I have often
wondered what it is that makes parenting so hard. Why it is that something as simple as taking a family photo is so difficult. Perhaps, even those of you
with no experience in this area, or distanced from it by several decades, might
see the haggard mother at the grocery store, and wonder what it is she does
that is so overwhelming to create such a miserable impression upon others.
On of the best pieces of writing in
helping me understand why parenting appears so simple, yet becomes so hard, comes
from a man named Carl von Clausewitz, a military writer from the 1830s. In his
masterpiece, On War, he includes a short chapter on what he calls “friction.”
It is the best explanation of the experience of dressing four children in the
morning that I have discovered. So, here, for fun, I have taken Clausewitz’s
chapter and substituted parenting terminology for military terminology. I’ve
also updated some of the illustrations to make the parental situation a little
more clear. Enjoy.
CHAPTER VII.
Friction in Parenting
As long as
we have no personal knowledge of Parenting, we cannot conceive where those
difficulties lie of which so much is said, and what that genius and those
extraordinary mental powers required in a Parent have really to do. All appears
so simple, all the requisite branches of knowledge appear so plain, all the
combinations so unimportant, that in comparison with them the easiest problem
in higher mathematics impresses us with a certain scientific dignity. But if we
have seen Parenting, all becomes intelligible; and still, after all, it is
extremely difficult to describe what it is which brings about this change, to
specify this invisible and completely efficient factor.
Everything
is very simple in Parenting, but the simplest thing is difficult. These
difficulties accumulate and produce a friction which no man can imagine exactly
who has not seen Parenting, Suppose now a traveller, who towards evening
expects to accomplish the two stages at the end of his day’s journey, four or
five leagues, with post-horses, on the high road—it is nothing. He arrives now
at the last station but one, finds no horses, or very bad ones; then a hilly
country, bad roads; it is a dark night, and he is glad when, after a great deal
of trouble, he reaches the next station, and finds there some miserable
accommodation. So in Parenting, through the influence of an infinity of petty
circumstances, which cannot properly be described on paper, things disappoint
us, and we fall short of the mark. A powerful iron will overcomes this
friction; it crushes the obstacles, but perhaps the child along with them. We
shall often meet with this result. Like an obelisk towards which the principal
streets of a town converge, the strong will of a proud spirit stands prominent
and commanding in the middle of the Art of Parenting.
Friction is
the only conception which in a general way corresponds to that which
distinguishes real Parenting from Parenting on paper. The Parental machine, the
Family and all belonging to it, is in fact simple, and appears on this account
easy to manage. But let us reflect that no part of it is in one piece, that it
is composed entirely of individuals, each of which keeps up its own friction in
all directions. Theoretically all sounds very well: the father/mother of a family
is responsible for the execution of the given task; the family is glued
together into one piece by its discipline, and as the parent must be a person
of acknowledged zeal, the machine spins with little friction. But it is not so
in reality, and all that is exaggerated and false in such a conception
manifests itself at once in Parenting. The family always remains composed of a
number of persons, of whom, if chance so wills, the most insignificant is able
to create delay and even obstruction. The difficulties which Parenting brings
with it, the bodily exertions which it requires, augment this potential for
chaos so much that it may be regarded as the greatest causes of stress in
Parenting.
This
enormous friction, which is not concentrated, as in mechanics, at a few points,
is therefore everywhere brought into contact with chance, and thus incidents
take place upon which it was impossible to calculate, their chief origin being
chance. As an instance of one such chance: clothing. Here a clutter prevents shoes
from being discovered in time, and those shoes prevent the family form leaving
at the right moment; there the rain prevents a family from arriving at the
right time, because instead of for three it had to search for jackets perhaps
eight minutes; the family charges ineffectively because it is stuck fast in
heavy chaos.
These are
only a few incidents of detail by way of elucidation, that the reader may be
able to follow the author, for whole volumes might be written on these
difficulties. To avoid this, and still to give a clear conception of the host
of small difficulties to be contended with in Parenting, we might go on heaping
up illustrations, if we were not afraid of being tiresome. But those who have
already comprehended us will permit us to add a few more.
Activity in Parenting
is movement in a resistant medium. Just as a man immersed in water is unable to
perform with ease and regularity the most natural and simplest movement, that
of walking, so in Parenting, with ordinary powers, one cannot keep even the
line of mediocrity. This is the reason that the correct theorist is like a
swimming master, who teaches on dry land movements which are required in the
water, which must appear grotesque and ludicrous to those who forget about the
water. This is also why theorists, who have never plunged in themselves, or who
cannot deduce any generalities from their experience, are unpractical and even
absurd, because they only teach what every one knows—how to walk.
Further,
every Parenting is rich in particular facts, while at the same time each is an
unexplored sea, full of rocks which the Parent may have a suspicion of, but
which he has never seen with his eye, and round which, moreover, he must steer
in the night. If a contrary wind also springs up, that is, if any great
accidental event declares itself adverse to him, then the most consummate
skill, presence of mind, and energy are required, whilst to those who only look
on from a distance all seems to proceed with the utmost ease. The knowledge of
this friction is a chief part of that so often talked of, experience in Parenting,
which is required in a good Parent. Certainly he is not the best Parent in
whose mind it assumes the greatest dimensions, who is the most over-awed by it
(this includes that class of over-anxious Parents, of whom there are so many
amongst the experienced); but a Parent must be aware of it that he may overcome
it, where that is possible, and that he may not expect a degree of precision in
results which is impossible on account of this very friction. Besides, it can
never be learnt theoretically; and if it could, there would still be wanting
that experience of judgment which is called tact, and which is always more
necessary in a field full of innumerable small and diversified objects than in
great and decisive cases, when one’s own judgment may be aided by consultation
with others. Just as the man of the world, through tact of judgment which has
become habit, speaks, acts, and moves only as suits the occasion, so the person
experienced in Parenting will always, in great and small matters, at every
pulsation of Parenting as we may say, decide and determine suitably to the
occasion. Through this experience and practice the idea comes to his mind of
itself that so and so will not suit. And thus he will not easily place himself
in a position by which he is compromised, which, if it often occurs in Parenting,
shakes all the foundations of confidence and becomes extremely dangerous.
It is
therefore this friction, or what is so termed here, which makes that which
appears easy in Parenting difficult in reality. As we proceed, we shall often
meet with this subject again, and it will hereafter become plain that besides
experience and a strong will, there are still many other rare qualities of the
mind required to make a man a consummate Parent.
