I am no longer updating domestic father. Feel free to browse the archives and look around, but for new content, please join me at evenlake.
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As I said in my last post, skepticism is a tool, one of many we can use as parents. I have found it to be one of the more valuable tools, but it remains just a tool.
We can use it to evaluate claims made to us, the claims we parents hear on a daily basis. We can use it to explain the world to ourselves and our children, explanations that are based in reality rather than myth and tradition.
But it is still only a tool.
When I was talking with the story consultant, she suggested that I examine my own insecurities, see if they were the reason for the story I was writing in this blog.
My insecurities in a society that doesn’t yet value stay-at-home dads, my insecurities as a new parent, these were what underlay my choice in writing a blog about skeptical parenting. I used my skepticism as armor, a way to protect myself from the slings and arrows of an outlandish culture.
Researching and reviewing claims had taken up most of my free time. It gave me a sense of control, a feeling that I knew what I was doing, when in fact I mostly relied on instinct and common sense, two other tools in the parenting toolbox.
When I told Diane what I had discovered, that she was right, that perhaps I had picked skepticism as a subject due to my insecurities, she offered nothing but support.
“I’m so happy you were with me on where I was heading with that…. Sounds as if there might be room to explore your experiences and perceptions [of at-home fatherhood].
“You’ve got a real gold mine of material there, my friend.”
But how to extract it, in this niche of skepticism?
I am a skeptic, but I am not only a skeptic. I am a father, but not just a father. I am a stay-at-home parent, but that is not all that I am. Like everyone else, I contain multitudes.
Diane wrapped up our session by telling me, “the most important question to ask yourself is, ‘What am I writing, and why am I the person to be writing it?’”
Next post: Wherein This Story Ends
(cross-posted at evenlake)
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A couple of weeks after my conversation with Diane from The Story Spot, I received an email from Nancy McDermott. Nancy is a fellow parent and fellow New Yorker, and had recently written an article for spiked.com called “Parenting: it’s not rocket science.” She thought I might find it interesting. More than interesting, I found it profoundly relevant to my situation.
She writes,
The idea that parenting is more complicated than ever before is an observation I hear often from my older relatives….
It’s not simply that parents are spending time deliberating things like whether their baby’s first food should be rice cereal or pears or avocado - once simple decisions that are now apparently terribly complicated. It’s the way we are deliberating. The whole language we use has undergone a transformation. We investigate. We research. We weigh the evidence.
Exactly what I had been doing almost every morning since Sally went back to work. Every claim I heard was subject to my scrutiny. Those that I thought were post-worthy would receive more attention. I would spend hours on each post, making certain my research was accurate, and that I had not fallen into any logical fallacies. Whenever CJ slept, I pulled out the Google and went to work.
Imagine my surprise when I read the next paragraph.
The highly technical language we use to discuss ordinary aspects of childrearing belies a collective lack of confidence.
Just two weeks before, I had an experience that I described as rare, and yet here it was happening again. Truth was revealing itself to me as I saw myself mirrored in McDermott’s writing.
We no longer feel comfortable justifying our beliefs about bringing up our children on the basis of ‘common sense’ or experience.
Sally and I live far away from most of our families. We cannot rely on the wisdom of our older relatives when confronted with commonplace parenting issues. We must find something else to help us with these questions. In the process of discovering our answers, we look back at our own childhoods and laugh uncomfortably at some of the things our parents did.
But, even with all the knowledge of the ages at our fingertips, modern parents can still only do what works for them. It is the same thing our parents did. McDermott writes,
The decisions we make as parents are reasonable: that is, they are the product of our judgement, synthesising what we know of the facts and our own child, what is expected of us by others and our own moral sensibilities, into a solution that is right for our individual situation.
Further, there is no Universal Infallible Theory of Parenting.
no scientific theory can ever serve as a guide to individual action. It’s like giving 10 people pots of yellow and blue paint and expecting them all to mix the same shade of green. It’s possible in the abstract, but the reality is far more complex.
Our parents had very little information. They relied on their pediatricians, their relatives, maybe Dr Spock, but mostly on their own judgment and common sense. And indeed, that is what McDermott thinks may be the greatest resource for modern parents as well.
It may be that the most ‘rational’ course of action for parents in these circumstances is to rely first and foremost on their own judgement and leave contesting science to the scientists.
Educating yourself is essential. But so many parenting issues have no definitive answers, only competing science. We can educate ourselves in the methods of science to assist us in evaluating all of the studies, but, honestly, how often does it change our behavior? I can think of at least 3 things we do with CJ that probably aren’t in accordance with the latest science.
Skepticism is a tool, an excellent tool, but it is not an answer. It helps us make decisions, but it cannot make them for us.
Next post: Skepticism Is a Tool
(cross-posted at evenlake)
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A few weeks before we left for England, I started playing around with Twitter. I poked around, looking for people to follow: skeptics, writers, at-home parents, and generally people who would amuse me. On any given day, I might add 5 or 6 people to my “following” list, so when I received the following Direct Message, I wasn’t sure what to think:
I was soon in touch with Diane Wright, the founder and managing editor of The Story Spot, “an online resource for screenwriters and the story consultants who love them.” She offered an hour of consulting as my freebie, and though I am not an aspiring screenwriter, I figured I could use her as a sounding board for some ideas about this and my personal blog. [Editor's note: Wright's exact words are recreated from memory and notes of our conversation, and are therefore probably not exactly what she said. Below I'm paraphrasing for dramatic effect.]
“I’ve never consulted someone about a blog,” Diane told me. “It should be interesting.”
I gave her links to some of my favorite posts, and told her I was looking for a way to make a unified story within each of my blogs.
This is tricky. As Andrew Sullivan wrote last year in his article, “Why I Blog,”
As you read a log, you have the curious sense of moving backward in time as you move forward in pages—the opposite of a book. As you piece together a narrative that was never intended as one, it seems—and is—more truthful. Logs, in this sense, were a form of human self-correction. They amended for hindsight, for the ways in which human beings order and tidy and construct the story of their lives as they look back on them. Logs require a letting-go of narrative because they do not allow for a knowledge of the ending. So they have plot as well as dramatic irony—the reader will know the ending before the writer did.
So how does one construct a story for a blog, if one doesn’t know the end? This is what I wanted to talk about, but it wasn’t quite where the conversation went.
It started simply enough, with Diane offering suggestions as to how I could frame the overall narrative arc.
“You could draw specific parallels of you growing as a parent and a skeptic as you watch your daughter grow up as a person. Maybe use her growth stages as metaphors.”
Fairly straightforward advice, and we explored this for a bit. But, after about 20 minutes, she took me down an unexpected path.
“You know, Blake, there’s always something there, whether or not you see it.”
I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, and asked her to continue.
“Well, um…. Have you ever thought that maybe it’s your, well, your own insecurities.”
Moments like this are rare in one’s life, moments where time seems to elongate, when one’s vision narrows to a single point. Moments when truth becomes suddenly and dramatically clear.
“Hmm.” I replied, stalling for time.
“I mean, maybe part of the reason you chose the subject of skepticism, is based partly on your insecurity of being a father, feelings every new parent has.”
She was backing off because she thought my silence meant I didn’t like where she was going. To keep the moment, I had to reel her back in.
“No, you’re absolutely right.”
That thing that had been nagging at me for weeks, had just revealed itself. My reticence to speak, my feelings of inadequacy, perhaps even my entire blog, had been based in my own insecurities. Not just the standard new-parent insecurities, but ones that ran even deeper.
Next post: At-home Fatherhood
(cross-posted at evenlake)
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Esther at Mainstream Parenting Resources has posted the fifth edition of Skeptical Parent Crossing. This month’s theme is Pictures at an Exhibition, and she’s done a great job of thematically linking each post to a work of art.
Go check out some great art and some great articles!
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As I mentioned in a previous post, we stayed with our friends Simon and Simone when we were in England. Simon is an MD and scientist, and, as such, is a professional skeptic. Talking with him about some of these subjects is a bit daunting, as he also has two children, and therefore has been both a parent and a skeptic for far longer than I.
When discussing parenting, and especially skeptical parenting, I was perhaps a little more guarded than I am with other friends. Fear of looking like an idiot was certainly part of it, but it was mostly because I know I can learn more by listening than by talking. Being around someone who has more experience at something can be enlightening; being challenged inevitably makes you better.
But, when we left Oxford and headed to London, I found that my reluctance to speak about my skepticism did not stay in Oxford. In fact, my reluctance to join in many conversations was heightened around friends with whom I normally would banter freely.
Never one to shy away from introspection, I ruminated on what might be causing this change in my behavior. When I stumbled on it, I was a little troubled by what I determined was the root of this reluctance: my status as a stay-at-home dad.
I have not talked about this much here. There are many other SAHD blogs, all of which address the subject better than I could. I have never really felt it was relevant to this blog. But, after the trip to England, it was no longer something I could ignore.
At the core, I felt as though I no longer had anything to add to a conversation. All of our friends had kids, and since my life was currently centered around raising our daughter, what could I say that they didn’t already know, hadn’t already experienced for themselves? When talking about the blog, I felt like I was being humored, like a child showing off his drawings.
Of course, none of our friends actually treated me this way. And when I was working for a paycheck, I never felt this way about other stay-at-home parents; if anything, I envied them. For some reason, though, I was projecting something on to everyone else, struggling with my own worries about how society perceives me because I left my job to stay at home with my child.
Now, all of this was not quite so well-constructed in my mind when we left the UK. It was more of an irritating nag just above my subconsciousness. But, it all came out, fully-formed like Athena from Zeus’ forehead, when, of all things, I won a contest.
Next Post: The Story Consultant
(cross-posted at evenlake)
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If you haven’t already, there’s still time to submit your articles to the next edition of Skeptical Parent Crossing, being hosted this month by estherar at Mainstream Parenting Resources.
Review the submission guidelines, then submit your articles for consideration here.
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Though my recent posts have been about nitrates in baby food, a related cause for potential concern that I only touched on is food allergies. Commenter Grimalkin floated the idea that perhaps we are actually creating some of these allergies ourselves, by not exposing our kids to some of these substances early on. She linked to an article by Esther at Mainstream Parenting, where she references a study that
was prompted by the observation that children here in Israel, who eat a peanut-based snack called Bamba by the bagful as a weaning food (its consistency is airy and slightly softer than a large Rice Krispie, making it ideal for kids to hold and eat), have a significantly lower incidence of peanut allergies than their American and British Jewish counterparts.
She hesitates to draw any conclusions from this study, though, and cautions that the full results may not be apparent until 2013.
An article in Salon last week mentions the same study, and the author, Rahul K. Parikh, MD, goes so far as to say,
on closer examination, food allergies are not the epidemic we’ve been led to believe. [Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network]’s advocacy may have helped to create rules and laws that are based less on sound science than on a significant misrepresentation of facts. Ironically, by accepting these facts, we may be increasing our risk of developing food allergies.
Both articles are well worth reading.
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