Parenting:

Te Right Now Way

By Karen Maezen Miller

An Excerpt from Hand Wash Cold by Karen Maezen Miller

Parenthood is one of the hardest jobs in the world, and there is no one harder on you than yourself. To be fair, we parents are nudged along in fear and self-doubt by experts who don’t mind telling us that the way we feed, hold, handle, speak to, and sleep with our kids is dangerous, particularly to their future test scores. No wonder we wake with a groan each morning as if we’d spent all night being kicked in the ribs by a little monster.

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It’s not just the experts who dole out the body blows. We do it to each other. Venture into a park or playgroup and you’re bombarded by advocates for dueling parent- ing styles. We hurt ourselves, too, every time we fix on one way as the right way. One blind curve and the right way turns into the wrong way in a hurry. Perhaps we feel so inadequate because parenthood shows us the limits of what anyone can know, particularly about the future.

June/July 2010

As parents, we think our job is to create an ideal outcome — a hap- pier child, a smarter child, a more successful child. It’s a silly notion, isn’t it? That we are supposed to shape something presidential out of what looks like seven pounds of putty in our palm. The pressure alone makes us feel as though we’re doomed to fail. But this focus on the future outcome blinds us to the marvel that already Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100