“Why don’t you stay here with Grandma?” It wasn’t really a question and yet I phrased it as a question. This was a habit I’d later learn to identify, of mistakenly turning a command into a choice. What I meant to say was, You stay at home with Grandma, Felix. Mommy will be right back. A very clear order.

In Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear, author Kim Brooks recounts one of the most harrowing years of her life. She had to run into the store to get something quickly, and like many parents, she was at wit’s end. In what she later described to authorities as a “momentary lapse in judgment,” she left her son Felix alone in the car. The four-year-old was happily occupied with his iPad. She could see him (and her car) from the store window. This is fine, she told herself.

“Bad” Moms and Dads?

Except it wasn’t. Because a “good Samaritan” shot a video of Felix alone in the car. This “concerned citizen” submitted the video to local police, never confronting Kim Brooks in the parking lot. Brooks wouldn’t find out until some time later when she was being charged with child negligence. As you might imagine, this pushed her through a spiral of questioning her parenting. Am I a bad mom? What other “bad” parenting decisions am I making?

And yet, without ever consciously deciding to do so, I’d become a parent who associated empathy for my kids feelings and discussion and consensus-building with enlightened parenting. Are you ready for dinner? Should we clean up your toys? Can you apologize to your sister for drawing on her feet? Parents such as myself didn’t give orders; we made suggestions, negotiated, took things under consideration.

Particularly in navigating the terrible twos, I employed the “false choice” strategy often. Do you want to wear your red shoes or blue shoes? I didn’t care which pair she chose; I just wanted to get going. It’s win-win. But, as parents, we do often frame things as a question when they’re not questions. We request when we want to command. Do you want to clean up your room? That leaves you open to a “no.” Go clean up your room. That’s an order. Maybe we’re trying to avoid conflict. But in doing so, we may be leaving ourselves vulnerable for conflict.

Modern parents, myself included, feel like we want to be best friends with our children. It’s great for bonding and having fun together, absolutely. But, it also undermines your authority as a parent. Kim Brooks definitely felt that.

Parenting as a Competitive Sport

While Kim Brooks speaks from her American perspective, we very much see the same thing playing out in Canada and in many other parts of the (western) world too. Parenting has become a competitive sport, of sorts.

Much of what I’ve read has focused on the all-consuming, increasingly intensive, super-pressurized, status-obsessed, safety-fixated world of modern, American, middle-class parenthood.

We feel compelled to keep up with the Joneses, who have enrolled their children in ballet, judo, piano, swim, soccer, socioeconomic intersectionality theory and theoretical astrophysics classes. Part of it is we want what’s best for our kids. Am I doing enough for my children? But, another part is status… or rather, trying to avoid negative judgment from our parenting peers.

Death to (the Myth of) Supermom

Sanctification and public shaming are two sides of the same coin. A culture can’t venerate and idealize the selfless, martyred mother as much as we do without occasionally throwing an agreed-upon bad mommy onto the pyre.

This topic keeps coming back up, because it’s worth reiterating. The myth of Supermom is infinitely harmful. Not just to mothers who feel like they must martyr themselves for their families, but to all parents and caregivers. We’re all doing as best we can, as imperfect as that can often be. Sometimes, we worry if we’re being overprotective of our children. Other times, we worry if we’re protecting them enough.

There are no easy answers, because parenting — particularly modern middle-class parenthood — isn’t easy. There isn’t just one answer that will fit all situations. It’s nuanced and situation-specific, shifting and evolving as circumstances change over time. So, let’s cut ourselves a little slack and take it one day at a time.

Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear by Kim Brooks is available now in paperback, hardcover, Kindle ebook and Audible audiobook.

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