Happy or Good?

I just finished reading Richard Weissbourd's book The Parents We Mean To Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development. Despite the rather didactic title, I found the book thoughtfully written and full of valuable insights.

To be quite honest, I think I'm doing a pretty good job of raising a moral child. Yes he is not quite two yet so I haven't had many challenges with regard to morals, but once becoming a parent I did become very aware that Baby M is watching me to learn how to treat other people. And I think becoming a parent made me into a better person. Overnight I became the guardian to the elderly. I help them locate lost cars in the Target parking lot. I assist them down steep inclines after painstakingly following a sidewalk leading to nowhere (I'm looking at you Marina Del Rey Barnes & Noble!) At any rate, I was not expecting to see myself in any of the well-intentioned, but achievement crazed, sports obsessed, Dimpies (Doting Indulgent Modern Parents) described in the book. So I was surprised when I started questioning my parenting philosophy only two chapters in.

Weissbourd describes a study in which children were asked to rank the importance of being happy, being "a good person who cares about others", achieving at a high level and having a high-status career. Two-thirds of the children ranked happiness above being good and the same number predicted that their parents would also value their happiness over goodness. This is not terribly surprising, after all, as parents don't we always say, "I just want him to be happy"? It never occurs to me to say "I just want him to be good." To see if I was alone in this view I asked my husband, "Would you rather Baby M be sad and good or happy and evil?" After a moment my husband answered "happy and evil." Shocked, I probed a little further and determined that we had different definitions of "evil." I was picturing Hitler and he was picturing... well something less than Hitler. Of course, we both agreed that we want Baby M to be happy and good and that the question I had posed was unfair. Still it bothered me that this question of happiness and goodness was so difficult to answer for us.

In general I have a "say yes" parenting philosophy. I figure that there are so many things that Baby M will want that I must say no to-- playing with that electrical outlet, eating the delicious looking rat poison, riding in the front seat of the car-- that when he wants something that I can say yes to, even if it is inconvenient, I should try to make it happen. I stay an extra 5 minutes at the park. I let him pull all the CD's off the shelf. And even after reading this book I don't think that we should deny our children simply so that they can experience disappointment nor do I think this is what Weissbourd is implying. However I have to wonder what message I am sending if Baby M sees me repeatedly making sacrifices for his fleeting happiness. Is this showing him that I value his thoughts and feelings or is it showing him that I value his feelings to the detriment of my own? Am I inadvertently sending him the message that he should pursue his own happiness at that expense of others?

This book raised many interesting questions that I could go on about, but my number one reader has no patience for long blog posts. In fact, I think he'd prefer these updates in 140 character bursts. So instead I will just suggest you read the book and let me know what you think.