Choosing Better Parenting Fears & Other Lessons From Halloween
Why we need to break the rules, the sociological role of Halloween, and picking better parenting fears
Hello, good people! I hope you had a spooctacular Halloween! Yes, that was the single cheesiest dad pun I’ve ever used and, yet, it felt awesome. Isn’t the best thing about getting older that you get better at not taking yourself seriously?
Anyway, we will stay with this Halloween theme today to highlight a few important points…
Halloween Reminds Us What Communities Are Supposed to Be
A few years ago a storm came through and knocked down a few giant trees and branches in my neighborhood. Throughout the following day, everyone came outside and checked on their neighbors. We helped each other, talked, laughed, introduced ourselves, etc. I was struck by the sense that this was what a neighborhood was supposed to be. I get that same feeling again every Halloween. We humans are a social species. You need community to thrive and so do your kids.
We Need to Break the Rules, Occasionally
I’m all about beating the “discipline” drum. We live in a world of hypernormal stimuli and dysfunctional norms which can hook us in self-destructive patterns. And our culture usually just exacerbates these issues by making dependency seem normal. I believe we have to make culture the answer, rather than the problem.
Discipline is an essential capacity to develop in order for us to live better lives. But discipline isn’t the end goal—living better is. I don’t believe in puritanism. I don’t believe in denying all pleasure or pretending everything is bad. In fact, most great cultures and great religious teachers have seen the wisdom in occasionally laughing at what appears sacred or letting the old werewolf out for a big lunch.
Legend has it that when St. Francis of Assisi heard that the people of Assisi were calling him a saint, he walked through Assisi in his underwear in order to remind everyone not to take him too seriously. Similarly, according to Charles Eisenstein, the fundamental social function of the festival, throughout history, has been to suspend the typical norms, rules, and social distinctions so as to strengthen the community and remind people of the purpose behind their norms. Halloween is a perfect example of this! All Hallows’ Eve is the Eve before All Saints Day—traditionally, a night to remember those who have departed and to behave as if the spirits were especially active. This became a day to celebrate the supernatural, abnormal, and unknown—to dress up like witches, wizards, ghouls, goblins, and Buzz Lightyear, and to spend a day knocking on neighbors’ doors to ask for sweets.
I’d just note that for this sort of thing to really be special, eating tons of sugar and candy should be a deviation from the norm, rather than the chief characteristic of American childhood.
Razor Blades in Your Apples and Other Examples of Picking the Wrong Fears
My favorite part of Halloween is seeing kids look more alive and mischievous (more like kids should look). I can still feel the joy I felt this past weekend as I watched a mass of kids running away from an adult-led trunk-or-treat and towards the playgrounds. None asked permission. It just happened in a beautiful, spontaneous way. The kids somehow sensed that they were freed from the normal rules.
As much as I believe in discipline and strong community norms, what I’m most scared of as a parent today is that our kids are losing that thirst for exploration and life that once defined youth. I fear that poor health, learned fragility, and the lobotomizing effect of the screen will shackle our children, leading them to passive lives of dependency and fragility.
I begin my book by recalling the horror I felt one morning as I rode my bike past a group of high-schoolers waiting on their bus. Each sat on the curb silently, head tilted lazily, thumbs scrolling, and with that zombie-esque facial expression we all know too well.
Shortly after, I put this scene into the context of our moment:
…iGen, born between 1995 and 2012, displays a radical decline in independence. Today’s high-schoolers are less likely to date, drink, sneak out, drive, or begin working at age 16. And this was true well before COVID-19, when students became even more acclimated to living inside their bedrooms.
We’re seeing a generation that is simply losing the desire to do anything, much less become self-sufficient adults. They are fine staying home and scrolling social media while parents meet all their needs. The result is that they are physically safer, while in far worse mental and physical health.
In chapter four, I get into The Danger of Overprotection, where I discuss the misguided calculus that leads parents to smother their kids in supervision and to prefer them sedated by a screen to active and exploring.
This culture of parental over-protection took root in the early 1980’s with the birth of cable news networks that had to compete to maintain viewers all day. Nothing steals attention quite like sensational (and highly unlikely) stories of children being harmed. Suddenly, parents were convinced that abductors lurked on every corner and that people were passing out apples with razors in them.
The point is, we all want our children to avoid major disasters and we all have a few close calls that fuel our over-protective instincts. But the far more common and likely threats are actually those that are caused by parental over-protection.
I talk about overprotective parenting, but that idea is fueled by my own parental fears. I’m a paranoid parent too. It’s just that I have different values (and different fears) that reign supreme.
What Scares Me
What scares most parents isn’t what scares me. Or, to be more accurate, other fears scare me far more.
What scares me is that my kids could grow up plagued by these too common afflictions:
A sense of fragility: the unwillingness to choose the experiences that spur growth, that fill life with passion, and that open up new possibilities. This could be a move, a career path, a relationship, or even to try things like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu when they get older. Fragile people allow themselves access to less of life.
Selfishness. This naturally extends from fragility. When you are always afraid of being shattered, you can only think of yourself.
Addiction to distraction, passive entertainment, sweets, and other hypernormal temptations where a once productive biological impulse is manipulated to create self-destructive behavioral patterns.
Materialism: the culturally dominant sense that identity, self-worth, and happiness lies in things. To seek things to make them happy, rather than seeking impact and self-cultivation.
Superficial thinking: the tendency to seek simplistic answers that make them feel like they have it all figured out, rather than do the hard work of truth-seeking.
Being easily duped: living with an unrefined BS radar that leaves them more susceptible to marketer manipulation and group-think.
Prolonged narcissism: the tendency to never get past that sense that you are the center of the world.
Entitlement and self-fulfilling victimhood: the expectation that others take responsibility for their life and the requisite disempowerment and self pity that comes from that inclination.
Fixed mindset: A sense that they can not work to improve their capacity and their position.
A lack of physical vitality: to lose or never develop the joy of moving with physical vigor and the empowerment that comes from feeling physically capable.
Fear of competition, pain, and failure.
When you define the values that matter most, overprotection, like many other parenting norms, is no longer a viable option. This comes down to clarifying a sense of the type of person you want your children to become.
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Thank you for reading and sharing with any kindred spirits you think would enjoy!
And Happy November! My favorite month of the year!
Life is too short to be normal,
Shane