Relationships & Family
Parenting Skill Develops Over Time But Culture Conditions Us to Value Ease Over Challenge
Matt Walsh Show
What Should Parents Do When They Feel Totally Overwhelmed?
"We're conditioned to assume that the easier thing is always the better thing. It's like in our culture, we define a fun thing, a pleasurable thing, as a thing that can be done easily with no resistance. And then we have kids and we discover that lots of things that were easy before that could be done with no resistance now have resistance. Now they're difficult or at least they're more difficult than they were before. And so we instinctively categorize them in our heads as not fun, as not enjoyable."
The host argues that parents struggle because modern culture has trained them to equate ease with happiness, when in reality harder things are more rewarding. He tells a struggling mother of two young children that she will grow into parenting over time, comparing skill development in parenting to learning any new hobby where initial frustration gives way to competence. He challenges the notion that childless people have more freedom, arguing parents actually have access to meaningful experiences unavailable to non-parents.
From this episode
Matt Walsh Show