In this anxious inheritance from my mother and my grandmother, I’ve both under- and overcorrected. Most of what I provide to my kids is nurturance, care and a soft lap before bed. I have excellent paid help to address many of their practical needs. I indulge them a lot. They participate in zero extracurriculars and do not have great table manners.... See more

The more money you make, the less likely you are to place ‘being a parent’ at the center of your identity. Part of this probably has to do with the fact that middle and upper-income people are more likely to understand their identity  as  their job, but even that doesn’t fully explain this stat. Instead, I’d argue that bourgeois parents are more

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Raising children has come to look more and more like a business endeavor and less and less like an endeavor of the heart. We are overly concerned with “the bottom line,” with how our children “do” rather than with who our children “are.” We pour time, attention, and money into insuring their performance, consistently making it to their soccer game... See more