Category: Parenting Styles

Was our disciplining an attempt at intentional Authoritarian parenting or just wing-it threat and bribe?  Does the following set of definitions connect dots?[i]

Δ   Cold: low responsiveness, aloof and distant, affection is given sparingly, if at all; boundaries are maintained between parent and child.

Δ      Demanding/Unbending: strict, making non-negotiable rules, not considering the child’s needs or desires, “My way or the highway”, accompanied by harsh criticisms on making mistakes, or the more PC, emotional manipulation.  The child’s strong will must be broken.

Δ     Control: to foster obedience and implement discipline.  Parents monitor child’s behaviour, activities inside and outside the house.

Δ     Punitive discipline/highly negative consequences often justified as “tough love”: threatening, beating, spanking, thrashing, pulling, pricking, kicking, punching, and emotional punishment like neglect, yelling, scolding for not doing things “right”, silent treatment, stonewalling.

Distilling Authoritarian Parenting

Apparently, orphanages in Russia unapologetically chose Authoritarian parenting as a pragmatic style given the economic chaos of the 1990s. It was explained as ‘toughened attachment’,[ii] considered necessary to prepare the orphans in their care for the harsh world they would be turned out to at the age of 18.  Hopefully these children would be toughened enough to deal with the economic struggle and the need to get along in such a world.

… [The] philosophy of toughened attachment is characterized by the understanding that the best forms of attachment behavior are non-responsive. The rationale is that non-responsive care trains children to be resourceful and thus increases their chances for survival in bleak times…. -namely, a relationship whereby children from an early age could be taught to best maximize opportunities in resource-lean environments. In particular, detdoma workers encouraged children with very limited economic prospects to make multiple, flexible, and peer-based relationships with others….

Such attachments were socialized in a variety of ways, including swaddling (thought to encourage self-soothing), delaying responses to child crying, encouraging children to ask peers rather than adults for help when they had problems, or telling children in consciously cheerful or humiliating ways, to discover the answers to questions on their own somewhere in the orphanage. Throughout this process, those children who were compliant and cheerful about such interactions were rewarded verbally or by being given some important status or role in the orphanage, although not with touch. Those children who did not comply and expressed anger, sadness, and despair were discouraged using the socialization techniques…

We may have begun to parent a child already brewed in Authoritarian parenting. We do not know what Authoritarian parenting meant on a daily basis for Yasik but the article above suggests it is possible Yasik was being nurtured with “toughened attachment”.

We do know that when meeting us for the first time in the little waiting room of the Yaroslavl orphanage became too stressful for Yasik, he turned to the sweet doctor and folded himself in her arms, arms that willingly accepted him, letting him sob into her neck. But did that moment speak to the orphanage’s daily parenting style? Did Yasik know it was safe to turn into the little doctor’s shoulder as a security he knew he could trust or was the moment meeting us so overwhelming he took the first outlet available. Certainly the woman at the desk and the woman who brought Yasik into the room were not stepping in: out of shyness, uncertainty or the expectations of ‘toughened attachment’?

Whatever parenting he experienced, he would have learned ways to respond. If his early experiences of parenting were traumatic or at least authoritarian, then the way he expressed his frustrations to our discipline may have been techniques he had learned to defend himself when receiving ‘toughened attachment’. Or maybe his responses were defenses against what his imagination understood about having a mama and papa.  Did that mean to him that life would be different from life in the orphanage; he need not suffer discipline and insecurity anymore? Or, as the honeymoon period receded into the hurley-burley of everyday life, did some of our parenting seem to him just like ‘toughened attachment’?

We, even in the West, are not immune from it.  Traditional parenting or ‘Trad parents’ check off authoritarian definition boxes above.  It starts with the assumption that small children are capable of manipulating their parents – a sign, I guess not of a clean slate within but of some kind of willfulness – and that effective disciplining must incorporate some pain. [iii]

To quote a response to that one: “The truth is that children aren’t capable of manipulation until adolescence, because to be able to manipulate, you need a more developed prefrontal cortex.”[iv]

Be that as it may, Authoritarian parenting is also seen as a wise choice among working class parents who know that to be good employees, children need to know how to be obedient and develop a strong work ethic.  Some also see that at times Authoritarian parenting helps when children are falling into bad company and making choices that will hurt their future.  It might also be an interventionist tool when a child veers off course, choosing friends that take the child on a path away from education and healthy lifestyle choices. But studies have shown that the outcomes of authoritarian parenting can produce children with low self-esteem and self-doubt, turning to peers for guidance and sometimes acting out behind their parents’ backs or struggling to take on adulthood’s need for internal direction.[v]

Two voices that seems to support Authoritarian parenting, Dr. Gordon Neufeld and Dr. Gabor Maté say

The first business of attachment is to arrange adults and children in a hierarchical order.  When humans enter a relationship, their attachment brain automatically ranks the participants in order of dominance…. that divide roughly into dominant and dependent, care-giving and care-seeking, the one who provides and the one who receives.[vi]

But, of course, having read the entire book, I know that they bring this aspect of authority in as opposed to the empty and often disastrous peer-oriented authority.

Two voices that seems to question Authoritarian parenting, Maia Szalavitz and Bruce Perry[vii] say,

Needless to say, spanking or any other form of harsh discipline does not and cannot encourage empathy: empathy is learned by having the experience of being treated kindly, not by being made to suffer…. most bullies do have the experience of being victimized – and it makes them want to get even, not help others….

A voice that finds a middling spot on the spectrum of parenting is Jean Mercer[viii]. Research has shown her that spanking “as properly defined, not to blows with a paddle or other physical punishments” is not ineffective in the short term but “questions remain about its long-term effect.”

Some explanation is offered in Great Myths of Child Development [ix]  to those who believe God has endorsed physical punishment as a loving thing to do. My parents certainly believed ‘Spare the Rod, spoil the child’ was endorsed by God to guide their parenting. Taking us to the bathroom, sitting himself down on the edge of the tub, Dad invoked, “Spare the rod, spoil the child”. followed by a confusing lament, “This hurts me more than you” to set our bums on alert as we lay across Dad’s lap. Turns out the Bible verse used to support this parenting tip may have been mistranslated.

Although the image of a father doing the deed is the first to come to mind, Great Myths of Child Development puts forward data which shows that mothers use corporeal punishment or spanking as often as fathers.[x] And they visit the argument for letting babies ‘cry it out’ when being put to bed[xi]. Reviewing the various arguments for and against, they conclude “… so long as the child is over 5 or 6 months old, safe and well-cared for, it’s reasonable to stop responding to cries to be held or rocked during the night, allowing the child to develop self-soothing skills”.

Great Myths of Child Development also addresses ‘Time-outs’ showing that brief time-outs are usually too weak to help decrease real behavior problems. This practice may also teach children what not to do, and without positive ‘Time-in’, does not teach the child what to do.[xii]

Others’ parenting experiences, speaking to at least some aspects of the Authoritarian parenting style

The book, Hunt, Gather Parent: what ancient cultures can teach us about the lost art of raising happy, helpful little humans by Michaeleen Doucleff.[xiii]

Mom Feels Like A ‘Failure’ After Spanking Her Daughter [xiv]

A mom has admitted to feeling incredibly guilty about the way she handled her unruly daughter and is seeking advice on how to not react the same way in the future…. the young mother explained that she had been cleaning the bathtub when her 3-year-old daughter wandered in. Concerned for her safety, she calmly told her daughter to either leave the bathroom or stand by the door since she was using bleach and their bathroom was quite small.

…. With her daughter continuing to not listen, she picked her up and began carrying her out of the bathroom herself.

However, while carrying her daughter, the little girl began throwing a tantrum…. At this point, she immediately put her daughter in a time-out, sitting her on a chair in the corner of the room.

The time-out didn’t work though, and her daughter began to run around the room. Fed up with her daughter’s behavior, she grabbed her and spanked her. As soon as she did it, the young mom admitted to feeling incredibly “low” and a “failure” as a parent….

“What could I have done differently in this situation? I couldn’t leave her in the bathroom to calm down because I had chemicals in the tub. Maybe the best solution is not doing things that she can’t help with when she’s awake, I guess.”

[Readers responded] “Give yourself some grace. Try hard not [to] do it again,”….

“Also, try to lower your expectations just a little bit. She’s a kid …. it won’t turn her into a monster. Pick your battles.”

Another user added, “… You didn’t beat her or anything. You spanked her.”

…. At the end of the day, no parent is perfect, and there are moments throughout child rearing when certain things don’t go to plan.

The Atlantic[xv] speaks to fathers and the liminal space they find themselves in as fathers today, once filling the understood role of administrator of discipline was theirs, still confronted by children acting out of control, and no longer sure how to proceed.

Detachment: an adoption memoir[xvi]   

Peter who is 8 and Bohdan who is 7 had been adopted by Maurice and Betsy Mierau three years earlier.  The Mireaus were well into their own parenting style with the boys.  One winter afternoon, Mierau took the boys sledding, armed with hot chocolate. Because of copyright protection you will need to read the story for yourself, an incident that checks the boxes for Authoritarian, although overall, the memoir shows that this couple work hard at being warm and supportive Authoritative parents.

Lesbian and Gay Foster Care and Adoption [xvii] recounts an interview with a counselor and social worker couple, both working with children and families. At the time of the interview for the book they had been adopters for 12 years. The children were a brother and sister whose early lives were traumatic, and before being adopted, the children had been in a “difficult” foster situation. This is how they end their interview:

We’ve ended up being much stricter parents than I ever expected we would be, which has been a bit of a downside in some ways. I end up being somebody I almost don’t know, as a parent of adopted children… If somebody had told me this was the kind of parent I’d be I’d have said: “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to be like that, I’m going to be my liberal, fun self.”

But that had to change. I think all parents probably have that fantasy. I remember my dad saying he couldn’t believe how I was with the children – my sister called me Attila the Hun! But after a while my dad said I had been right to be tough. But it didn’t come easily to either of us.

I’m Glad My Mom Died[xviii] A memoir of Authoritarian parenting by emotional manipulation.

 Footnotes

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[i]https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a26987389/types-of-parenting-styles/

https://www.parentingforbrain.com/4-baumrind-parenting-styles

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568743

https://publichealthpost.org/healthequity/authoritarian-parenting

[ii] Stryker, Rachel   “Emotion Socialization and Attachment in Russian Children’s Homes” Global Studies of Childhood, Volume 2, Number 2, 2012   https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/gsch.2012.2.2.85

[iii] https://generationcedar.com/2024/03/05/gentle-parenting-vs-traditional-parenting-a-word-to-todays-youngmother/    

https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/parentingfamilydiversity/chapter/overindulgent-helicopter-styles

[iv] Cummins Tantrum, Barbara   The Adoptive Parents’ handbook: a guide to healing trauma and thriving with your foster or adopted child   North Atlantic Books,2020, 105

[v]https://openpress.usask.ca/lifespandevelopment/chapter/parenting-styles/

[vi] Neufeld, Dr. Gordon and Dr. Gabor Maté   Hold on to your kids: why parents need to matter more than peersKnopf Canadian Publishing, Vintage Canada, 2013, 60

[vii] Szalavitz,Maia and Bruce Perry  Born for Love: why empathy is essential—and endangered Harper Paperback, 2010, 313 

[viii] Mercer, Jean Thinking Critically about Child Development: examining myths & misunderstandings,3^rd ed.  Sage Publications, Inc., 2016 ,206

[ix] Hupp, Stephen and Jeremy Jewell    Great Myths of Child Development   Wiley-Blackwell, 2015, Myth #40. 

[x] Hupp, Stephen and Jeremy Jewell     Great Myths of Child Development   Wiley-Blackwell, 2015, Myth #47

[xi] Hupp, Stephen and Jeremy Jewell    Great Myths of Child Development   Wiley-Blackwell, 2015, Myth # 13

[xii] Hupp, Stephen and Jeremy Jewell   Great Myths of Child Development   Wiley-Blackwell, 2015, Myth #41

[xiii] Doucleff, Michaeleen   Hunt, Gather Parent: what ancient cultures can teach us about the lost art of raising happy, helpful little humans   Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 2021

[xiv] Tipton, Nia   Mom Feels Like A ‘Failure’ After Spanking Her Daughter Feb 04, 2024 https://www.yourtango.com/family/mom-feels-failure-after-spanking-daughter

[xv] The Atlantic   July/August issue 2022, 87-89

[xvi] Mierau, Maurice   Detachment: an adoption memoir     Freehand Books, 2014, 152-4

[xvii] Hicks, Stephen and Janet McDermott    Lesbian and Gay Foster Care and Adoption Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016, 230

[xviii] McCurdy, Jennette   I’m Glad My Mom Died   Simon & Schuster, 2022

I think we managed ‘happy families’ (check with the Brits on that one) until we signed Yasik up for school – roughly 3 weeks.  The journal says Week 3 was ‘one heavy duty week’. Yasik was, in parenting jargon, ‘testing boundaries’ in ways I have read are not unusual for institutionalized adoptees, or, for that matter, children from a great variety of family settings. His arsenal, sans effective verbal skills at the time, was physical: kicking, slapping, pinching, punching when we frustrated his desires with a “No”.   Surprised that the little cutie wasn’t seeing things our way, and having not prepared ourselves for that possibility, we went full ‘do what our parents did’.

We spanked Yasik.  In our defense the journal testifies, only one smack to his bottom. Yasik cried but the smack quieted him, so I guess it slipped under the wire for not being abuse.

Perhaps the crying though shook us up because we did some serious weighing of the pros and cons. We knew we were not comfortable talking about our autopilot choice to spank with anyone else, at all. Is spanking just politically incorrect or emotionally damaging? Is it faster and tidier? Does it teach him to hit to make a point?  Parents Under the Influence: words of wisdom from a former bad mother considers it important to clarify the basis of a choice to spank: if it is not a “malevolent impulse” or causing “lasting pain” it may be fine. For her it is quite another matter if it is regular and the ‘go-to’ response to the child’s behavior. Leaving long term negative consequences, it is abuse.[i]

But Yasik needed to pay attention to our authority. He couldn’t be hitting back or talking smart we felt. Then again, were we thinking through the expectations we had that set him off? 

Right from the start, putting him in kindergarten, I was rushing him and we were regularly late to school, igniting volcanoes of frustration between us.

Dave and I were a couple born in the tail-end of the traditional parenting era, and now in our own middle years, we were coping with a daily experience more often the purview of a young couple (a common experience for adopters), and parenting a child with limited communication experience in English and very new to developing a sense of secure attachment to parents. 

My only spanking experience up to this time had come when I was in my mid-twenties, with no parenting experience and still unquestioningly believing in “Spare the rod, Spoil the child”. I was babysitting for a couple who were raised, like me, in a traditional and religious society and who regularly turned to spanking to rein in their active adoptee. One morning when friends were visiting, the child misbehaved. I carried him into the bedroom and between whacks, screaming and crying filled the household. After all was returned to quiet and smiles, the woman visiting commented to another friend, “It seems to me that people are harder on children who are not their own.”

That observation struck hard against a firmly unquestioned, and untested belief. Sensitivity to the comment was still there twenty years later to rattle my ideas about disciplining Yasik. 

‘Time Outs’ seemed to be bandied about among knowing parents we were in touch with as the ‘done thing’. Dave said that was how Dennis the Menace was disciplined; it sounded like a good recommendation, I guess. We embraced it as a discipline we could admit to among our circle of friends, and anyway, we had a child’s wooden chair as yet unfulfilled in its destiny. 

We swung it into a corner of the hallway, getting into position to do battle.  I remember experiencing less emotion or stress when disciplining was simply the smack. Now we were starting the disciplining process with a tussle to get him on the chair as he and we were still amped up. Next was the stand on guard to keep him on the chair. But he did acquiesce, even if at times with tight-lipped giving in that could be read as ‘I will bid my time until I am bigger’. Other times it was hard to keep a straight face. When once he had to give in, he would turn to us to humbly plea, “No look,” before he stood up and went off to do what we ask. There was also the time I held him in my lap until he gave in and sat on the chair quietly and then he slipped over to me and we kissed and hugged. Wish I’d done it that way more often.

And miracle of miracles, in short order just the threat of the chair seemed enough to get compliance. Check that method off and move on.  Again, without a lot of reflection. 

A couple of cases in point.

One evening after work, I was tired, impatient and would not wait for him to play in the tub where Yasik was finding endless wonders.  I’d moved on to his bedroom to dig out his pajamas. I wanted the bed time routine over so I could turn off and tune out.

“Come on Yasik, bath time is over. Now get out of the tub and come into the bedroom to get your pajamas on.”

Playing sounded like it was slowing down, and silence was taking over. Yasik had shown shyness about being naked, suggesting the way things might have been handled in the orphanage. He did not want to run naked from the tub to the bedroom, a stretch of maybe 10 feet.  But I was not trying to understand his no show in the bedroom.

“Come on Yasik, get in here.”

And now there was a wail. Yasik was sitting in the tub, alone and crying in real anger. Sighing in self-pity, I was about to drag myself off his bed and into the bathroom to scoop him out of the tub.  That self-pitying tiredness now curling at the edges with anger. Getting a 5-year-old to sprint naked from the bathroom to the bedroom was what I expected. I was not going to cave. He was going to obey. He was going to sprint naked from the bathroom to the bedroom. 

Dave must have been hovering near by, for he magically appeared at the bedroom door. “Don’t!”, with a warning eyeball.  Some kind of male intuition?

But somehow Yasik took charge. Yelling, “No look!” he snuck to the door to see if I was looking before running to the bed. Again it was hopeless not to see the funny. I popped out a “Boo!” and we both laughed.

And here I interject a reminder from The Adoptive Parents’ Handbook: a guide to healing trauma and thriving with your foster or adopted child. Adoptees may have experienced abuse around bathing that has left them frightened of the vulnerability of nakedness.[ii]

Two years into our parenting, encouraged by school staff, one morning, I went with Yasik on the school bus to help him get involved in gym. We chose not to push him to join in gym play the first year as most days there were so many other firsts in his life. Now just like deciding to take the worn training wheels off his bike and pushing him to try biking without that support, we decided to push him to join in the activities in the gym period.

He and I stepped into the gym, kids running ahead of us, teachers taking charge, me thinking I must look in charge too. Slipping into this vibe, I tried to get him to do things just because magically I was along.  But my presence did not hold the weight I was assuming. He wouldn’t budge from his chosen place near the door.

Translation: I can’t have anyone thinking something might not be working as it should but neither can I take any action that would look or sound out of control. That is the possible beauty of threats. They can be whispered with what appears like a calm (read repressed anger) interaction.  So I started to whisper threats. “Get out there and play right now or there goes today’s computer and TV.”  I gave a hint that if he waited any longer, tomorrow’s TV was going too.

And then what Gail?  But I persisted and he adamantly refused.  A teacher thoughtfully slipped over to suggest that I and Yasik go to the trampoline because she told us being on the boys’ team with his more confident counterparts may be too hard for him. He may feel safer playing with the girls and they were on the trampoline.  He wanted to but wouldn’t.  Was he embarrassed about being relegated to the girl’s team, as well?

I continued to cajole and threat.  Finally, I promised a prize, (euphuism for bribe), and he got on for the first time, smiling in shyness, still uncertain, because it was great.

Inevitably, a few bounces in he fell and wanted down and then he wouldn’t go again.  This was a 6-year-old boy who was struggling with processing failure. I was responding by telling him I was proud of him and a prize was coming his way. But that fall overwhelmed him. When it came around for his next turn, he refused to climb back up on the trampoline.  I who had not thought that perhaps let it be was enough, or perhaps there was a private trampoline somewhere that he could test out before the next gym outing, threw out the bribes and went back to dire threats of returning to spanking.  And I could have managed that because there was a convenient bathroom off the gym.

And in the moment I won. Yasik gave in and got on the trampoline. I saw a mix of shy enjoyment and a struggle with fear for between the 1^st and 2^nd attempt there were tears on my neck. As I watched him get up and try the trampoline again in front of peers who babied him still, I had to fight tears too. Yet he conquered the worst of it.  He was on his way. I was proud of him and of his stubborn refusals too.  He wasn’t going to follow blindly, I note in the journal.  But the question remains about how I handled my role in his struggle. I hope I at least followed through on the prize.

Had we become complacent or tired of what corporeal punishment or its more politically correct cousin, ‘Time Out’ demanded? Or did we honestly think that having experienced spanking and the chair that Yasik was only needing the reminder of such consequences or some threat to the things he loved? Whatever our awareness, we now slipped into threat mode at signs of eruption.  Predictably I suppose, if we had not taken the time to think through what we were hoping for or how best to get there.  It could backfire.

Another morning as usual we running late to drop Yasik off at his school. Checking for lunch box and bag, I noticed he hadn’t quite finished his homework. That was a BIG no-no to a couple, one teaching high school with the expectation of homework, the other finally getting a chance at higher-ed and both wanting to keep up appearance as parents who have their parenting together. With minutes to spare before we really, really had to go, we went into threat mode: “You won’t be going to T-ball tomorrow if you don’t hurry up and just do this last page!”

The wail seemed to deflate his entire body.  Taking the high ground against this outburst, we brooked no argument, “Yasik, you gotta do your homework.”

“Whhhhy? NOBODY in my class has to do homework?”

(True enough, being second language, and struggling with reading, Yasik did have a heavier homework burden than his classmates.) Nonetheless, in my best no-nonsense voice, I carefully enunciated: “You. Won’t. Be. Going. To. T-Ball. Tomorrow. if you don’t get it done.”  Dave backed me up with a ‘No debate’ nod.

He failed to do so. Following through on our threat is always considered admirable. We didn’t take him to the game. He felt the pain for disobedience all right.

Thing was, we had the date wrong.  It was two days away and he got to go because he’d already gone through the wailing and missing-the-game pain the day before. I kind of think he could hardly wait to get home that evening to say, “Hey you guys, the game is tomorrow night, James said.” I looked at Dave. Dave looked at me. “What can we do? We got the days screwed up and he got the punishment.”

Yasik also got the last big grin.

And so the first couple of years went; learning effective anything takes a while I would observe at this juncture.

Dave too holds memories of times he is concerned about how he shepherded. As I have mentioned several times, not only did Dave look forward to sharing his own love of the computer with Yasik as we prepared to adopt him, but in a very short while, after we returned from Russia, Dave and Yasik were poking the keyboard, and very quickly and steadily Yasik was becoming proficient at working his way around the internet. The excitement at a son’s quickness gradually U-turned into a concern about what his child might become exposed to.  To ward off danger, Dave secretly set in a path from which he would maintain control. Of course, sensible parents applaud, but Dave voiced concern over his handling of his control, secretively rather than in open discussion with his son.

When I asked Yasik recently for his memories of our parenting, he didn’t come up with specific examples. Nonetheless, he said he definitely remembers times we handled interactions with “Because I said so” or “Don’t ask questions, just do it!” expectations. 

Surely our language couldn’t have been that bald.

Footnotes

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[i] David-Weill, Cecile   Parents Under the Influence: words of wisdom from a former bad mother   Other Press, 2020, 63,64

[ii] Cummins Tantrum, Barbara The Adoptive Parents’ Handbook: a guide to healing trauma and thriving with your foster or adopted child North Atlantic Books, 2020, 18

Most parents start out with a child with no words. We started out with a child whose words we couldn’t find in the dictionary, and even if we found them, we couldn’t figure out how to use the dictionary’s definition to our advantage. When we said ‘Nyet’ to Yasik we had little idea what that communicated.

We may have been playing dollies with Yasik for the first day or two, dressing him up and bouncing him around like children with a Ken doll as they try to bridge the gap between fantasy and reality. Yet even while doing ‘tourist’ around Moscow there were indications that our priority was not the thrill of the art museum but that we must constantly watch this little sprite darting about. With all Moscow offered tourists, we were at MacDonald’s feeding Big Macs to the birds. Hoping ‘Nyet’ was communicating as effectively as ‘Pee-sat?’. 

Even though Dr. Spock said parents know more than they think they do[i], let me begin this group of posts about parenting by straight up saying Dave and I had the awareness of Donald Rumsfeld when we took on parenting; there were “known knowns” and “known unknowns“, but then there also are those “unknown unknowns”.[ii] The “known knowns” would be similar to what SNL suggested Kevin Federline might have known: 1. Always feed your children. 2. Children are ‘babe magnets’.  3. For the rest, Federline suggested parents should call him to babysit.[iii]

We didn’t have Federline’s phone number so that was a non-starter.  But like Federline, Dave quickly picked up on how much of a babe magnet Yasik was for women gave him their seats on the bus and fawned over Yasik.  So that was good. And we did know to feed our kid. But maybe for that one we were simply following the Golden Rule of ‘do unto others as you would have done for yourself’.

Was advice regarding actual parenting offered in the pre-adoption course we took? Almost certainly our adoption seminars offered all they could. I am equally sure that we would have nodded along enthusiastically to whatever suggestions were listed on the big paper flip chart. But in the excitement of beginning the adoption process, did parenting advice stand a chance?

Definitely, being caught up in the daily demands of our lives, we certainly were not about to make a study of parenting.  Nor did we think we needed to do so, although of course there was, by the 90s, a great deal of guidance available to parents.[iv]

I also now know we were not the only not-so-super parents out there for Scott Simon in Baby We Were Meant For Each Other: in praise of adoption[v]takes pains to note that some otherwise excellent parents showed neither interest nor made the time for books or support groups while raising their very happy child.

Supposing we had given it a passing thought, could we have articulated what we wanted to do as parents? Certainly, no manual was tucked into the non-existent bag sent along with Yasik as he left the orphanage. Nor did we expect one. If the local radio journalist who interviewed us outside the courthouse in Yaroslavl had asked us how we planned to parent, we would have planted a look on our faces that tried for “We’ve got this”, hoping she didn’t look too deeply into our eyes where something less confident, somewhat quizzical was starting to show through. But the question never came up, everyone benignly assuming our son of one hour was in good hands because we would ‘just know what to do’.

We were asked by the social worker who did our post-adoption interviews about Yasik’s medical visits, physical and mental development, eating and sleeping habits, his personality, our child care plans and family adjustments but I remember nary a question about how we were dealing with discipline and helping him with the character development needed to develop into a good and happy human being.

I begin asking questions and seeking answers for our parenting now at the suggestion of Dr. Bruce D. Perry who says

The brain is an historical organ…. Our life experiences shape who we become… And so, since we tend to care for our children the way we were cared for ourselves during our own childhoods, a good “brain” history of a child begins with a history of the caregiver’s childhood and early experience.[vi]

As I was about to start this post, I ‘conducted’, or less pompously, ‘asked around’ about the assumption that we parent like our parents which perhaps more pompously is called the ‘intergenerational transmission of parenting’.[vii]

The responses I got ranged from vehemently ‘Never’ to ‘Yes, my parents’ way worked for me’, but most also added on reflection, that ‘the times were different’.

It is hard to be definitive about where our inclinations have come from, but our parents had up to 20 years to worm their techniques into our hearts and minds.  What is a bit scary is trying to objectively recognize that even if as children we heartily disapproved of some of their techniques, we went right ahead and reverted to these techniques as well.  They spanked, and yes, we spanked Yasik a time or two. 

But for both Dave and I some childhood experiences were valued and continued. Dave was introduced to the tool box by his step-father and has always found a tool box to be a special kind of candy box. When Yasik approached his teens, he and his dad made plans to fix up my little Civic when I moved on to a newer model.

I had great memories of shared laughter at evening meals and tried to make place for this ritual in our lives with Yasik.  However, like others, we too had to make adjustments; ‘the times were different’. It was harder to massage our schedule so that we could sit down together to share the evening meal. But we, consciously or not, were doing many of the things our parents did with us. They fed and clothed us and sent us off to school; vacations were pilgrimages to visit the relatives. Going to the lake with family and friends or going for drives up the mountains were also important.  Having parents equally involved in our home care was also respected.  If my mom was working, then my dad burnt the pancakes. Dave’s dad cooked with the salt and pepper shaker. It worked the other way with us. I boiled up macaroni, heeding Dave’s reminder to read the directions, when he had to work over supper. Wearing hand-me-downs was a given; no noses got stuck in the air when we were offered hand-me-downs for Yasik. Interests were encouraged as far as the dollar could reach. Dave’s mom bought art supplies for him and even sent one of his cartoons into a drawing contest.  I still hear the Hallelujah chorus when I remember the day my mom took me to the library. Perhaps taking Yasik to an indoor climbing gym has had the most lasting value to him.

Gabor Maté in The Myth of Normal: trauma, illness & healing in a toxic culture, in a tone that sounds quite confident, assures us that “all of us, by virtue of being human, are endowed with a natural drive and talent for child-rearing…. Both men and women have latent child-nurturing circuits in their brains, …”  Maté was referring to “the body’s natural opiates – all of which awaken in parents nurturing habits that are essential to the survival of the young.”[viii]That is a relief.  Parents come equipped.

And we did have resources with quite the adequate tool-box actually. Our ‘known knowns’ were not limited to ‘the body’s natural opiates’.

Dave and I were middle-aged parents who had lived in a variety of environments.  We had whatever our parents had taught us, and we had ample time to observe ways that other parents parent.  Chapter Five of The Origins of You: how childhood shapes later life reminds us that

Parenting is multiply determined. In addition to a parent’s own child-rearing history, parents’ health and well-being, their occupational experiences, the quality of their intimate relationship, and the social support they secure from friends, neighbors, relatives, and co-workers may all influence how parents parent…. too … how children themselves behave matters when accounting for why parents parent the way they do.[ix]

Happily, the depth of my current ‘research’ did not end with asking others about where their direction for parenting came from.   One warm summer day, I was taxiing the neighbour kids to the Dollar Store, a trip the neighbour, in the house between us and the kids, said they made sound like a trip to Disneyland. They range from 2 years old to 15.  On the way I asked them what they thought a parent was. The 11-year-old without hesitation listed off pretty much everything a Google search would offer: protect and provide.  The 15-year-old topped the list up with “and have fun”.

Hard on the determination to move from the ‘known knowns’ to the ‘known unknowns’, I questioned Google as well. The descriptors now ramped up: numbers, letters and alliteration.  1,2,3 Magic Parenting, the 3 As of parenting: Authoritative, Attachment, and Acceptance or the 3 Fs of Positive Parenting: Firm, Fair and Friendly or the 3 Ts Parenting: Tune In, Talk more, Take Turns.  And so it goes until at least 10 unless you consider Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life with two rules that are directly related to parenting: #5 – Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them and # 11 – Do not bother children while they are skateboarding.[x] Is it all summed up in the Parenting Golden Rule: “Treat your child as you would like to be treated if you were in the same position”, which is apparently simple, straightforward, and successful? Ok, like the neigbour kids said, protect, provide, and have fun.

Adopters too?  Yes, although we may not have dramatic hormone changes, bio-fathers, adopters and other consistent care-givers “show bonding to the same degree as biological mothers” which “awaken in parents nurturing habits that are essential to the survival of the young”.[xi]

It is beginning to look like we came into parenting with some juice in our brains to vitalize our parenting and some useful ‘known knowns’ from the worlds we inhabited.

And for those ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’, I am going to interject here something I have heard so often.  If anything should not work out according to the fantasy, adopters have a nice little ‘escape hatch/cop out’ from responsibility for their parenting, especially parents of older adoptees.  Should they accept it: the tsk, tsking of onlookers who intone, “Well it’s in the blood”, or those who shake their heads in commiseration to remind us, “Well those first 3 years are the most important”, adopters have ready excuses for their own parenting failures.

As recounted in earlier posts, Yasik’s parenting began first with his bio-parents and then a hospital staff followed by the orphanage. What can a hapless adopter do about that? Everything has been sewed up before they even start. Can’t fault their parenting styles, right?  

To turn a quote from Gabor Maté around: “no, [parents] did not create the world in which they must parent [their children]. Yes, parents are responsible for their children;”[xii]  We are not off the hook. Our parenting styles matter.

Accepting that responsibility as we understood it, how would our parenting be analyzed and what can be learned from our parenting journey?  The analysis is based on the work of Diana Baumrind, a developmental psychologist who began her research in the 1960s, providing three of the basic parenting styles. In the 1980s, Stanford researchers, Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin added the fourth style.[xiii] These four styles are Authoritarian, Neglectful/Unengaged, Permissive and Authoritative. As is evident by the list of styles mentioned earlier, these four shots are only the ‘opening volleys across the bow’ of the discussion on parenting styles.   Depending on how we come packaged into parenthood, in these times, we can choose to parent from a buffet of styles. An article in The Irish Times, which I accessed through my library’s online data offerings, provided a list of styles parents might choose: Helicopter, Drone, Lawn Mower/Bulldozer/Snow Plough, Free Range, Tiger, Dolphin, Koala, Jellyfish, Lighthouse, Gentle, Crunchy/Silky/Scrunchy, Concierge or as noted above, Conscious.[xiv]  Seriously.

Please also note though before you do so that there is a caveat applicable in any curiosity: …. Human motives are always mixed and at least partly concealed, hence, endlessly arguable”.[xvi]

Our results: because both parents must be considered for their styles and input,[xvii] I appealed to the better angels of Dave’s nature, getting him to take the quiz just after I completed it.  Maybe it was nearing suppertime and I was fogging over; whatever, I managed to add up the numbers each of us chose for each question instead of the number values given to each. And then I spent the next 24 hours angsting over the designations these numbers offered.  One of us was borderline Neglectful and the other, Permissive.  Maybe Permissive could be met with a bit of a shrug and giggle, but Neglectful?  That one elicits, at the very least, a grimace and groan.  I wanted to delete the quiz, shoving the results under the rug, but I also want to honestly explore our parenting.  In the morning, I went back over the quiz looking for a way to ease it into my determination to be open and honest in my search and, whew. I saw my mistake and I recounted.

For some of the questions I was on the fence, thinking it depends on the situation, choosing the middle option, #3. And while Dave did not stay on the same fence for as many question responses as I, we came out with exactly the same scores, barely inside Warm in the first set and barely inside Demanding for the second set. Whew again! We managed to raise Yasik according to the nice sounding parenting style – Authoritative.

But I cannot ignore the impact of my emotional response to the three negative styles and what my image of myself and Dave would have had to acknowledge had we landed in any of these styles that are less than admirable and certainly not trending currently.

Add it all up and our parenting styles come from all that is swirling about in our brains, bodies and emotions, the parents who parented us, the times and the environment in which that parenting played out, and our values for, as is the habit of values, they take shape influenced by this mix of nature and nurture. 

And we are off, skipping along the yellow brick road, off to ask the wizard what kind of parenting we provided for Yasik.

Footnotes

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[i] Spock, Benjamin   The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care   Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1957

[ii]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns

[iii] Season 33, Episode 2 of Saturday Night Live, which originally aired on October 6, 2007

[iv] Neufeld, Gordon, PH.D. and Gabor Maté, M.D.  Hold On To Your Kids: why parents need to matter more than peers   Vintage Canada, 2004, 5

[v] Simon, Scott Baby We Were Meant For Each Other: in praise of adoption   Random house, 2010, 44-45

[vi] Perry, Bruce and Maia Szalavitz   The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog: and other stories from a child psychiatrist’s notebook.  Basic Books, 2017, 89

[vii] Belsky, Jay, Avshalom Caspi, Terri E. Moffit, Richie Poulton.  The Origins of You: how childhood shapes later life.  Harvard University Press, 2020, 110.

[viii] Maté, Gabor MD and Daniel Maté   The Myth of Normal: trauma, illness, and healing in a toxic culture.  Knopf Canada, 2022, 160, 165

[ix] Belsky, Jay, Avshalom Caspi, Terri E. Moffit, Richie Poulton.  The Origins of You: how childhood shapes later life.  Harvard University Press, 2020, 110.

[x] Peterson, Jordan B.  12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos   Random House Canada, 2018

[xi] Mercer, Jean. Understanding Attachment: parenting, child care and emotional development. Praeger Publishers, 2006, 74

[xii] Maté, Gabor with Daniel Maté.  The Myth of Normal: trauma, illness & healing in a toxic culture.  Knopf Canada, 2022, 179

[xiii] Kuppens, Sofie, Eva Ceulemans    “Parenting Styles; a closer look at a well-known concept”    J Child Fam Stud, 2018, Sep 18;28(1): 168-181 doi: 10.1007/s10826-018-1242-x  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6323136/

[xiv] The Irish Times “Helicopter? Free-range? Concierge? What kind of parent are you? How do you parent? There’s a meme for that amid the modern obsession with dissecting and defining parenting styles”   July 18, 2023 https://www.irishtimes.com/health/your-family/2023/07/18/helicopter-free-range-concierge-what-kind-of-parent-are-you/

[xv] Mercer, Jean. Thinking Critically about Child Development: examining myths & misunderstanding. Praeger Publishers, 2016, 246

[xvi] Alexander, Bruce K.  The Globalization of Addiction: a study in poverty of the spirit.  2008, p. 154

[xvii] Francis, Richard C.  Epigenetics: the ultimate mystery of inheritance.  WW Norton, 2011, 72-73

[i] Spock, Benjamin   The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care   Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1957

[ii]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns

[iii] Season 33, Episode 2 of Saturday Night Live, which originally aired on October 6, 2007

[iv] Neufeld, Gordon, PH.D. and Gabor Maté, M.D.  Hold On To Your Kids: why parents need to matter more than peers   Vintage Canada, 2004, 5

[v] Simon, Scott Baby We Were Meant For Each Other: in praise of adoption   Random house, 2010, 44-45

[vi] Perry, Bruce and Maia Szalavitz   The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog: and other stories from a child psychiatrist’s notebook.  Basic Books, 2017, 89

[vii] Belsky, Jay, Avshalom Caspi, Terri E. Moffit, Richie Poulton.  The Origins of You: how childhood shapes later life.  Harvard University Press, 2020, 110.

[viii] Maté, Gabor MD and Daniel Maté   The Myth of Normal: trauma, illness, and healing in a toxic culture.  Knopf Canada, 2022, 160, 165

[ix] Belsky, Jay, Avshalom Caspi, Terri E. Moffit, Richie Poulton.  The Origins of You: how childhood shapes later life.  Harvard University Press, 2020, 110.

[x] Peterson, Jordan B.  12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos   Random House Canada, 2018

[xi] Mercer, Jean. Understanding Attachment: parenting, child care and emotional development. Praeger Publishers, 2006, 74

[xii] Maté, Gabor with Daniel Maté.  The Myth of Normal: trauma, illness & healing in a toxic culture.  Knopf Canada, 2022, 179

[xiii] Kuppens, Sofie, Eva Ceulemans    “Parenting Styles; a closer look at a well-known concept”    J Child Fam Stud, 2018, Sep 18;28(1): 168-181 doi: 10.1007/s10826-018-1242-x  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6323136/

[xiv] The Irish Times “Helicopter? Free-range? Concierge? What kind of parent are you? How do you parent? There’s a meme for that amid the modern obsession with dissecting and defining parenting styles”   July 18, 2023 https://www.irishtimes.com/health/your-family/2023/07/18/helicopter-free-range-concierge-what-kind-of-parent-are-you/

[xv] Mercer, Jean. Thinking Critically about Child Development: examining myths & misunderstanding. Praeger Publishers, 2016, 246

[xvi] Alexander, Bruce K.  The Globalization of Addiction: a study in poverty of the spirit.  2008, p. 154

[xvii] Francis, Richard C.  Epigenetics: the ultimate mystery of inheritance.  WW Norton, 2011, 72-73