As a father, I have become half man half marshmallow. My two elder children inform me that I could be quite disciplinarian when they were being brought up – I even recall smacking them occasionally (something I cannot imagine doing now to my two younger daughters under any circumstances). But things have changed.
I have a partner who is, on the whole, more of a badass than I ever was (my first wife was even softer than I have become). Nowadays, it’s my wife who lays down the law, which I occasionally and disgracefully subvert by offering hugs, whispered consolations and covert eye-rolls.
To be fair to me, I am not the only one to have fallen into this habit. My wife usually offers swift consolation to Louise and Eva on the rare occasions I get my dander up. So diluted is my authority nowadays – so public the knowledge of my squidgy core – that the cry of chillax or something equally irritating usually comes from the mouth of my spouse the moment I try to assert my purely hypothetical edict. This is sound advice that I do not take often enough.
The reality is that the two of us are not that thing that the childcare books say we ought to be – united and consistent in the application of “tough love”.
We take separate views at separate times, and those views themselves may morph into different forms from day to day. We are liable to buckle under certain kinds of pressure. What I want to know is, does all this hardness/softness/consistency/inconsistency stuff really matter?
Children make very different personal sense of whatever gets dished out to them anyway – it will vary from child to child. And there are disadvantages to a united front. Some theories of depression point this out. If your parents take a combined and consistent view of everything, it can be somewhat intimidating to a child. It tells them essentially that there is only one view of the world that is accurate, and it isn’t theirs. Thus ineradicable guilt may ensue, as contrary views are not allowed and cannot be valid. A house divided at least demonstrates the fundamental truth that there is more than one way of seeing things.
If it is not necessary to always be unified, how about consistent? It’s an admirable goal, but show me a consistent human being and I’ll show you a robot. Adults, just like children, are given to caprices and fluctuations in attitudes, values and behaviour. One fully consistent parent, let alone two, strikes me as not only improbable but also unhelpful and vaguely inhuman.
In a strange way, I think we have got it about right. Our children, despite the fluctuations on the soft/hard continuum, and our patchy application of rules, are generally happy, secure, well-behaved, thoughtful, loving and well-adjusted kids – albeit of a variety who don’t tidy up their rooms or clear the kitchen as often as they might given a more exacting regime. And they are, on the whole, pretty cooperative, even obedient.
This suggests two possibilities. First, that to be brought up by flawed, off-the-cuff human beings is not such a disaster, so long as they are, at the core, loving and committed to their offspring’s wellbeing. The second possibility is more disturbing – that, short of outright abuse or neglect, it makes damn-all difference how you bring up your kids so long as they understand they are accepted and loved.
Yes, you can prepare them for life better by making sure they do their homework, eat decent food and learn basic social skills. But as for their personalities, they are determined by a combination of genes, peer groups and the private sense that each child makes of each event, every day. Be as tough, consistent and united as you like – but, in the absence of abuse or ill treatment, a child is stronger than its parents combined. I find that strangely reassuring.
