Parenting

Thoughts on Buttons and Shoelaces and Care

What if learning to give and receive help mattered more than anything?

Photo by Kevin Gent on Unsplash

Listen to "Thoughts on Buttons and Shoelaces and Care"

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“Open. Go slow. Go
wholly—
and remember, with all of you,
remember:
tenderness is not brokenness.
A tender thing is not a broken thing.”

~Joseph Fasano

As I was walking down my block toward home this past week, I passed by two women walking together. One of the more interesting facets of New York life is the little snippets of stranger’s conversations we catch in passing, as we slip by one another on the sidewalk or stand shoulder to shoulder on the subway. Just as I moved by them, I heard one of the women exclaim to the other, “They aren’t even learning to put on their own coats and tie their shoes!”

I suppressed a preschool teacher giggle, as I continued down the block. I have spent so many hours buttoning, zipping, shoe-tying and also teaching children how to do these little daily tasks themselves. (I dare you to ask my opinion on the “flip trick.”) So, I understand very concretely why it is important for children to develop these seemingly mundane skills, not only for the practical competencies they foster, but also for the flush of pride, confidence, and agency that flashes in a child’s eyes when they realize they’ve mastered something that had to be done for them just yesterday. However, I could also hear an edge in the woman’s voice that I recognized as an irritated dig at “kids these days” or perhaps “parents these days.” While this impulse is probably inevitable to a degree—finding fault with the generations behind us is a very specific and consistent feature of aging—I think we should resist the temptation.

This impulse isn’t just an individual one. It’s often at the collective, cultural level that we become convinced each generation is somehow more problematic or failing in specific ways that contrast with our own. In criticizing children, or the way they are being raised by parents who are younger than we are, we bolster our view of our own generation as superior in wisdom, ability, or wellbeing. Society offers many ways to feel less good about ourselves as we age, so perhaps this is the unavoidable defensive stance. And there are certainly also legitimate reasons to be concerned about children and afraid for their futures. But I’d like to tell you, with my whole preschool teacher voice, that my worries for children have nothing to do with their ability to zip their own coats or tie their own shoes.

On this particular day, though, in addition to being amused and mildly annoyed by the familiar criticism of kids and their parents—who it is always worth noting are increasingly overworked and under-supported in managing the obligations of childcare—my mind also went to a recent article, which highlighted a set of studies showing that kids are more empathetic, inclusive, and capable of self-regulation than in the past. This runs counter to much of the media narrative about loneliness, isolation, screen addiction, and mental health challenges among kids.

I think there is probably truth to both stories. Children are surely carrying a lot of heavy emotional weight today. There are plenty of things for kids to be legitimately frightened of or angry about, and plenty of causes for feelings of isolation. But, in the context of a familiar critique about children’s independence, I find the evidence that they may actually be more caring especially notable. And I wonder if this contrast is evidence of the tension that often exists, particularly in American culture, between the value of self-sufficiency and the value of interdependence.

As science journalist, Melinda Wenner Moyer, notes in the article,

“Studies suggest youths are more empathetic and less narcissistic than in the past, as well as more open-minded and inclusive. Drug use is down, youth violence has dropped and teen pregnancies have declined. IQs have gone up, and kids exhibit more self-restraint and patience than they did 50 years ago.”

Moyer goes on to explain that researchers posit the most likely cause for these trends is a shift in parenting, along with schools placing a greater focus on emotional awareness, empathy, inclusivity, and self-regulation. In education, a 2000 report, From Neurons to Neighborhoods, which integrated research across multiple fields, shed national light on the importance of developing children’s emotional and interpersonal competencies early in life. This report appears to have led to an increased focus on developing these dispositions in early childhood and elementary school classrooms over the following decades. Additionally, there is evidence that parenting has changed in tone and focus. Moyer describes studies in both the US and Sweden showing that,

“...Parents today are less controlling and harsh, that they treat their children with more respect and that they tolerate their children’s feelings more than parents did in the past.”

Thinking back to the observation that children might be a little slower to develop self-help skills than they were a generation or two ago, perhaps there is a slight trade-off between focusing more on fostering empathy and less on self-help. After all, teaching care is primarily about modeling kindness, rather than insisting that we all need to do everything on our own all the time.

I’m confident that children will still learn to accomplish the basic tasks of daily life for several reasons. First, I spend a lot of time in classrooms and teachers are definitely still helping children practice these basic skills, even as they teach children to understand their feelings and cooperate with others. Second, we all learn to do these things eventually, as a result of both impatience—it’s tedious to have to wait for an assist with every basic skill—and the drive for personal agency, which is central to children’s most basic developmental motivations. And third, because cross-cultural research has shown that independence and interdependence don’t actually need to be pitted against one another so starkly. In cultures that prize interdependence, for example, it can actually be easier for children to be autonomous, because it’s more possible to take individual risks within a network of community care.

However, even if these individual skills do develop a little less efficiently or with a little less pressure as a result of greater emphasis on empathy, I for one am willing to accept these slight delays in practical competence as a worthwhile trade-off for an increase in compassion, emotional intelligence, and a willingness to both accept and offer care. These skills are not nearly as guaranteed as the ability to zip our coats and tie our shoes but surely they are vital.

I also think we could all benefit from viewing these skills with a less strictly linear mindset. Self-sufficiency is a murky business. There are times in our lives, at every point in the long developmental arc, when we have greater capacity for independence and times when we have a deeper need for care. Whether due to the evolving circumstances of our lives, the natural ebb and flow of ability as we age, or the specific qualities of our varied relationships, our need and desire for care and our ability to do things on our own is not as tidy as we’d often like to think.

To take the very simple example of putting on a coat, teachers often feel slightly exasperated when they’ve spent many hours over many days of repetition helping children learn to manage getting their arms into the sleeves and mastering the zipper, only to see a parent, at the end of the school day, do all these things for their child. But I’ve always cautioned teachers to keep the specific texture of the relationship, as well as the time of day, in mind and reserve judgement. After all, don’t we all crave more help when we’re exhausted and drained, as children often are by the end of the school day? And don’t we all sometimes long for extra layers of care from those whose love and affection we feel most assured? One of the precious things about the most intimate relationships in our lives, as adults or as children, is that we feel more able to let our guard down and accept help within the embrace of these bonds. Isn’t there something particularly grounding and reassuring about having someone who cares about you meet a need you could easily have met on your own?

Think about the relief you feel, even as an adult, when you’re at a low moment, and someone says, “Let me make you some tea,” or “How about I drive?,” or “I know you’ll be fine, but I’ll come along anyway.” Aren’t children entitled to this same understanding? And isn’t modeling these gestures when they are young central to how we teach children to become adults who are generous in offering help and capable of accepting it?

When I was still teaching in my own preschool classroom, almost all the class jobs included the word “helper.” There were snack helpers and book helpers and lunch box helpers and fish helpers, just to name a few. There were also the “special friends,” a rotating job in which two children each week would hold elevated responsibility for caring for others, whether escorting a friend to the nurses' office or assisting with finding a solution to a tricky block-building dispute. They were a sort of preschool ombudsman.

The point of all of this was to establish an environment in which the default assumption was that we were all there to try to help each other, and that collective responsibility is almost always better than holding the weight of every task on your own. The children always learned to put on their coats and tie their shoes, and even to load the dishwasher with the cups and plates after snack. But they also learned to look out for each other and to lend a hand. They learned that if they were sad or frustrated or overwhelmed, it wasn’t only the teacher who was there to help, but everyone. Seeing one child help another in a difficult moment always felt like evidence of a far more important lesson learned than seeing a child accomplish that same task on their own.

I think we could all stand to be more tolerant of the inevitable moments in life when independent capacity falters. Even when we are capable of doing things for ourselves, it is worth recognizing the deep value in feeling that we don’t always have to.

As the poet, Danusha Lameris, reminds us,

“We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

Wishing you the compassion to offer help unbidden and the grace to accept it from others,

Alicia

P.S. A personal note...

As readers who have been here for a while may remember, I moved Notes on Hope off of Substack last year. Every new story that comes out about Substack makes me feel more committed to this decision, including last week when Subtack promoted Andrew Tate’s newsletter as one of their top-ranking publications. This promotion was especially disturbing to me as a mom to a teen—the audience Tate preys upon most aggressively. I don’t want Notes on Hope to have any part in elevating or sponsoring voices like his, even indirectly.

That said, it has definitely been harder for new readers to find Notes on Hope since moving to Ghost, a nonprofit platform without the built-in discovery features of Substack. So, here’s my ask. If you read Notes on Hope and feel it adds value to your life, I’d be delighted if you’d consider sharing it, either by forwarding to a friend or sharing on your own social media feeds.

I usually don’t focus much on subscriber and follower counts. That’s not why I write. But when people like Tate draw massive attention, I think we have an obligation to work to build more powerful counter narratives. Let’s drown out these predatory voices with a flood of hope and care. 💚

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A few things I found helpful and hopeful this week…