On Parenting

The martial minded among you will recognize the reference in the title of this post to Clausewitz’s On War, a classic treatise on military strategy. This posting follows in this strain, since it is time to confess to what most new parents probably keep to themselves – that these first few months are kind of like a war, the parents versus the infant...in reality, a war of the parents versus themselves. In keeping with the point of this blog, perhaps a look at ourselves can lead to some revelations about all (apologies to Montaigne).

You see, we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to get Penny to do what we’d like her to do: maybe if we feed her more, she’ll sleep more, and so on. We find ourselves looking for the right philosophy. Since we’ve entered into a social contract with Penny, shouldn’t she be bound by the same rules that govern our behavior?

Or maybe, we should accept her curveballs with grace, supposing that all of our actions, both hers and ours, contribute to the greater good. But then, having submitted to the idea that we’re all in it together, shouldn’t we be able to choose whatever regimen we want?

Maybe we’re overthinking things a bit, a common trait of the new parent. Maybe we should leave the cave and go out into the sunshine. Maybe we should just bag all these fancy philosophies and go with the one proven to work: let it be, let it be.