Child development specialists call it scaffolding. You give a child a task she cannot yet perform alone, but is able to with your help. You help her with the task (not do it for her). As a child becomes more and more proficient at the task, you give less and less assistance until a child is able to do the task all by herself.
Parenting is a constant scaffolding. When she is a baby, she needs your help with everything. She can do nothing for herself but one thing - cry for your help. She cries when she is hungry, when her diaper is dirty, when she is bored. You help her with everything, and she needs a lot of help.
I think it starts when she is weaned from breastfeeding (or formula feeding). As soon as she no longer needs milk or formula for nutrition, she made her first step toward independence. And it goes down from there. She starts walking, and pretty soon she will no longer depend on you carrying her or ride in a stroller. She is now able to get (some) things for herself - her cereal from the box, a toy from the shelf, a remote control from the table. She is no longer totally dependent on your help. Sure, at this point it seems more like a blessing.
But wait. She starts daycare, and you release your duties of caring for her to relatively unfamiliar people. For a part of the day at least, you are no longer a part of her world. Or visible world at least. She doesn't need your care at all, at least for that period of time. There is somebody else who replaced you. And that is kind of sad for most of us.
Then she starts school. A world totally different from a daycare. You are definitely not a part of it. A school teacher will not tell you what her mood was during the day. Was she happy, cheerful, upset? A teacher will not tell you who she socialized with or what she ate - something a daycare teacher might've told you. At school, she is mostly independent, and you have no idea how her day went. Not unless you are lucky enough to have a totally communicative child who will tell you every little detail. To most of us it goes like this: "What did you do in school" - "Nothing." It's her world, completely closed to you ever since she enters it. She is (mostly) independent in it.
With time, she will learn to take care of herself, and your help will be needed less and less. With every task my children learn to do, I am proud of them, but I am also sad. They no longer need my help with the task, but doesn't it mean that they no longer need ME? With fear I am thinking about their coming teenage years, when they will no longer need me not only during school time, but also in the evenings, when they will be spending time with their friends. I fear the time when they will no longer want me to read to them before bed time. Or no longer need, or want, a goodnight kiss.
In her book "A blessing of a B minus", author Wendy Mogel talks about parents who satisfy their "need to be needed" by jumping to solve their teens' every problem. I am afraid I am that kind of parent. I really enjoy being needed by my kids. Of course, sometimes I am tired of it and wish that they needed me less, but only sometimes. Most of the time, I take pleasure in helping them, teaching them, guiding them. I can't bear the thought that at some time ahead, they will no longer need any of that.
But do our children ever come to the point when they no longer need US? I think of my parents, my relationship with them. It is very stormy and uneven, but despite being so, I am still emotionally dependent on them. I feel calm and comfortable when they feel well physically and doing well financially, and I feel worried and anxious when something goes wrong with them. Even though I know that my parents can help me very little at this point, I still feel emotionally protected by them. I still value their advice and their presence in my life more than any physical help they can provide. And I think this is true for every child who was fortunate enough to have loving and caring parents. We don't need to satisfy our "need to be needed" by any artificial means such as solving our kids' every problem, by buying them extra things, by babying them. The time will come when they will no longer need our help, but they will always need our love.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
Window of opportunity
This will be one of the most controversial pieces I've written so far. The main reason I am writing it is not to judge women who marry and have children later in life, because I understand that this does not always depend on a woman's choice. The main reason for this is to answer an all-out assault by the american mass media on traditional family values, the proof of which are several articles from newspapers and magazines that were posted by friends on Facebook.
Recently I came upon a scientific fact that amazed me: the best window of opportunity for a woman to have a child is from 15 to 25 years old. This is her best age to conceive and produce a healthy baby. After that, this opportunity starts to gradually decline.
15 to 25! This is shocking indeed. At this period, many women do not even think of having children. For the part of this period, sex is not even legal! This is teenagers we are talking about. How could nature provide a woman with the best physical ability to have a child at the age when she is the least physically and emotionally able to raise him? Where did nature go wrong?
Then I started thinking about it. Is 15 really that young? Until the last century, and in many cultures even today, 15 was the age when marriage for a woman was not considered something extraordinary. Centuries ago, girls got married a lot earlier than that. In many countries, it is proper for a woman to be married by the age of 18.
And when it comes to physical abilities, it's a relatively recent (and specific to developed countries) phenomenon that 15-year-old young women have hardly any responsibilities around the house. Even 50 years ago, many children performed the same jobs as adults did, and taking full care of a younger sibling would be one of the responsibilities of a 15-year-old (sometimes much younger) girl, thus making her fully capable of raising her own child. Again, this is the situation in many countries even today. Treating 15-year-olds (or 20-year-olds) as children is a relatively recent "developed countries" idea. It's not that women that age are not capable to be mothers. We made them that way. Nature didn't go wrong - we did.
It would seem here that I am advocating for 15-year-olds to have children. I am not. This is the last thing on my mind. The thing I am concerned about though is priorities. A woman finishes high school, goes to college, then she has got to travel and drink and experience life to the fullest, then she goes back to college to get her MBA, then she finally decides that it's time to settle down and have a family, but where is her window of opportunity? By the time she is done with all that she is in her early 30th if she is lucky and close to 40 if she had fun for a little too long. That's when infertility clinics come to help. That's the way Western civilization is going now - infertility clinics. While in the cultures where women marry earlier and have children when nature intended them to, birth rate is skyrocketing. Ours is dying out.
And for those women who do think of settling down earlier and putting their careers on a back burner in order to have kids, there comes media to the rescue. "There is no reason to rush into having kids," - family experts tell us, - "It's hard work. Have fun, experience life, establish your career first." "There is no reason to look for Mr. Right just yet. It's fun to be single," - magazines scream from the shelves, - "it's your time to experiment with drinks, food, clothes, and partners of different sexes. It's your time to LIVE. It's glamorous! It's now! It's independence! It's the Sex and the City way!" Have you ever read in a tabloid magazine about your window of opportunity to have a healthy child? I bet you didn't.
The result? Women are having children later and later in life. That means they are having fewer of them - there is no time for the 2nd or 3rd. And it's lucky for them if they are even able to have a child around 40. For many women, it's too late. That's the part that tabloid magazines don't tell you about. It's just too late. Sure, they might mention how far along our infertility science have come. Do you know how many couples succeed with infertility treatment? 20%. That's including young couples, whose chances are much higher. Imagine what chances you have when you are 40. That's the part that mass media is shielding our young women from.
My older son recently had a puberty education workshop at school. This is a perfect opportunity to talk to your children about when to start having sex, and having a family. For many of us (especially parents who have daughters) it means talking about not having sex too early, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy prevention. What many parents (especially parents of daughters) are missing, I think, is talking about how important it is to start a family at the right time. It used to be that not getting married "in time" was considered "wrong" by society. Society used to send a message to women - get married, have kids. Now it sends a completely opposite message. That's where parents have to come in. Of course I am not talking about telling your daughter to start dating at 13 and be married by 15. But you have to counter all those "family experts" advice. Talk about the importance of having a family. Talk about the benefits and the joys of it. The joy of having children. Talk about the fact that there is no danger in putting off your MBA for a few years, but putting off having children may have unintended consequences. Tell them that traveling with children is often more rewarding and interesting than traveling without them. You see the world in a whole new light, so "travel before you have children" is a myth. Talk about the joy your kids bring to you every day, and how lucky you are to have them. Tell them that many people are not that lucky, and for most of them, it's their own lifestyle choices that made them that way. Talk about the window of opportunity.
Recently I came upon a scientific fact that amazed me: the best window of opportunity for a woman to have a child is from 15 to 25 years old. This is her best age to conceive and produce a healthy baby. After that, this opportunity starts to gradually decline.
15 to 25! This is shocking indeed. At this period, many women do not even think of having children. For the part of this period, sex is not even legal! This is teenagers we are talking about. How could nature provide a woman with the best physical ability to have a child at the age when she is the least physically and emotionally able to raise him? Where did nature go wrong?
Then I started thinking about it. Is 15 really that young? Until the last century, and in many cultures even today, 15 was the age when marriage for a woman was not considered something extraordinary. Centuries ago, girls got married a lot earlier than that. In many countries, it is proper for a woman to be married by the age of 18.
And when it comes to physical abilities, it's a relatively recent (and specific to developed countries) phenomenon that 15-year-old young women have hardly any responsibilities around the house. Even 50 years ago, many children performed the same jobs as adults did, and taking full care of a younger sibling would be one of the responsibilities of a 15-year-old (sometimes much younger) girl, thus making her fully capable of raising her own child. Again, this is the situation in many countries even today. Treating 15-year-olds (or 20-year-olds) as children is a relatively recent "developed countries" idea. It's not that women that age are not capable to be mothers. We made them that way. Nature didn't go wrong - we did.
It would seem here that I am advocating for 15-year-olds to have children. I am not. This is the last thing on my mind. The thing I am concerned about though is priorities. A woman finishes high school, goes to college, then she has got to travel and drink and experience life to the fullest, then she goes back to college to get her MBA, then she finally decides that it's time to settle down and have a family, but where is her window of opportunity? By the time she is done with all that she is in her early 30th if she is lucky and close to 40 if she had fun for a little too long. That's when infertility clinics come to help. That's the way Western civilization is going now - infertility clinics. While in the cultures where women marry earlier and have children when nature intended them to, birth rate is skyrocketing. Ours is dying out.
And for those women who do think of settling down earlier and putting their careers on a back burner in order to have kids, there comes media to the rescue. "There is no reason to rush into having kids," - family experts tell us, - "It's hard work. Have fun, experience life, establish your career first." "There is no reason to look for Mr. Right just yet. It's fun to be single," - magazines scream from the shelves, - "it's your time to experiment with drinks, food, clothes, and partners of different sexes. It's your time to LIVE. It's glamorous! It's now! It's independence! It's the Sex and the City way!" Have you ever read in a tabloid magazine about your window of opportunity to have a healthy child? I bet you didn't.
The result? Women are having children later and later in life. That means they are having fewer of them - there is no time for the 2nd or 3rd. And it's lucky for them if they are even able to have a child around 40. For many women, it's too late. That's the part that tabloid magazines don't tell you about. It's just too late. Sure, they might mention how far along our infertility science have come. Do you know how many couples succeed with infertility treatment? 20%. That's including young couples, whose chances are much higher. Imagine what chances you have when you are 40. That's the part that mass media is shielding our young women from.
My older son recently had a puberty education workshop at school. This is a perfect opportunity to talk to your children about when to start having sex, and having a family. For many of us (especially parents who have daughters) it means talking about not having sex too early, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy prevention. What many parents (especially parents of daughters) are missing, I think, is talking about how important it is to start a family at the right time. It used to be that not getting married "in time" was considered "wrong" by society. Society used to send a message to women - get married, have kids. Now it sends a completely opposite message. That's where parents have to come in. Of course I am not talking about telling your daughter to start dating at 13 and be married by 15. But you have to counter all those "family experts" advice. Talk about the importance of having a family. Talk about the benefits and the joys of it. The joy of having children. Talk about the fact that there is no danger in putting off your MBA for a few years, but putting off having children may have unintended consequences. Tell them that traveling with children is often more rewarding and interesting than traveling without them. You see the world in a whole new light, so "travel before you have children" is a myth. Talk about the joy your kids bring to you every day, and how lucky you are to have them. Tell them that many people are not that lucky, and for most of them, it's their own lifestyle choices that made them that way. Talk about the window of opportunity.
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