I get lots of good parenting advice.  I get it from my parents and in-laws.  I get it from my friends.  I get it from books.  I get it from fellow bloggers.  And this past weekend I got it from an unlikely source.

While IEP napped GAP and I were watching an episode of Louis CK’s show.  For those who don’t know him, Louis CK is a stand-up comedian who also has a scripted show that portrays aspects of his real life.  It incorporates his role as a single dad, and his attempts to do right by his kids under imperfect circumstances.  As many comedians do, Louis CK has a bit of an edge.  But in one of his softer moments in the episode we were watching, he dispensed some terrific parenting advice.

After halving a mango along the sides of the pit to make a smoothie, he was left with a disc of mango with a good deal of edible fruit still attached to the pit.  The cameras followed him as he peeled it and stabbed a fork in one end, walked the treat into his dining room, and gave it to his older daughter who was doing her homework at the dining room table.  His younger daughter then promptly marched into the kitchen and declared, “I get a mango pop too!”

The dialogue that followed was fascinating.  He told her that he only had one mango.  She said that wasn’t fair, and that if her sister got a mango pop she should get one too.  He countered that she and her sister are two different people and can never be expected to get exactly the same things.  The logic that was burrowed in this heated conversation between a six-year-old and a grown man was ripe for dissection.  Her implied position was that parents are expected to treat their children equally, which he had not done.  His more explicit position was that she can’t go through life expecting everything to be exactly even all the time.  Fascinating though it was, it wasn’t the thing that grabbed me most.

In a moment that was a eloquent as it was surprising, Louis CK said to his daughter, “The only time you look into your neighbor’s bowl is to see if your neighbor has enough.  You never look into your neighbor’s bowl to see if he has more than you do.”  Even now I am stunned at the simple beauty and generous spirit of that statement.

For the moment, IEP is still an only child.  But that won’t be true for long.  He will get older.  His sense of justice will evolve.  And he (and his siblings) will compare themselves to each other as well as other kids they know at every turn.  I would guess that trying to explain to little kids that life isn’t fair is an often-futile exercise.  Trying to teach magnanimity at the same time seems like fool’s errand.  And yet this one simple sentence seems to convey all of it in one tidy little package.

The scene in the show ended with Louis CK abandoning his lesson out of frustration.  For whatever reason he decided it wasn’t worth the fight and gave his younger daughter a consolation prize of some sort.  (There was still only the one mango pop…)  I’m sure that I will have comparable moments as a mother – moments when the wide grassy path of completely equal treatment of my children will carry the day.  But I know there will be times when things don’t shake out with such balance.  When those situations arise I will do well to remember Louis CK’s approach to the “but that’s not fair” argument that will surely pour from my children’s mouths on many occasions.

You only look into your neighbor’s bowl to see if he has enough.  Words to live by for all of us, to be sure.

This is a busy time of year for baseball fans.  The mid-season trade deadline passed on July 31st, although with some finagling teams can continue to execute trades until the end of this month.  It’s unnerving if your team loses a good player (as mine did…).  It’s exciting if your team picks one up.  Either way, at this time of year when the weather is hot and miserable, the season is feeling sluggish, and the postseason lineup is still debatable, the mid-season trade deadline injects a bit of excitement into the game.  And, in a strange episode of life imitating sports, I just made a swap of my own.

Yesterday, at 26 weeks and change into my second pregnancy, I switched to a new OB.

That single sentence represents a complex web of emotions for me.  It represents the frustration and anger I felt with my old OB.  It represents my disappointment at having to reconcile myself to the fact that I was in the wrong hands.  It represents the triumph of knowing that I took control of the situation and made the right decision for me and my baby.  And it represents the warmth and comfort of a friend who talked through my situation with me, recommended her OB without hesitation, and called her doctor’s office on my behalf to help ensure that I could get an appointment.

Being an adult is not always easy.  Actually, more times than not, it’s really difficult – especially if we want to do it well.  Confrontation, both of people and of situations, takes courage that can be hard to muster.  After the deal-breaker appointment with my old OB I sat with a pit in my stomach for five days without telling a soul as I came to grips with the change I needed to make.  I wrestled with myself, working hard to determine if my convictions were rooted in reason or prenatal hormones.  And eventually I knew that I had to do something very hard.

The act of leaving my old OB (whom I’d been with for 10 years and 1.5 pregnancies) was easy.  I didn’t even have to tell him my reasons if I didn’t want to.  All I had to do was sign a piece of paper releasing my records to my new doctor and be on my way.  But I didn’t want to do it that way.

My last appointment in his office was with another doctor in his practice (scheduled as such before I’d made the decision to leave).  Since my new doctor couldn’t get me in right away, I had to keep that last appointment, knowing that when I went in I likely wouldn’t see my own doctor unless it was in passing.  Aware that I might not have the opportunity for a verbal explanation, and fearing that I might dilute my feelings in a face-to-face encounter, I wrote a letter.  I hoped to give it to him myself, but he was out of the office and I had to leave it with his receptionist.

In it I told him the reasons for my transition to a new doctor – namely the fact that specific aspects of his treatment of my pregnancy made me question the quality of the care I was getting.  I told him in detail what he had done to make me doubt him.  And I told him that his actions were entirely preventable.  I told him that while I defended him after IEP’s fraught delivery, I didn’t intend to let something go wrong again just because I didn’t have the nerve to abandon a doctor who wasn’t giving me his full attention.

He hasn’t contacted me, and I’m not surprised.  Frankly, I don’t need him to.  What I need him to do is take my words to heart and consider whether he’s being the kind of doctor his patients deserve.  If my departure can solicit that kind of self-evaluation, then it’s worth it to me.

I’ve only had one appointment with her, but so far I like my new OB.  She had read my transferred records before seeing me.  She listened as I explained the circumstances behind my 26-week switch.  She asked pointed and astute questions about IEP’s delivery, and tried to assess (as best she could without having been there) why it was so problematic, and what we might do to prevent similar problems with my next delivery.  She was warm.  She was kind.  She seemed genuinely concerned about what I’d been through to this point.  And she seemed committed to giving me a better birth experience with my second delivery than I had with my first.

Being an adult is sometimes hard.  Doing it well is frequently hard.  But I’ve found in my life that I have more regrets about skirting confrontation than I do about facing it.  I have a son to raise.  And before too long I’ll have two.  I want them to see me be honest and forthright.  I want them to see me do things that are hard because they are right.  I want them to learn by example what it means not only to be a good adult, but to be a good human being.

No one wants to admit that a doctor they’ve been with for 10 years is asleep at the switch.  But I have a family to take care of.  And in this case, taking care of my son meant doing something hard even before he is born.  I’m sure he doesn’t appreciate it now.  But it represents a trend I hope to continue throughout my kids’ lives; a trend that I hope they will appreciate one day, provided I continue to do it right.

It’s a bit surreal spending three hours a week in a NICU when you’re pregnant.  Actually, I should clarify that.  It’s a bit surreal spending three hours a week in a NICU when you’re about 2/3 of the way through your pregnancy.

I’m at a precarious place, gestationally speaking.  I’m 25 weeks pregnant, which is a scary place for me.  If something happened and my baby were born today he would be in the position of a decent likelihood of survival, but also a decent likelihood of lifelong health problems stemming from prematurity.  Perhaps some people take comfort in crossing that threshold into “the baby could survive” territory, but I step onto a bed of pins a needles.  I will stay on those pins and needles until at least 34 or 35 weeks.

This past Sunday as I made my way through the NICU looking for fussy babies to soothe I came across two who were especially tiny.  Both were in incubators and under bili lights.  Due to HIPAA constraints I’m really not supposed to ask questions about patients unless it relates to my interaction with them.  But in these cases I couldn’t help myself.  I asked these babies’ respective nurses how old they were.  One was 2 weeks old, and born at 25 weeks.  The other was 4 days old and born at 27 weeks.  These babies should have been born a mere two weeks before mine, and yet they are here now.

Seeing these tiny creatures was strange – almost like looking into my own womb.  No matter how much you read about what your baby weighs at this point, or how long he is, or how he hasn’t filled out and his skin is wrinkled, it just isn’t the same as actually seeing a baby who looks a lot like yours would (or rather, does).  I feel big these days, but I know now that my baby is still small.  And on the days when I wish to fast forward to the end of the pregnancy I can remind myself that every day matters.  Every day that my baby kicks and squirms is a blessing.  No matter how much I want to meet this little boy, the unknown is better than the known.  No matter how much I miss my old jeans, big and pregnant is better than slim and not pregnant.  Because at this point, the alternative would be a nightmare.

I am on the cusp of my third trimester.  The coming weeks will bring heartburn, snoring, and an inability to tie my own shoes.  And I will be thankful for every discomfort I endure.

When my sister and I were little girls my parents made a concerted effort to throw us into a wide variety of social situations.  These included backyard barbecues, church potlucks, pre-theatre dinners before the opera, rodeos, and country club brunches.  Their intention – which worked – was to ensure that Anne and I were comfortable in any setting – that we would be neither daunted by formality, nor unable to relax and enjoy a more casual atmosphere.  It’s a strategy that GAP and I plan to replicate with our own children.

The lynchpin of this strategy, though, is exposure.  The only way a kid learns how to behave and acclimate to a formal restaurant is if you take them to one.  Or, rather, to several.  No number of at-home lessons on “start with the fork at the outside and work your way in” can match the exposure that the real experience provides.  As a parent you have to expect that your first foray into new territory – whether it’s with linen tablecloths or cowboys and bull riding – is going to be fraught with hiccups.  Kids acclimate quickly, but not typically without a few errant assumptions and awkward questions.  It’s just part of the learning experience.

With all of this in mind, I was disheartened to learn that a restaurant in Pennsylvania has banned all children under the age of six.  They claim that young children create excessive and uncontrollable noise that disturbs other customers.  I claim that they are intolerant and a bit too big for their britches.

As the mother of a toddler I know well the pitfalls of restaurant dining with a little kid in tow.  IEP is a pretty good restaurant patron, though we have certainly powered our way through a few meals that were interrupted for disciplinary trips outside.  In most of these moments few, if any, other diners were bothered because we took care to remove the tiny tyrant from the dining room and rectify the bad behavior someplace else.  Thankfully, we’ve never gotten so much as a cross look from a waiter or hostess.

So I wonder why this restaurant wasn’t willing to take a more individualized approach.  Why not address each family when a problem arises?  Why punish all families, even those with mannerly tots?

I have always found that it is the most upper-crust places that are the most tolerant of young kids.  Their approach is one of service which applies to all customers.  These establishments seem to pride themselves in playing a role in helping children learn how to behave in an environment that may be new and different, and I always appreciate that.

It’s hard to raise kids who know how to behave in public.  It’s a lot of work to expose them to different situations and teach them the social protocols for each.  Of course it’s easier to just stay home and order pizza (and there are plenty of nights when we do just that).  But trying to teach kids to know something a bit broader,  well, it’s not for the faint of heart.  We need all the help we can get.  And that’s exactly why news like this leaves me crestfallen.  If this particular decision becomes a trend (surely not!) we parents will be left with few options, and a generation of 10-year-olds who know only how to behave at Pizza Hut.

Every morning GAP gets up first.  The dogs follow him out of our bedroom, wait while he gets IEP from his crib, and then the lot of them go downstairs to kick off the day.  About 10 minutes later I roll out of bed, go through my morning oblutions, and join them in the sunroom.  This is how it works… unless I’m pregnant.  There’s one wrinkle in the routine when I’m pregnant, because Scout knows.

The morning routine has been the same for several years now.  So I found it curious during my first pregnancy when, near the end of my first trimester, Scout stopped going downstairs with GAP in the morning.  He would go across the hall to the study, lie down, and wait for me to get up.  When I emerged he would greet me eagerly, then lie back down and wait for me to get ready to head downstairs.  He did this every single morning until IEP was born.

This time around he’s been a little slower to realize that I’m pregnant, and a bit more inconsistent in his attentiveness.  I think it probably has something to do with his protective instincts toward IEP and the fact that he can’t be in two places at once.  But sometime in the past couple of weeks he figured it out, and most mornings I get out of bed to discover that he is either waiting for me in the study, or hasn’t even left the bedroom at all.

Apparently, while there is no scientific evidence of dogs’ ability to discern pregnancy, there is voluminous anecdotal support.  Dogs are keenly aware of our body language, routines, and scents.  And all of these things change to some extent during a pregnancy.

Scout is the best, sweetest, most obedient, and gentlest dog I’ve ever known (and I grew up with dogs).  When we have overnight company Scout doesn’t follow us upstairs at night, but goes down to the guest room in the basement and spends the night with our guests.  When he was about three years old he found a burrow of days-old baby bunnies in our yard.  He checked on them daily (we assumed he was after a furry snack), and when they were old enough to venture out of their hole he lay down on the patio, making himself as small as a hundred-pound dog can, and gently played with them, never once pouncing or snapping.  We have it on video.  At six months old IEP pulled on Scout’s cheeks and ears regularly and Scout just lay there.  He walks at your side without a leash.  And when I am pregnant he stays close, making sure that I’m okay.

Taking a step back, maybe it’s not all that amazing that dogs can sense pregnancy.  They are highly social animals and highly attuned to their masters.  But even after having him in our family for five years now, sometimes Scout still awes me.  GAP and I have long said that Scout is the best dog we’ll ever have.  Perhaps it’s because he was our first, but even setting that bias aside, it will be hard for any other dog to live up to the example he’s set.

Every morning, until Baby #2 is born, Scout will stick close by my side.  And I won’t take it for granted even for a moment.

We are supposed to be enlightened people by now.  We are a developed nation.  We have safe drinking water and women are allowed to drive cars.  We have an Equal Rights Ammendment.  And we’ve been through multiple iterations of the feminist movement.  So, why, then, do 40% of Americans prefer to have male children when only 26% perfer to have female children?

The article that informed me of this surprising imbalance also mentioned that Gallup has polled Americans on this topic since 1941 with little variation in the results.  The 2011 results were virtually identical to the results from 1947.  It goes into an exploration of international gender politics – India and Asia specifically.  But those biases don’t interest me nearly enough since there are deep rooted cultural preferences for boys that reach back centuries.  It is the disparity here in America where such prejudices shouldn’t be so socially acceptable that makes me wonder.

When I was pregnant with IEP I was reluctant to admit any gender preference.  As one of two sisters, had I been forced to choose I suppose I would have picked a daughter, merely because I was completely unfamiliar with anything to do with little boys.  It was definitely a weakly formed preference.  At the beginning of this pregnancy I found myself hugely ambivalent about the baby’s sex.  I have loved every truck, train, and football that was brought into my life via IEP, and another son would (and will!) mean even more of the boy-natured fun that has become so dear to me.  But a daughter would have been a whole new adventure – someone whose hair I could braid and whom I could have chatty lunch dates with as she got older.  There were exciting aspects to either outcome and I truly didn’t have a preference.

But clearly I’m in the minority here.  Sixty-six percent of Americans have a stated preference.  And I suppose it’s not surprising that so many people would have an opinion in the matter, as it is that those opinions are not more evenly distributed.  I don’t have particular insight into this little phenomenon.  I just find it curious and wonder if anyone else out there has ideas as to the provenance of this unwavering trend.

When I was pregnant with IEP I quite specifically did not want to know if he was a boy or a girl.  Not typically prone to sixth senses about things, I had the strong sensation throughout that pregnancy that I was not supposed to know.  I felt that my job was to focus on keeping myself and my baby healthy – getting rest and exercise and maintaining a balanced diet – and that knowing the sex would just be a distraction.  GAP (who probably would have opted to find out the sex) graciously indulged my desire to remain in the dark.  And so it was that it was in my delivery room that we first heard the words, “It’s a boy” (in a decidedly uncelebratory tone…).

Because my first pregnancy was routine throughout, textbook even, I was able to make the decision not to find out my baby’s sex very much about me and my desires.  This time around, it all went down differently.

In mid-May I went in for my 16-week prenatal appointment during which blood was drawn for my Quad Screen.  Four days later I got a phone call informing me that my test results indicated the baby had an elevated risk for Downs Syndrome.  Three days after that GAP and I met with a genetic counselor.  I had a detailed ultrasound looking for physical markers of Downs, the results of which were encouraging, but inconclusive.  We ultimately decided to have an amniocentesis done to determine with certainty whether or not our baby was healthy.  The whole ordeal was overwhelming, and stressful, and frightening.

The great thing about an amnio is that it is extraordinarily accurate.  The bad thing about an amnio is that the results take days to determine.  Our initial results (which looked specifically for Downs) took five days.  The full panel of results took more than a week.  In the five days between the time the amnio was performed and the time the initial results were given to us we: drove three hours to spend Memorial Day weekend with GAPs family, smiled extensively for professional pictures of the entire family (19 of us including six kids aged three and under), cried as we left IEP with his grandparents and drove three hours back home to leave for vacation, caught a delayed flight to Chicago, missed our connection to Dublin, spent 24 unplanned hours in Chicago waiting for the next Aer Lingus flight to Dublin, flew to Dublin, and drove to Belfast.  It was not exactly an easy few days.  And that is how it came to pass that we were standing on a street corner in Belfast when we got the genetic counselor’s phone call telling us that our baby is healthy.

We ducked into a mostly-empty bar to call our parents with the news.  GAP drank a pint of Smithwick’s and I drank a Coke.  We breathed a great sigh of relief, and continued our sightseeing knowing our baby was fine.

At this point we still didn’t know the sex.

Until my Quad Screen results came back, I had assumed that we would take the same approach to finding out the baby’s sex as we had the first time around.  I contemplated finding out for IEP’s sake, thinking that something as abstract as a pregnancy would be easier for a two-year-old to grasp if he knew whether he was getting a brother or a sister.  But since IEP is only beginning to understand that he himself is a boy I eventually settled back into my original philosophy – focus on having a healthy pregnancy.  The Downs Syndrome fears, however, changed my whole paradigm.

The decision which was once all about me and my idiosyncracies (again, because GAP had always left it up to me) was no longer about me, and all about the baby.  I decided that if the amnio results came back positive for Downs we would find out the sex; that in that situation I wouldn’t comfortable leaving any unknown hanging in the balance.  As I waited to have the amnio done and then waited again for the results this approach – this “I should find out everything I can about this baby” approach – seeped deep into every thought I had about the pregnancy.

Later that evening in Belfast we sat in a pub waiting to order dinner.  It was only 1:00pm at home.  A single phone call back to our genetic counselor was all it would take to find out the sex if we wanted to.  After days of hoping for the best but bracing for the worst most of my convictions about waiting to find out the baby’s sex had crumbled.  So when GAP said, “Oh let’s find out,” that was all it took for me to pick up the phone and call.

We are having another boy, and I couldn’t be happier.

As for my thoughts on finding out the sex, well, they are quite varied at this point.  Most of all, it feels weird knowing.  When you don’t find out the sex you’re always explaining yourself.  “Is it a boy or a girl?” people would ask.  “Oh, we didn’t find out.”  Then there was always an awkward pause where I was presumably supposed to justify that decision.  There is something about knowing the sex that makes conversations with people (especially strangers) much easier.

But beyond that bit of prenatal culture shock my dominant thought is that my opinions on the matter carry no weight outside of my own family.  I did what was right for me both times, and made a different decision each time.  If my own circumstances can sway my decision from one pregnancy to the next, who am I to weigh the merits of finding out for somebody else?  It is a highly personal decision, and unless it’s my own pregnancy it has nothing to do with me.  Thankfully, most of the time it is a fun decision that is not riddled with health concerns.  But rarely do we know the full story of another person’s pregnancy.  We don’t know what factors influenced her decision.  And frankly it’s none of our business.

My baby is healthy.  And truly, that is the only thing that matters.

Thank you all for your responses to Friday’s post.  I really appreciated your concern and advice.  In situations like these it’s hard to separate yourself from the issue at hand and get an objective grasp on whether or not you’re overreacting.  I did end up calling a non-emergency police number and requesting a welfare check at the address I had on file for Amy.  Unfortunately, she provided that address a couple of years ago and the current tenants have only been there since late last year.  So, it’s not a valid address for her anymore.  At this point I think there really is nothing left for me to do.  I’m hoping that it’s all been some huge misunderstanding and that we’ll get some good news soon, but that hasn’t happened yet.  I will certainly keep you all posted.  Now, for some lighter fare.

For the most part I don’t consider myself an impatient person.  However, every now and then I get anxious for something that is weeks or months or years away.  In these moments I try to remind myself of all the things in my life that have been worth the wait.  I’m feeling a little impatient about something lately, so I thought I’d go through this little exercise today.

1. A marriage proposal from GAP.
2. The ending of “The Grapes of Wrath.”
3. Our two-week vacation to Italy in 2006.
4. The release of the seventh Harry Potter book.
5. My first trip to New York (when I was 28).
6. The purchase of our first house.
7. The ending of “Gone with the Wind.”
8. Meeting my sister’s new baby (only a week after she was born, but it felt like much longer).
9. My first trip abroad (to the UK when I was 19).
10. The birth of IEP.

That last one is particularly salient to me right now, because it is another impending birth that has me eagerly anticipating the future.  To put a finer point on it, we are expecting our second child.  I’m about four months along now, and am due in early November.

In the first few months of a pregnancy the anticipation takes a back seat to many other feelings – exhaustion and nausea to name a couple.  But as I’ve started to feel more like myself, and as I’ve started to feel ever-so-tiny flutters, the abstract becomes tangible and my patience begins to wane.  Nevertheless, I don’t want to meet my baby a moment before we cross the threshold into November.  So in the meantime, I will have to be content with tiny kicks and blurry ultrasound images.

I know that a number of you who read this blog also used to read my sister’s writing over at Life in Pencil, so I wanted to let you know that over the weekend she delivered a beautiful baby girl.  She and her daughter are both healthy and happy and settling into life as a new family of three.  In that vein, today’s post is dedicated to her.

As a new mother you do the best that you can.  Sometimes you get it right.  But sometimes you don’t.  You try to call upon instincts you don’t have yet.  But don’t worry – you’ll get there.  And in the interim period until you find your way, here are the 10 things I wish I’d known when IEP was just days old:

1. When someone offers to hold the baby – whether it’s your husband, your mother-in-law, or your best friend – it’s okay to say, “Yes for the love of God please take this baby off my hands for 15 minutes.”
2. If, when someone offers/asks to hold the baby, you don’t want to hand her over just yet, it’s also okay to say, “Not right now.”
3. If you decide, at any given moment during your maternity leave, that the best way for you to spend the next hour is curled up in a club chair sniffing your baby’s head, then that is exactly what you should do.
4. At some point you will have a breakdown.  It might be because your baby won’t eat, or she won’t sleep, or your yoga pants are on backwards, or you burned your grilled cheese, or you haven’t showered in four days.  Whatever the reason, this too is okay.  Cry for as long as you need to.  And know that every mother in history has shared this breakdown with you.  No matter how alone you feel at that moment, you are not.
5. Everyone tells you to sleep when the baby sleeps.  If you can, you should.  But there will be times when you don’t because you need to feel like a regular person more than you need to sleep.  You may pay for it later, but forgive yourself.  You’ll power through it.
6. Have some sort of a system for keeping the hospital bills organized.  It will feel like they just keep coming and you don’t know when they’ll stop.  So keep track of what’s been billed, and negotiate the balances with the provider offices.  Ask for a 10% or 15% or 20% discount if you pay the bill in full.  If they don’t offer you a discount, ask for an interest free payment plan.
7. Your baby is crying because she is a baby.  It’s not anything you did.  It’s not because you held her this way or moved her arm or looked at her funny or had silent thoughts of exhaustion and bewilderment.  She is crying because she’s a baby and that is what babies do.
8. From roughly 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm babies turn into tiny banshees.  They cry for no reason.  (See #7)  You think that they will run out of reasons to cry, but they will not.  Pour yourself a glass of wine and tag team with your husband.  You’ll get through it.  (And if you’re nursing, you might up the frequency of your feedings from every three hours to every two.  Supply goes down in the evening and keeping their bellies full helps keep them happy.)
9. Eat sushi.  Or oysters on the half shell.  Or unpasteurized cheeses.  Or lunch meat.  Or mousse.  Or whatever else it is that you’ve been missing for nine months.  And pour yourself another glass of wine.  You’ve earned it.
10. And remember (in the words of one of my good friends), the worst case scenario is that you’re a mediocre parent.  And even a mediocre parent can raise a reasonably happy and well-adjusted kid.  So don’t be too hard on yourself.

Congratulations, Annie.  I’m so happy for you and so proud of you and I can’t wait to meet my tiniest niece later this week.  I love you!

You know what’s funny? Looking back and remembering how I thought that on Sunday I’d be able to make breakfast for my parents, teach my mom to use Skype, pack, drive 400 miles with a two-year-old, arrive home, unpack, eat dinner, catch up with GAP, and still have any of the mental prowess required to write a thought-provoking blog post. I’m really funny sometimes. At any rate, I apologize for being MIA on Monday and am happy to be back with you today.

I have yet to meet a parent whose approach to child rearing approximates this philosophy: “Eh, I’m not too worried. Whatever happens happens. I just want to have fun with my kid.” However, according to Bryan Caplan, economics professor at George Mason University, that’s exactly what we should be thinking.

His recent post on the Freakonomics blog, along with his article in the Wall Street Journal, examine new research on the net effect of all our parenting efforts. Citing a new study that examined forty years’ worth of parenting outcomes, he points out that, “Health, intelligence, happiness, success, character, values, appreciation – they all run in families. … Kids aren’t like clay that parents mold for life; they’re more like flexible plastic that responds to pressure, but returns to its original shape when the pressure is released.” Apparently our kids are who they are. If our genetics are solid and we turned out okay, we can expect roughly the same for them. Easy peasy.

Could this forever put to rest the nature vs. nurture debate? I doubt it.  (We seem to love that debate.) But it does bring to light some interesting questions about how and why we break our necks to raise perfect children. If our own genetic makeup sets our children on a particular course, then why do we fret over which preschool and which toddler tumbling class and how to shuttle our kids between slews of extra-curricular activities? Why do we stress ourselves out in power struggles over vegetables? Why do we worry about how much time our kids spend playing video games?

Perhaps it’s foolish of me (especially in the face of actual research), but I still contend that these things matter. We may not need to run ourselves ragged to the extent that we do, but we do need to set an example. Our kids learn from us. They learn how to eat a healthy diet, how to treat people, how to deal with anger and frustration, and how to cultivate themselves.

I suspect the research would tell me that my kids are going to pick up these things anyway, just by carrying my genes around in their DNA. Even people who give more credence to the nurture side of the equation would probably say that as long as I myself am eating a balanced diet, treating people fairly, dealing with anger and frustration appropriately, and engaging in personal development, then the kids will get it all anyway, and without a lot of extra meddling from me.  And apparently, whether or not they find their relationship with me happy and rewarding is the only longterm influence I have over their success.

This is why economics fascinates me. It forces us to confront our own irrationalities. (Confronting other people’s irrationalities is more fun, though.) Here I sit, reading two posts by someone who knows what he’s talking about and who is citing 40 years’ worth of conclusive research, and I still want to run myself into the ground as a parent even though I know at an academic level that it won’t make an iota of difference. Perhaps I am every bit as crazy as GAP has been telling me all these years.

Here’s the kicker for me, though: Caplan’s way sounds a lot more fun. It sounds much more enjoyable to just kick back with your kids and have a good time than to be on a nonstop mission to perfection. Granted I’m not of the persuasion to put my kid on the Ivy League track as a toddler (IEP is two and a half and hasn’t been enrolled in a single formal class). But I can sense that increased pressure is on the horizon. How will I handle it in preschool and kindergarten? How will I handle it in grade school and junior high? And how will I handle it in high school, when college and “the real world” are within view?

Obviously, I don’t know. But I will bookmark Caplan’s article to serve as a reference point, lest my own irrationalities get the better of me.