How parenting has changed

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5 min read

We all like to think we know our parents well, that we have a pretty firm grasp on who they are, how they parented us, the kinds of things they would or wouldn’t do.

Then, every once in a while, they surprise us. We learn, for example, that our dad and his college roommates once set all their furniture on fire to heat their apartment.¹ Or that our mom was really into racquetball.

My parents were, and are, truly A+ parents. They were loving but firm, selfless, incredibly organized. They’d go above and beyond. Each holiday season, for example, they’d orchestrate a herculean assemblage of traditions—cookies, advent calendars, perfectly formed ash footsteps left by Santa² (on newspaper, to avoid ruining the floors), beautifully wrapped gifts. Having raised six kids into generally well-adjusted adults,³ I consider them to be a model for what parenting should be.

So upon becoming a parent myself, I’ve been surprised to learn how often they were just…winging it.