.
Adler later went on to write about the characteristics of each birth order position. He said that the oldest child initially receives all of the parental attention, and then feels “dethroned” when the second child is born, forced to share their parents’ attention with the new baby, and resultingly feeling resentment and hostility toward the younger child – and any that come along subsequently.
Others have written about eldest-daughter syndrome as well. One article described how eldest girls often feel angry about about being asked to help with younger siblings, and how some even say that their childhoods were stolen from them as a result of the added burden of helping to care for the younger children. Sharing is often hard for them. They are prone to feeling that they have gotten less, or that they have been cheated. They often feel that the younger children in the family get “more” than they do. Competition can become a lifelong theme, with oldest daughters repeatedly needing to “win” or achieve in order to get the praise they feel they need. This may repeat a childhood pattern where they either sought or actually received praise for helping out or being more mature than their younger siblings.
And what’s more, oldest girls, and oldest children in general, are raised by parents who are less experienced than subsequent children. Often first time parents are not as aware of how to manage an infant than they are with their second and third babies. And oldest children are often scrutinized more by the parents than later children. Every little thing they do is watched and worried about. It is possible that in some cases, this can result in their feeling both especially important – and especially judged – and lead to a feeling of needing to do things the “right” way.
You may recognize these characteristics if you are an oldest sister, or if you had one. And if you are the parent to one, here are some things you can do to help:
Make a point of being aware of who your oldest daughter is as a person, not just as your helper. Make sure you tell her what you like about her as a person. Let her know that you see and appreciate her as an individual, not just for the help she gives you or for the things she does. You do not want her to feel that her ability to help is the one good thing about her and you do not want her identity to become just that of a “helper”. If she is artistic, notice this and comment on her work in a positive way. If she likes to read, notice this and comment on how much you like this about her. Keep the comments about her as an individual going through her teen years.
This does not mean you should not ask her to help you. Having children help out at home is a part of daily life—and it is a good part. They learn that things are expected of them and that they can make meaningful contributions to family life. But when your daughter helps you, acknowledge this and thank her.
Encourage positive interactions between your daughter and her siblings. Praise her if she is loving or playful with her sibs. And if she tends to be negative with them, show her how to be nice. No lectures—just model for her how to be kind to them and notice when she does so.
Occasionally, do something alone with your oldest daughter. You do not have to call this “special” time, just make a point of doing it now and then and telling her how much you enjoy spending time just with her.
Occasionally bring up recollections of what it was like when she was your only baby.
An oldest girl can feel preempted by her siblings. She can feel that life is unfair and that the younger ones get more than she does. Remind her that when she was a baby, you did all the same things for her that you are doing for your younger children. Tell her stories about what it was like when she was a baby and what you used to do for and with her.
And, perhaps most importantly, talk to your daughter about her feelings – not in a punitive way, but in an understanding way. If you notice her being mean to her younger siblings or being particularly competitive with them, take her aside and talk to her about how hard it can be to be an oldest child, and how infuriating her siblings can be for her. If you were in that position or if you know others who were, tell her a story about the feelings that can be involved. Help her to understand her own feelings and help her to work on them.
And good luck with helping your oldest girl. It’s sometimes not easy being an older sister!
Sunday, May 11th was Mother’s Day. Articles about grief kept coming up on my newsfeed. Women missed their wonderful mothers.
But I would like to discuss a different kind of grief – a kind that some mothers (and fathers) experience – and not just on Mother’s or Father’s Days – but on a regular basis. This is a kind of grief that is harder to name and conceptualize. It is the grief of knowing that being able to provide “Good Enough” parenting is not always possible.
It is a grief I encountered on Mother’s Day last year.
In 1953, pediatrician and psychoanalyst, Dr. Donald Winnicott, coined the term “The Good Enough Mother.” A “Good Enough” mom is a responsive and nurturing figure who does her best to meet her children’s developmental needs but who may not always do everything “perfectly”. This is in contrast with the notion that many parents have these days of having to keep their children happy at all times. It recognizes that parenthood is a difficult job where mishaps and misattunements will inevitably occur.
The idea that I did not have to be a perfect mother, but just a “Good Enough” parent provided me with much solace over the years and helped ease some of the pressure that goes along with raising children.
But this solace shifted once I was in a position where I could not even be “Good Enough”.
In December of 2022, I contracted the Coronavirus for the second time. The initial infection was quite mild, but unfortunately, once the COVID symptoms started, they never stopped. To this day, they’re still affecting me, though I’m finally almost back to my baseline. As part of the Long COVID journey, I took a turn for the worse from November of 2023 until September of 2024. During these 11 months, the Long COVID symptoms dramatically reduced my ability to function. I found I could only do the bare minimum of parenting. I remember having to force myself to get out of bed or pick my kids up at school. Trying to keep a smile on my face when I felt so awful was extremely difficult. Housework was nearly impossible, and sitting down with my kids to play a game or help with homework was not happening. I was fully aware of the various struggles my girls were having and I simply could not muster up the strength to support them.
Intellectually, I knew all of the things I was supposed to do to be a “Good Enough” mother – but physically, it was impossible. I felt completely unable.. My symptoms involved feeling achy and uncomfortable all day as well as experiencing extreme fatigue. The final diagnosis of one of my particular problems was “irritable larynx syndrome”. Thankfully, this is treatable, and I’m expected to make a full recovery. However, living with this for a year and a half has been very difficult. When symptoms were most severe, I needed to use heat and steam daily and I had to spend six to eight hours a day resting in bed. I was still working and I had two children to take care of, so needing to spend this much time on bodily care meant that many tasks went undone.
My illness would have been bad enough if it had just affected me, but as a mother, it felt terrible to know that it also affected my family. However, as many negative effects as there were, I was surprised to see that there were also some positive effects.
The negative effects included my husband and kids feeling frustrated with me, the kids not having as much of my support with schoolwork or other pursuits, and their being bored when I was too sick to plan activities. There were many days where they spent way more time on screens than they should have. And as far as socializing with friends and neighbors was concerned, there were multiple events I had to skip.
Interestingly, with all the things I couldn’t do during this time, one of the major sources of annoyance for my kids was me clearing my throat and massaging my larynx. They just hated the sound of my doing these things – and my younger daughter, in particular, had a visceral response to them. She and her sister nicknamed me “The Hock Monster!” Though we can laugh about the nickname now, there is also a bittersweet aspect that goes along with it. At one point, my younger daughter asserted, “I just want a normal mom!”
But, there have also been some significant areas of growth for my family as a result of my illness. For better or worse, out of necessity, both of my kids had to step up their game and learn to be more independent. My 12-year-old is fully in charge of her own laundry now! Both kids have honed their empathy skills and have tried to understand and support me when they see I’m not feeling well. They’ve also gotten much closer to friends, family and neighbors. As they say, a village is needed when raising children, but it is of the utmost importance when a parent is sick.
I am so thankful to those who showed up for my family when I was down for the count.
Additionally, I owe my husband a great deal of gratitude. His TLC and efforts to keep everything together for our family during my prolonged health struggle were essential.
And, as I’ve gotten better, the family has become visibly healthier and happier. A major area of growth for the family system is that my husband and I are now team players as we navigate daily responsibilities. This is something with which many couples struggle. Long COVID forced us into a reset, and a more balanced system has remained intact even now that I’m feeling better.
Many people have heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I’m sure as my family and I look back on the time I was ill, there will be painful, traumatic feelings. But another less well-known concept is Post Traumatic Growth. Despite the hardship my condition has caused, I truly believe that the growth my family has experienced during my illness has been extraordinary. And for me, as I heal, I have a new take on life. I’m living each day to its fullest and I am beyond grateful that I’m now able to show up for my children and family with an almost entirely healthy body. And also – we’re certainly going to be celebrating when my symptoms are fully resolved.
Kids aren’t doing things independently as much as they used to. This is the thesis of a recent podcast by Screenagers founder, Delany Ruston – and I highly suggest you listen. (See below for link)
Her first premise is that kids are less independent because they spend so much time watching screens. And her second premise is that kids are less independent because of parental anxiety and the restrictions parents put on kids as a result.
Her guest on the podcast is Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids, the “terrible” mother who let her nine-year-old son ride the subway in New York City.
Well, let me just say, I rode the public bus when I was nine – and I did it because I wanted to. I also went to spend overnights with my best friend – and from the time we were about six, her mother, who didn’t like to cook, would send us to the corner store for lunch.
This was fun. This was exciting. And we didn’t get kidnapped.
But these days, when we see kids riding the bus or the subway at nine or ten and those who walk around alone or with a friend at six we think they are being neglected, possibly abused and definitely in danger.
However, Dr. Ruston said an interesting thing. She quoted a mentor of hers as having said, “People do not mature in preparation for responsibility – they mature as a result of it.”
And from my own personal experience, and as a child psychologist, I have found this to be true.
My father died when I was 14. I started to be the one to lock the doors at night, just as he had once done. I mowed the lawn, as he had done, and when I was 15, I got a job.
I didn’t do these things because my mother yelled at me and told me I had to. I did these things because I wanted to. And doing these things actually felt good. Doing these things made me feel more confident and more able. And when I went away to college, I felt prepared to handle myself independently.
Did my boss at work yell at me? Yes. Did she tell me I was terrible at my job? Yes. But I still enjoyed working for her and I REALLY enjoyed getting that paycheck.
Meanwhile, in my practice, I am seeing college-aged kids who don’t seem to know how to do so many things, who seem self critical, who seem to lack confidence and who seem to prefer to sit on their beds and scroll. I see college kids who need to text a parent multiple times a day. And I see college kids who, once they have an internship or a job, can’t stand a moment of criticism and feel like they have the right to push back immediately.
I think these college kids are not used to being independent. I think they feel unsure of themselves and they need to check in with parents to see if what they are doing or what they might do is OK. Often these are the kids who were driven everywhere they needed to go and who were given advice about everything they needed to do.
Of course, their parents restricted their independence out of fear. The kidnapper, the accident, the rapist lurked just around the corner. And their parents gave advice because they wanted the best for their kids. They hired the college consultant because they were unsure about whether their own judgment or their kids’ judgment about which colleges to apply to were good enough. They kept their kids from having jobs because they wanted them to get the best grades they could. They scheduled their kids with activities because this is what they thought was best for their kids.
But does constant protection and constant advice give enough room for kids to experience life for themselves, to make some mistakes, to learn how to handle a yelling boss or a bus that never comes?
I think we all know the answer.
And for the ubiquitous phenomenon of overprotected kids, over anxious kids, and over anxious parents, I, like Dr. Ruston, blame screens. But for once, I don’t blame the screens the kids are on. I think part of the blame goes to the screens the parents are on.
We know that we all receive too much news too much of the time via our phones. And we also know that we all receive an enormous amount of pseudo-news too much of the time. And we know that we keep reading this pseudo-news and we keep clicking on the clickbait even when we know we shouldn’t.
For parents, the content they consume often has to do with all the worst things that can happen to kids, and all the possible criticisms of the parents whose children suffered these terrible things.
No parent wants to be the bad parent. So an abundance of caution, a fear of criticism and genuine love for their children often keep parents from allowing their children a bit of freedom, a chance to take a walk or a bike ride with a friend, a trip on the bus or subway or train by themselves.
And this spills into other decisions – do parents let their kids go on overnights or to overnight camp? Do they let them spend time with aged relatives? With relatives who are sick? Do they let their kids attend wakes or shiva or funerals?
The worry parents experience can lead to restrictions on all sorts of experiences.
Of course, the desire to protect comes from love. But we have to ask, what does our protection lead to in terms of kids’ development?
My parents didn’t watch local news. In fact, they were busy and didn’t really watch TV at all. I’m sure they worried about my taking the bus. And yes, I later found out that my mother followed the bus on the first day and she followed me almost all the way home as I walked from the bus stop. But I didn’t know it. And I was so proud of myself for having successfully ridden the bus home! In fact, a few years later, on nice days I also started walking home from school. And it wasn’t a short walk. My older sister had done this before me and she could often be seen walking down the street while simultaneously reading a book. I wanted the same independence she had. I wanted to be like her. And even though I was six years younger than she was, my parents let me have it.
Getting a hot dog with a friend at age 6, riding the bus at age nine, losing a father at 14 – these experiences, and many more, both good and tragic, can be growth-promoting and independence-promoting experiences – at least, they were for me.
Thoughtful Parenting 