An Open Letter to Parenting Philosophers

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 6 Comments

I believe in being positive, especially as a parent, but sometimes I do get frustrated. I get angry when people are being oppressed, when someone is reinforcing prejudicial societal patterns, or when people are putting others in unnecessary pain. Rather than making Chris listen to me rant (yet again), I’ll write an Open Letter addressing whatever is making me angry.

I don’t believe in parenting philosophies. That’s not to say that I don’t believe they exist – the reams of parenting books and blogs would immediately disprove me. Rather, I don’t believe in their usefulness as moral and ethical frameworks. Instead, I think they’re useful as broad sets of guidelines from which parents can and should pick and choose based on their own values. Trying to apply something as restrictive as a specific ethical philosophy to something as situational, deeply personal, and chaotic as parenting is bound to end in frustration. Parents feel judged enough – making them feel as if it’s straight up immoral if they don’t follow your philosophy in every situation is just wrong!

Lately, I’ve felt very frustrated when I’m reading a blog post or book where I agree with the broad viewpoint but they take a position that’s so extreme that it doesn’t match anyone’s lived experience that I know. This is a pretty common issue with philosophical frameworks – it’s how you end up with annoying thought experiments like the trolley problem. Normally, this isn’t a huge issue. In “real life,” the only person who will judge you if you don’t follow a single philosophical framework in every area of your life is a freshman philosophy student. However, everything in parenting is about people’s personal, everyday lives. Unfortunately, most parenting philosophies don’t make space for the variability between families.

Often, this narrow viewpoint comes from the author’s unacknowledged privilege. This unexamined privilege shows up in all sorts of issues, from prenatal care to sleeping arrangements.

Broadly, it’s a good idea if pregnant women eat a variety of fruits and vegetables. But using language that’s going to inspire guilt in women who can’t meet those requirements (looking at you, What to Expect When You’re Expecting) is unfair to the many pregnant women who feel hideous nausea all of the time and can only eat very limited diets. And that’s not to mention the women who had food sensitivities before they got pregnant.

In general, breastfeeding is a important behavior to encourage and teach new moms how to do. But for women for whom breastfeeding exasterbates post-partum depression or is so awful that they’re in chronic pain, telling them that using formula denies your child “what is needed for development” is just reinforcing the narrative of failure that’s already running through their heads. Besides physical restrictions, there are many women who have to return to workplaces – especially retail and other service industry positions – that have no space or time accommodations for pumping, making breastfeeding after a few weeks impossible. New laws require employers to provide these resources, but considering how common wage theft is despite the fact that it affects a much larger population, I’m not confident in enforcement. While these articles often blame the larger society for not supporting breastfeeding instead of the individual, the language still feels intensely personal.

I’m all for the general idea of attachment parenting, but saying that co-sleeping and baby-wearing will guarantee that your child will never be a bully minimizes so many other social pressures and makes non-attachment parents feel unnecessarily guilty. Statements like that fail to acknowledge that not everyone is capable of that level of intense exercise after giving birth. A friend of mine was left with severe back pain after a very long, intense delivery and unable to carry her son around. However, that doesn’t mean that she loves him any less or he’ll be irrevocably damaged.

Beyond privilege, some of the philosophies are just absurd when carried to a certain point. I believe that babies shouldn’t be cooped up in seats or forced into positions they aren’t ready for. But claiming that propping your baby to sitting once in a while will doom him or her to a life of klutziness is ridiculous.

Basically, these philosophies and their advocates need to cut parents – especially moms, because they’re usually targeted at moms – some much-needed slack. Moms are expected to get everything just right these days, truly “leaning in” and “having it all” when that’s impossible or much too stressful than is healthy. Adding to that pressure by implying that moms who don’t follow a definitive philosophy are permanently damaging their children is irresponsible and mean. Babies have flexible brains and are remarkably adept at developing well even when we screw up once in a while. Similarly, making hyped up promises that everything will go perfectly – your baby will definitely sleep through the night, be wonderfully calm or naturally graceful – makes the parent who follow those philosophies and don’t get the results feel like there’s something wrong with them rather the idea that maybe the approach doesn’t work for their family. While there are (TW: descriptions of child abuse) some philosophies that no one should ever adopt, no single philosophy is perfect for every situation or every family.

Instead of presenting these philosophies as the end-all and be-all, I wish that the advocates would present their ideas as a toolbox of skills and options that parents can use as needed. I would like them to acknowledge that other philosophies may have some good points that parents may want to draw from. I would like them to even show parents how actions offered by their philosophy can fit with or complement others.

In the meantime, it’s up to us as parents to not allow ourselves to be intimidated by dire warnings and over-promises. By rejecting the formulation of One Right Way to parent, we can embrace the fluidity and chaos of parenting in all of its messy glory. By allowing ourselves the freedom to pick and choose, we can end up with what’s right for our families, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Of Board Books and Bibliophibians

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Chris caught Sprout “reading” earlier this week. He obviously didn’t understand the words, but there he was on the floor of his bedroom, flipping through a book page by page. As a touch and feel book, he was running his fingers over the textured spots and even had it the right side up! Moments like this make me glad we haven’t abandoned physical books yet. As convenient as e-readers are, they don’t have the material presence of books, which is essential for a child to build an appreciation of them.

For one, e-books can never provide the tactile feedback of board books. You can’t allow babies to gnaw on the edges or turn the pages with drooly little fingers, even with the best covers. There’s no such thing as a touch and feel e-book, with furry and fuzzy patches that simulate the baby’s senses. Having a direct interaction with books, not just seeing them held at the parent’s arm length and out of reach, is important for a baby. It builds an inherant affection for books that they’ll carry throughout their lives. Many lovely e-picture books have sounds and animations, but those just aren’t the same, especially for infants.

E-books also don’t have the physical presence in the house that regular books do. While this is a huge advantage when you are traveling or facing a serious lack of shelf space (who, me?), you can never get the sense of being “surrounded by books” as you can with a good family library. It’s been shown that kids that see their parents reading regularly are much more likely to read themselves. I feel that having a physical library reinforces the self-image that “we are a family who values reading and books.” To quote Wondermark, I want Sprout to be a bibliophiban, to breathe books as he does air.

Relatedly, e-books also don’t allow a child to have a personal library, unless you purchase them their own tablet. Despite Amazon’s claim that an Kindle is a perfect Christmas gift for a one-year-old, I disagree. But with board and picture books, Sprout already has a whole bookshelf full of wonderful stories that he enjoys pulling off the shelf on a regular basis. Many of them carry special inscriptions in the front, reminding him of the fact that a gift of a book is a sign of love in our family. With electronic versions, it’s much harder to pass down beloved books. It’s simple to let a child read one, but it lacks the history of worn covers and bent pages that remind you that you were once their age.

I’m glad that in this day of electronic media – which I’m certainly prone to favoring myself – that there’s still a place for physical children’s books. I know reading to him on my lap, watching him turn the pages (even if it’s often backwards), has given me more appreciation for their simple charms.

The Acceptance of Rejection

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Fear of rejection is pretty universal. But as bad as having someone spurn your romantic advances or a friend ending the relationship, the most heartbreaking experience I’ve had was when Sprout has rejected me. It wasn’t because of any emotional trauma; he simply didn’t want to nurse. But as a mother, it was very hard to not take it personally, even if I knew intellectually that he didn’t mean to hurt me.

The absolute worst experience occurred the week I returned to work, about three months after Sprout was born. I was working from home, so that Chris had ability to call on me for backup. We had introduced the bottle a few weeks before, but Sprout hadn’t really taken to it. Among my many worries, I was concerned that he would refuse to eat when I returned to the office.

After a week of Chris struggling to feed him, Sprout finally got the hang of the bottle on Friday. I was very reassured – until I went to nurse him. Something about switching back again bothered him at an innate level. He absolutely refused to nurse. He’d look away, squirm, frown and start crying.

After several attempts, he didn’t even want me to hold him. He’d start screaming in my arms. I was at a complete loss; the only thing I could do was cry as well. Seeing my helplessness, Chris took Sprout from me and cuddled him. Once he was calm, Chris took me in his arms, to create a hug sandwich. He then started leading a slow, awkward dance around the living room, holding the three of us together. Oh so slowly, he handed Sprout back over to me, stopping every time he started to cry. Eventually, I was holding Sprout again, with neither of us crying.

Once we recovered from the trauma, Sprout did eventually resume nursing. He started that night when he was half-asleep and then picked up again when he was hungry the next morning. Needless to say, that experience taught me not to take my son’s interest in me for granted.

I recently dealt with this issue again because Sprout decided the position in which I’ve nursed him for the past 9 months was completely unacceptable. Every time I tried to lean him back, he’d twist and try to flip over. We had some limited success with some awkward positions, but he’d only take little sips during the day. (Of course, he was fine in the middle of the night.) Then, after several days of this routine, he decided that the way he used to do it was just fine. I guess he got as frustrated as I was and realized it wasn’t worth the hassle.

But it was another reminder about how this relationship is a give-and-take, requiring both of us to participate. Since then, I’ve been much more engaged with him while he’s nursing, rather than reading blogs on my phone. I even made it one of my resolutions for Lent.

While our most recent experience ended well enough, I’m worried that an upcoming situation will be more problematic. A few weeks ago, I found out that my bosses want me to go to a four-day conference in May. It will be just before Sprout’s 11-month birthday, more than a month before our one-year breastfeeding goal. I can pump enough milk to feed him while I’m gone, but I worry that he’ll no longer want to nurse when I return. It won’t send me into despair like it did the first time, as I’ll expect it and we’ll be close to weaning anyway. But it’ll still break my heart a little.

Of course, nursing my baby has to eventually come to an end. But at this point, I know that at least we’ve had more than nine months of this special form of bonding.

Biking with a Baby for the First Time

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 6 Comments

Biking with a Baby for The First Time - Thinking about bringing your baby on a bike via a trailer? This is what happened on my first ride with my almost one-year-old. (Photo: Baby in a bike helmet)

Biking with a baby for the first time is often a “interesting” experience for both the cyclist and the passenger. No one is quite sure what to expect. I biked with my son – who is just under a year old – for the first time last Saturday.

Of course, he wasn’t riding the bike – he was in a trailer attached to mine. I told him he should say, “Mush, mush, mommy!” I suspect I shouldn’t repeat that joke when he’s old enough to understand it. It went about as well as I could expect for such a new experience. He was mostly neutral with the potential for a more positive reaction in the future.

Getting Ready to Ride with a Trailer

Before I stuck Sprout on the back of my bike, we did some preparatory work. My parents gave me the Burley Honey Bee for Christmas, which is similar to their basic trailer. It has the one major advantage of turning into a stroller when you unhook it from the bike. Burley is known for being one of the best when it comes to trailers, so I was pretty confident in the quality and comfort level.

The trailer itself was easy to put together. At least it was according to Chris, who did all of the work while I played on the lawn with Sprout. Getting it on and off the bike was somewhat challenging. I had trouble lining up the precise spot on the bike with the right spot on the trailer hitch, but I hope it gets easier with practice. My awkward efforts did demonstrate the trailer’s safety. I knocked my bike over and the trailer didn’t budge.

After the construction phase, I tested out my bike with an empty trailer. It added a lot of weight, making it almost as heavy as the bulky Capital Bikeshare bikes. Otherwise, it wasn’t all that different from my normal ride. My balance wasn’t affected at all, unlike if I had a regular child seat on the back. I was most concerned about the turning radius, which was much better than I anticipated. The only thing I needed to watch out for was the additional length. If I wasn’t careful, it was easy to bump the trailer over the curbs of shared use trails. That isn’t that dangerous, but it would be uncomfortable for my little passenger.

 Heading Out Biking with a Baby

Once Sprout woke up from his afternoon nap, we were ready to make our maiden voyage. We decided to bike to a Ben & Jerry’s about a mile away. I had a hankering for sweet dairy and the start of summer. (Plus, food-based rides are kind of my thing.) It was a good distance, long enough for Sprout to get a feel for the experience but short enough to be tolerable if he didn’t like it. If we really needed to bail, we could always walk home. Plus, Chris isn’t nearly as enthusiastic about biking as I am, so a couple miles was a good warm up for the season.

Before we could leave, Sprout needed his helmet. Not that he understood, but I explained to him that besides the safety reasons, my mommy would be very, very angry at me if he didn’t wear a helmet. (My mom regularly scolds her students at school to wear helmets. There Would Be Words if her own grandson didn’t wear one in the trailer she gave as a gift.)

He wasn’t happy about it at first, but once I adjusted it, he stopped fussing. I also put a rolled up towel behind him for support. Trailer seats recline so much that they push helmets forward over babies’ foreheads. But as I was just finishing my other tasks, I glanced over and saw him chewing on the helmet’s chin strap. Hmm – that clearly wasn’t going to do him much good in an accident. After another round of readjustments with accompanying whining, we were ready to go.

Once we started, Sprout seemed to accept of situation, even if he wasn’t pleased by it. Looking at him with my rear-view mirror, I saw that he didn’t cry at all. But he didn’t smile either. He looked somewhat surprised and confused more than anything else.

I can’t blame him – it’s really different from anything else he’s ever done. The ride is far bumpier and faster than the stroller and completely different from the car’s highly controlled environment. He has a similar reaction to most things that are radically new, including foods that he really enjoys later on. It probably didn’t help that we had to wake him up from his too-long nap, so he was a little cranky.

Riding with him wasn’t that different than riding with the empty trailer. The main difference was that it was 20 pounds heavier, drastically affecting my power and speed. Last year, when I rode the Tour de Cookie seven months pregnant, I was so proud of being able to pass the guy towing a kid in a trailer. As I pulled our trailer, I realized I had less of a reason to be proud than I thought! I’m usually far ahead of Chris unless I make a concerted effort to go slowly. But with the trailer, he was able to keep up without a problem at all. Pulling the trailer will just make me earn my sweets even more.

In general, the ride went just well enough for me to consider it a success. I hope they it will just be the first of many rides we have as a family.

Since I originally wrote this post, we’ve biked together as a family many times. Read about how I reintroduced Sprout the next year to the bike as a toddler and how my identity as a bicyclist has changed since I became a mom. Be sure to follow us on Facebook!

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Risks and Rewards

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

I want Sprout to be a free range kid. I want him to be able to go to the park by himself, explore the neighborhood, and when he’s old enough, take the Metro into the city. I want him to climb trees and rocks. But right now, I kind of want to outfit him with a helmet.

In the last few weeks, Sprout has racked up the milestones: crawling forward, getting two teeth in, and pulling up to his knees (and today to his feet!). While the others pose their own challenges, it’s the last one that makes me gasp. Except for the continuing allure of the sproingy doorstop, pulling up on everything is his new favorite activity. In his opinion, the couch, our wooden and metal coffee table, bookshelves, his crib bars, the mesh sides of the pack-and-play, my pant legs and the wall are all excellent surfaces to conquer. At first, he didn’t know how to get down, so he’d just tumble over.

He’s fortunately gotten better at balancing, but that’s just made him bolder. He regularly pushes against the wall, leaning backwards to bat at the curtain, not understanding that leaning on and holding on are not the same thing. Perhaps some yearning for adventure was embedded in his genes when I rock-climbed early in my pregnancy.

We’ve tried to vigilantly prevent accidents, but have been far from successful. We try to prevent him from hitting his head on our hardwood floor by spotting him, but he always manages to fall in the one direction we don’t predict. He cries, then shakes it off quickly after a good hug from mommy or daddy. Even though he’s recovered after each incident and the pediatrician says not to worry about it unless he passes out, I still feel terrible every time it happens. I’m always convinced that brain damage is imminent.

I’m torn between wanting to encourage his adventurousness and protecting him, a conflict I know will only grow more challenging as he gets older. If I’m worried about him bumping his head now, how much harder will it be when he’s on the playground equipment or high up in a tree? Some of my most cherished childhood memories were doing things that are banned or at least discouraged during recess today. Even now, my outdoor hobbies involve some level of physical danger, from rock climbing to urban biking. My life is better for having these activities in it and I think his will be as well.

As Sprout gets older, I think the best compromise between these positions is to teach him how to take calculated risks. Rather than doing everything or nothing, it’s best to take a measured approach to risk. Thinking about your own capabilities, evaluating the difficulty of the action you want to take, and working to reduce the risk as much as possible can provide a framework for making good decisions in general. To go back to rock-climbing, I personally do not boulder (climb short routes without ropes) more than a few feet off the ground unless I’m confident in my ability to climb back down. If I’m going to do a route at the edge of my current ability, I use ropes, harnesses and other safety equipment to reduce the risk of falling. While it’s obvious how these principles apply to physical risks (no one wants to be stuck in a tree like a cat), they also apply to big life decisions. From taking a difficult college class to moving to another country, every major decision has risks associated with it. There’s always a possibility of failure, but calculated risks help you figure out how to minimize it and recover if you fail. Some people in my generation are having difficulty dealing with adulthood because their parents never let them make these big decisions at all, much less taught them the critical thinking skills to deal with the risks.

Unfortunately, Sprout doesn’t understand the word “no” yet, much less have the capacity for any critical thought. But now and in the future, we’ll be there to spot him when we can and hug him when he falls.

Past Reflections on Pedaling while Pregnant

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

So in addition to my guest blogging stint, a reporter actually requested an interview a few weeks ago! She had seen my Simple Bike guest post on cycling while pregnant and said she was writing an article on the same subject for the Santa Barbara Independent’s bike column. (If I knew newspapers had bike columns, I might have kept pursuing journalism.) Of course, I said yes. The paper published the article, which has a couple of quotes from me, earlier in the week.

Check it out: Pedaling While Pregnant – Women are Even Biking to the Delivery Room.

If you’re interested in the subject, I wrote a number of posts on my previous blog about my experiences:

Guest Post on Cycling and More Good News

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

I have a contributor post over at the local smart growth blog Greater Greater Washington on the progress my town has made over the past few years on improving our bicycle-friendliness. We still have a lot to improve on, but I’m really proud of what we’ve done as a volunteer for our bicycle committee.

Check out the post: In Rockville, a quiet bicycling transformation takes place.

In totally unrelated good news, Sprout has fallen asleep in his crib (as opposed to in my arms) for three days now! He once fell asleep once in his crib while Chris stepped out of the room to wash his hands post-diapering, but that was a total fluke. In contrast, this shows the slow transition is paying off. In other, other good news, Sprout has learned to clap on his own. As of today, he actually recognizes the word “clap” and will excitedly bang his hands together when you say it. Needless to say, I’m a proud mama.

Book Club: Little Pookie

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Book Club is a semi-regular feature on the blog where I reflect on a children’s book (or series) and my personal experiences with it. (Just a note on this one – this is based on three of the five Little Pookie books, but they’re simple enough that I’m guessing the three are fairly representative.)

Sandra Boyton is known for her silly, cute children’s books featuring wide-eyed animals. Although most her books lack a plot or consistent characters, her Little Pookie books dig a bit deeper, presenting a rare portrait of a present, competent modern mom, even if she isn’t human.

The Little Pookie books focus on the relationship between Little Pookie, a young pig, and his mom. (Little Pookie’s gender is never specified, but the clothes are stereotypically male.) In most children’s books, the parents are either absent or ignorant of their children’s goings-on. In contrast, Little Pookie’s mom is present and engaged with the story. In fact, she’s the narrator. The books consist of her conversations with Little Pookie, where she invites him to do something – go to bed, dance, think about who he is – and he responds.

Through these conversations, we see a mom who is a good role model for parents reading the books to their kids. She talks to Little Pookie at his level, with relatively simple language, without talking down to him. She is playful, pretending she doesn’t recognize him when he’s sporting giant sunglasses or knowing where he is when he’s hiding under the sheets. She trusts him to be independent, offering guidance without nagging: “Now you brush your fine teeth and wash your fine nose.” However, she does set limits, illustrated by her counting to three when she wants him to get ready for bed. She encourages creativity and movement, with an entire book of her inviting him to do a silly dance, including a part in “his very own style.” She offers choices and is flexible when he doesn’t quite pick either one. For example, when given two sets of pajamas to choose from, he mixes the top from one with the bottom from the other. She encourages reading, illustrated on the last page of Little Pookie, which shows them reading the very same book together in a clever bit of recursiveness for a board book.

But most importantly, Little Pookie’s mom tells him how much she loves him, sincerely and often. Because parents are often disconnected from the events in children’s books, this message usually isn’t communicated at all. On the other end of the spectrum, some children’s books focus on that message to the exclusion of everything else. As a result, it comes off as forced and saccharine. But the mom’s expressions of love in Little Pookie flow naturally from the rest of the story and relationship.

While I don’t think most parents would look to a pig as a role model, the Little Pookie books offer a surprising amount of insight into a good parent / child relationship. I know I’d enjoy having Sprout and I hang out with her and her adorable piglet.

Fresh Air and Quality Dirt

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Sprout finally experienced the feeling of the earth beneath him on Tuesday. He’s been outside before – we’ve put miles and miles on our stroller – but it had always been too cold, wet or dark to bring him out since he started crawling in earnest. With the snow gone and the temperature rising, I thought it was time to introduce him to the Great Outdoors. In this case, the Great Outdoors was our weedy front yard. Despite the ordinary nature of it, he still found plenty to fascinate him.

Bringing him outside, I put him on a blanket, so he could make the choice about venturing onto the grass himself. At first, he rushed to the edge of the blanket. As he put his hands out and realized that the grass was separate from the blanket, he distinctly slowed down. He proceeded cautiously, pausing every few seconds. But soon he was on the lawn proper, feeling the crunchy leaves and plants under his hands and knees.

Of course, he explored this new environment the only way he knows how – with his hands and mouth. He grasped and pulled out individual strands and tufts of grass, looking at them carefully. He then promptly attempted to shove them in his mouth. Before he got most of them in, I caught him and gave him a slightly stern, “No, we do not put grass in our mouths” warning before taking away the piece. Not understanding or caring, he would then immediately try to do it again. Once, I did catch him too late and he snuck a lick into his examination of a leaf.

When I wasn’t taking plants out of Sprout’s hands, I was relaxing and pointing out relevant points of interest. Most houses in my neighborhood have large front porches, where you can just watch the world go by. Although our house doesn’t have one, I got a similar feeling from hanging out on the lawn with Sprout. I said hello to my neighbors that I hardly ever see as they went in their front door. I crumpled up leaves in front of Sprout to show him the noise they make and how they change. I pointed out the rising moon, which he completely ignored. Although I thought he wasn’t interested in the birds either, a flock of honking geese caught his attention and he followed them as they flew over his head.

I’ve always hoped that my kid would be interested in nature, as both a lover of the outdoors and an environmental advocate. In fact, the first “toy” he objected to being taken away was a prickly seed pod I gave him while we were out on a walk. Hopefully, this is just the first of many hours exploring the natural world with him.

Parenting: The Ultimate Role Playing Game (RPG)

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 10 Comments
Text: "Parenting: The Ultimate RPG / We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So" Photo: Purple role-playing dice spilling out of a purple bag with white dice next to it

Yes, you’re a nerd if you know what these are for.

Two years ago, I managed the difficult task of becoming an even bigger a nerd then I already was: I started tabletop role-playing. But my group’s campaigns aren’t focused on the battles and die rolling. Instead, they’re improvisational storytelling sessions. You create and dwell in a character, just as you would if you were writing a fictional story. Unlike writing, role playing requires you to be clever on your feet (even if your character isn’t!). So far, I’ve played a young innocent woman running away from court for a life of adventure (Pathfinder) and a socially blunt Nordic blacksmith who has been appointed as a trade guild representative (7th Sea). Because neither of these reflect a lick of my real-life experience it’s forced me to inhabit perspectives very different from my own. Developing this keen empathy for my fictional characters has sharpened my skills for relating to real people, including my son. In fact, creating a character has been good preparation for adopting to my new role as a parent.

To develop a character, you construct a whole person, with their own background and voice. You need consider what she would want in any given situation and respond accordingly. It can be seriously challenging.

But that process was easy compared to my mental and emotional transition to the role of “mommy.” Instead of coming up with a fictional identity, I faced a whole new facet of my own.  Rather than abilities like climbing I could write on a sheet, I suddenly had to learn a list of real skills, from diapering to breastfeeding. My own needs and wants hit me in a barrage of emotion, causing reactions that my old self would have never predicted. I cry at beer commercials! Sometimes I felt like a character in someone else’s life, playing an unfamiliar role.

I ended up handling both challenges with largely the same approach – fake it ’till you make it. I used to hate this idea, feeling that if you can’t do something well that “pretending” was fraudulent. But, I realized there’s simply no other choice. You can’t become familiar with a character until you play them for a while. No one knows what it’s like to be a parent until it happens. At first, it’s totally foreign. But by acting like a “good parent” even when you don’t feel like one, you eventually become one. C.S. Lewis has a good analogy in Mere Christianity, talking the process of becoming a “good Christian.” He explains that we will never reach Jesus’s level of love, but we can “put on his clothes” and practice. Just like little children walking around in their parents’ shoes, we too will grow into the people we need to be.

Courtesy of Cafepress

Courtesy of Catherine Bowers and Cafepress

In addition to helping me take on my new role, gaming has helped me see the world a little more through the eyes of my infant. If he had a character sheet, it would read strength 2, dexterity 1, intelligence 5 (current level of knowledge, not IQ), and charisma 18. While he’s since leveled up in forward locomotion and object manipulation, crying was his sole skill when he was born. Contemplating how much he had to learn – even eating and pooping! – helped me comprehend how overwhelming the world must be. Seeing the world from his perspective has reinforced my patience, even at 2 AM in the morning.

While many people make fun of role players for living in a fantasy world, it’s actually helped me be a better parent in the real one.