The parent I thought I'd be

No, we will not be having donuts this morning. Unless Mom changes her mind.

Welcome back to Techno Sapiens! I’m Jacqueline Nesi, a psychologist and professor at Brown University and mom of two young kids who are living their best donut- and pickle chip-filled lives this summer.

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5 min read

My children are eating breakfast.

The flurry of escalating demands—milk, toaster waffles, peanut butter and jelly (no, wait, no jelly!), syrup (no, not on top! On the side!), more syrup, more milk (in the blue cup!)—has given way to loud munching and silent smearing of peanut butter across cheeks.

Congratulating myself on nearing the downhill portion of today’s first challenge, I open the cabinet to an alarming discovery.

We are out of coffee.

I remain calm in crisis, and inform my children that after breakfast, we’ll be heading to the local coffee shop.

While wiping peanut butter off my one year old’s earlobe, I lob a vague, noncommittal statement into the ether. Something about how we just ate breakfast, so we don’t need to get any treats at the coffee shop, and instead will just be getting Mom a coffee.¹

Can I pretend to be Mittens the cat? My three year old replies.²

When we arrive at the coffee shop, I unbuckle their carseats. I rest the diaper bag on one hip, sling 25 pounds of one year old onto the other, and reach out a hand to escort the three year old across the parking lot.

I am out of breath when I get to the counter. I deposit the kids next to the glass display case while reaching for my wallet.

There are donuts.

Mom! Mom! Mom! Can I have a donut? Mom! Please? My older one asks.

Choc-lat! My younger one assents.

I look at the barista, who is waiting expectantly, an iced half-caf Americano³ already in the works behind her. I envision my kids’ protests and cries. I think about how tired I am, and how much harder it will be if I say no. I imagine the looks of absolute delight on their faces if I say yes.

Sure! I say. Let’s get two.

Real life? Ah, I hadn’t considered that.

Before having kids, I imagined I’d be a “strict” parent. Loving, of course, but also firm, consistent, authoritative.

The idea was likely born out of my training in child psychology, where the evidence emphasizes limits and structure, and my own childhood, where my parents were admirably consistent in their enforcement of (very reasonable) rules.⁴

But when I dig in a little deeper, this idea of myself as a parent is harder to define. Look closely, and it turns to smoke, drifting away in wispy plumes. What exactly does this “strict” parent look like?

This idea I had of myself as a parent is just that—an idea.

A vague image of me, say, reciting some script about okay and not okay behaviors, or snuggling a child at the end of a perfect day filled with structure and routine. No real details, no consideration for how my kids or I might feel, no plan for how to stop a one year old from systematically ripping the pages out of a book while a three year old hugs a death grip on your legs.

Why didn’t I think of this?

In Experimental History last week, Adam Mastroianni wrote about a concept psychologists call “unpacking.”⁵ It’s the process by which our minds actively fill in the details of hypothetical events or situations. The summary? We humans are pretty bad at it.

When we imagine a scenario, we tend to gloss over the particulars. It’s easier and more efficient that way.

When it comes to parenting, though, this leaves many of us in a strange situation. Sure, we’ve thought about what we might be like as a parent. We’ve imagined ourselves lovingly cradling a baby, or maybe, based on what our own parents did, we’ve made plans to emulate (or reject) their styles.

But we haven’t truly unpacked.

We haven’t pictured the moment when, after hours of keeping two tiny humans alive on the playground, we’ve raised our pregnancy-swollen legs up on the couch and have to decide whether to enforce our “no playing with the toilet paper” rule.⁶

We haven’t thought about how we’ll respond when we tell them we’ll read two books tonight, and then they snuggle their little bodies under our arms, look up at us, and ask if we can do just one more.

We haven’t imagined that, when we’re at another coffee shop one day at 8:30am, and we’re already two tantrums in, our children will beg us for a bag of pickle chips⁷ and we’ll think Oh, what the hell, and hand them right over.

Unpacking as we go

There are days when I compare myself to this impossible, ephemeral standard of parenting. The standard where I am flawlessly consistent. Where I somehow know, without any seed of doubt, when to hold firm and when to let things go. On those days, I wonder if I’m making mistakes. If I’m taking the easy way out. If I’m not living up to the type of parent I thought I should be.

Then there are days—the rational ones—where I see it as a type of freedom, rather than a failure. Where there is no real standard. Where the type of parent I am now, and the one I will be, are simply choices I get to make everyday, for myself and for my kids.

Because maybe it’s impossible to unpack all of this before becoming a parent. Maybe it’s better that way.

We can know the basics—of the importance of warmth and structure, of loving our kids and setting some limits—but we can never know exactly how we’ll approach it. How we’ll find the balance of being strict and permissive, rigid and flexible. What we’ll decide on that donut, and on the millions of other decisions we’ll make each day as parents.

We can’t know every scenario that parenting will send our way.

Instead, all we can do is wade through the smoke, and feel confident that we’re figuring it out, unpacking the details, as we go.

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The Scroll

Your quick burst of updates, news, and links from the worlds of parenting and tech. Please email technosapiens.substack@gmail.com if you’d like to see your news (e.g., articles, press releases) featured in the future!

• Exciting to see a Techno Sapiens shoutout in this thought-provoking piece on the recently announced OpenAI + Mattel partnership (Jessica Grose for NYTimes).

• New research from Hopelab and Born This Way Foundation highlights the value of online communities for LGBTQ+ youth living in rural areas

• Corrected link: An interesting After Babel piece on how to legislate around social media and smartphones

• Have a kid who loves to draw? The How to Draw for Kids team was nice enough to send me a copy of this book, and it’s absolutely adorable. Great screen-free summer entertainment for kids (and adults?) ages 5+!

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A quick survey

What did you think of this week’s Techno Sapiens? Your feedback helps me make this better. Thank you!

The Best | Great | Good | Meh | The Worst

1. Does anyone else refer to themselves as “Mom” or “Dad” in the third person when talking to their young children? This seems to have just started happening to me without conscious awareness, and now that I see it in writing, I don’t love it. Though, maybe it does help to encourage my one year old not to refer to me by my first name (Jackie! More milk!) which, also, I do not love.

2. My three year old spends 90% of his waking hours in character. No idea where “Mittens the Cat” came from, but the meowing is preferable to “the new baby” who cannot walk, speak, or (obviously) follow directions of any kind.

3. The half-caf is the result of me trying to cut down on caffeine during this pregnancy. Between that and my low sodium diet (which regular readers may remember from prior complain-y footnotes), my typical breakfast of bacon-egg-and-cheese on an everything bagel and large cold brew has really taken a hit.

4. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my parents were (and are) truly A+ parents. Loving, warm, and selfless. Flexible when needed, but also frighteningly consistent. They had six kids! And I have not a single memory of them letting us get away with breaking a rule. Were they not exhausted?! (Addendum: Spoke to my mom and can confirm that they were—in fact, maybe still are—exhausted).

5. If you’re not reading Experimental History, please stop what you’re doing and subscribe now. It’s one of my absolute favorite newsletters—Adam is uniquely talented, funny, and insightful. You can also check out my interview with him here.

6. The “no playing with the toilet paper” rule is, of course, not to be confused with its more specific cousins: “no unrolling the entire roll of toilet paper across the floor,” “no eating the toilet paper,” and “no throwing the toilet paper at your brother’s face. Yes, even though it’s soft.”

7. My three year old loves a pickle-flavored chip. I do not understand.