Following the parenting herd? Part 2: No, thanks

Last post, prompted by a daughter daughter-in-law’s question, I talked about how we* tend to raise children to fit into society while simultaneously complaining that society is broken. In doing so, we reaffirm the social status quo, injustices and all. To some extent there’s no escaping this—you can’t teach what you don’t know, and your own habits of thought and action are deeply engrained. Plus, children may well learn more from what you do than what you explicitly teach. But society’s problems give reason to break out of the mold. In fact, you may already be urging your children or grandchildren toward change—or at least preparing them for it.

Why break out? 

Considering society’s rapid social and technological changes, it makes pragmatic sense to teach children something other than “make it in society as given.” Indeed, generations younger than the Baby Boomers know viscerally that counting on a particular “this economy” is foolish. Millennials learned the hard way that doing things the way your parents did may not pay off: Many had to spin to do something other than what they trained for, turning to gig work or independent business. Gen Z is learning the same lesson now. And who knows what Gens alpha and beta will face, what with AI, climate change, and a new war. Adapting to a particular “this culture” is fraught, too: culture wars, fading religions, rising ideologies, DEI on, DEI off—finding a steady track through the tumult is not easy. Families on the wrong side of the status quo have other pragmatic pressures: if you have a black son at risk of white violence, or a bullied gay or trans teen, you’ve got reason both to help them cope with society as is and to speak up for change. 

Ethical reasons to break out of the status quo are at least as compelling. Indeed that’s where the question came from: We teach our children to fit in, while recognizing that what they are fitting into is not—ethically speaking—good. I’m sure you have your candidate ethical concerns: the injustice of wealth inequality, abuse of the environment, fractured discourse and empathy, rising racism, anti-feminism, and de-humanization, increasing authoritarianism, declining community and solidarity…Whatever it is that you reject about our society is probably your ethical call to contribute to change and prepare the next generation for it.

If you're asking, you're on the way

But notice! You were probably raised to fit into the status quo, and yet you realize that there’s an ethical problem. As feminist philosopher Alison Jagger describes it, your emotions (and values, and even your observations) were shaped by your culture and upbringing. You learned how to feel, what to feel, how to describe your feelings. (Ever seen a kid who just got hurt look at his mother to decide whether or not to cry?) This acculturation does tend to “blind us to the possibility of alternative ways of living.” But “[t]he hegemony that our society exercises over people’s emotional constitution is not total,” writes Jagger. People can and do experience emotions such as outrage at injustice, pain at their own exclusion, empathy for suffering—even though the status quo says they shouldn’t. Jagger calls these breakthroughs “outlaw emotions.” 

Outlaw emotions don’t necessarily awaken society to better practices. For example, neo-Nazis express outlaw emotions (or what were outlaw emotions until recently), such as rage at the supposed shrinkage of white male power in society. But outlaw emotions can show us the way to justice, as when people awoke to the injustices of racism and ushered in the Civil Rights movement, or feminist’s frustrations widened opportunities for women.

The capacity for outlaw emotions reminds us that people have capacities beyond conformity, competition, and violence. We also have what researcher Nicholas Christakis calls our “social suite” of genetic tendencies—our “capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, learning, and even our ability to recognize the uniqueness of other individuals.” Together, these capacities and the abilities they foster allow people to create our incredibly complex social and cultural environments, and to—much of the time—live in peace and cooperate. And make ethical and pragmatic progress, in fits and starts. 

If you want to take stock, and possibly make some changes in your childrearing or childcare, a possible first step is to clarify the problem, from your point of view:

• What bothers you—for pragmatic and/or ethical reasons—about conforming to current social expectations?

• What gives (or would give) your life and your children’s or grandchildren’s lives meaning, freedom, or happiness? 

• What can and should we prepare them for, pragmatically speaking?

• What, exactly, are we—and their school, coaches, religious instructors, the internet—teaching the kids?

• Does what we (and “they”) are actually teaching line up with our values and their life preparation as best we can figure it? 

• If not, what degree of discomfort—the discomfort of nonconformity, the work of trying to make change—are you willing and able to step up to?

Are you already doing the work?

But working through all that may seem overwhelming. And you may well not be willing or able to fight “the system” very hard, at least where your kids’ future is involved. So an alternative first step is to give yourself credit for what you are already doing to prepare the children in your life to stretch the status quo, or to stretch within it. For example, perhaps you already:  

Facilitate independent thought. You do if you respect the kids’ questions. Especially if you help the child discover a range of answers in their own thinking or from books. (Maybe online, but only with caution.) Or at least model seeking out answers other than your own. Maybe you even do philosophy with them!

Teach adaptable skills. It may be that the skills you most want your children to learn do happen to fit with the status quo, but also fit with a range of potential future worlds. For example, the ability to think of a different way to do everyday tasks or chores or solve problems—maybe, how do you get the dishes clean if the dishwasher is broken? What if the sink is broken, too?

Parent/grandparent toward solidarity. Maybe you already emphasize the social suite of “love, friendship, cooperation, and learning.” You teach the children to be kind to siblings and classmates. You show them ways to respect or help your neighbors. Maybe you include them in volunteer efforts now and again.

Downplay consumer culture. Perhaps your household follows the advice to “Reduce, reuse, recycle.” For example, some families adopt a “one toy in, one toy out” rule; or maybe you get most of your toys via a Buy Nothing group. And maybe you do your best to keep the kids away from advertising and influencers, and try to avoid them yourself! More radically, maybe you change your family’s expectations: We don’t need so much stuff to be happy. Maybe we don’t even have to work so hard!

Choose schools that support your values. Way too much to think about here (expect future posts). Suffice it to say that you may already have decided that a certain public school, charter school, or private school supports your values. Or maybe you’ve decided you need to home school or unschool. 

Teach steady values. A few guiding principles can get a person a long way, especially if the principles get reinforced by conversation and practice.   

Model your values. With all of the above, what you do is likely to have more impact than what you say to/at the kids. And you probably practice what you preach at least part of the time. On the other hand, this category, taken seriously, could require a lot of change. (Give yourself some grace for incremental change.)

Recognize the limits of your influence. Still, psychologists tell us that there’s only so much parents can impart to their children. Children are magnets for what their peers teach them, and influence of media and their own experiences will reach them, too. And of course children also develop unique personalities, talents, and goals. With much beyond your control, you just have to keep your fingers crossed that the kids will grow into people who help pull society in the right direction—and that what they learn elsewhere will balance out your mistakes. Looking back on my/our parenting, for example, I remember focusing pretty exclusively on achievement in standard academics and in each child’s chosen extracurriculars. But somewhere along the line, each of our now-adult offspring also learned to be caring people and attentive parents, and they have chosen careers that contribute to community. It’s conceivable we had something to do with that—and also that we had nothing to do with it! 

In the hope that we can have a tiny influence toward a better future, my step two is to continue encouraging the kids with many of the approaches above—but with greater awareness, thanks to my daughter-in-law’s question. For me, this approach balances my supporting role with the grandkids (vs the parent’s major one), ethical and pragmatic considerations, and my resistance to major change. Maybe you’ll find something to go on here, too!

*The “we” I have in mind includes parents and grandparents: Parents in their role as chief deciders for their children, grandparents in our typical side role with our grandchildren, and in recognition of our experience with acculturating our now-adult children. But in a multicultural society and world, parents and grandparents respond to a wide range of social realities. I’ll primarily address parents and grandparents who—like myself and the majority of my readers—are relatively successful in the status quo, while raising up those who experience society very differently.