Parenting as a Vocation

In a recent BBC television documentary, ‘Bringing Up Baby’, the guiding principles of three of the twentieth century's most influential childcare manuals — Dr Truby King's book Feeding and Care of Baby, Dr Benjamin Spock's Baby and Child Care and Jean Liedloff's The Continuum Concept — were explored. Watching, and at times aghast at some of the attitudes and practices depicted, I reflected that parenting was really only discovered during the past 100 years — essentially, before that, we did what previous generations had done.

The years leading up to the appearance of Truby King’s book just prior to WWI coincided with other breaks in traditional values, leading to what we call the Modernist conception of the world. These changes occurred in the arts, humanities and sciences simultaneously. And this period also coincided with a popularisation of psychological thought, through the tour of the United States of America undertaken by Freud and Jung.

Without digressing too far, I want to suggest that human consciousness changed around this time. Fifty years later this change was in full swing, and we find two men — Spock in the US, and Dr Donald Winnicott in England — saying quite radical things about parenting. Yet another fifty years later many of their ideas now seem rather sensible.

I especially find Dr Winnicott refreshing still. He had a unique, often provocative but — upon reflection — very perceptive way of putting things:

"Each baby is a going concern… The baby was conceived in you and from that moment became a lodger in your body. After birth the baby became a lodger in your arms. This is a temporary affair. It will not last for ever, in fact it will not last for long. The baby will only too soon be at school. Just at the moment this lodger is tiny and weak in body, and needing the special care that comes from your love."

A going concern. A lodger. There are other ways of saying much the same thing. When the mother of my children and I were young parents, for instance, we felt inspired by the words of the Middle Eastern poet Kahlil Gibran, with their evocative biblical cadences:

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth…"

Ah, those were the days… We recited these words at christenings, just as we also quoted his wise words about relationships at weddings. In essence, Kahlil Gibran too is saying that the baby is a going concern, a lodger; however, these days I rather like the straightforward turns of phrase that Winnicott had a special talent for. And he certainly could turn them out… One of his best phrases for instance is the good enough mother — a term then subsequently by Bruno Bettelheim to include the important participation of fathers: the good enough parent.

Just consider for a moment what ‘good enough’ means. Contrast it first with not being good enough… Then consider the guilt trip you’ve probably suffered from in regard to projections about being a perfect parent. Now decide for yourself, here and now, that between the unacceptability of not being good enough, and the impossibility of being perfect, it’s pretty good to be good enough.

[The rest of this article can be downloaded from my website www.johnallison.com.au]