Parenting Surface Area and escaping tsunami-level wave pools: Shedding the rules, pressures, assumptions, and expectations that burden you as a parent (Pt. 2)
We have too many voices telling us too many things, about too many areas of parenting, creating too many requirements that are all too urgent.
The “Rules” we follow out of fear
I wrote the other day about how so many of us spend a great deal of energy and time in our parenting doing things that we feel pressured to do.
Essentially, we follow “rules” that are essentially generated by fear. Fear of not keeping up with others, fear of our kids being unsafe, fear of our kids not being happy or having friends or not having good outcomes, and so on.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
There was a quote from a New York Times piece I found illuminating, a reminder that: “…it’s important to recognize that a lot of the “rules” we live by are governed by fear of not keeping up….”1 and that we can choose which rules we want to live by.
That is easier said than done, of course, but it is possible.
I want to give a few examples, so it’s clear what I’m talking about, and then give some suggestions on how to resist this.
Let me start with some quick perspective for level-setting purposes.
My years of parenting started in 1994 and ended in June of this year when my youngest graduated from high school. So I have experienced first-hand, and a particularly struck by how this has evolved over time, and not in good ways.
As an educator, I have watched other parents grapple with this, and I think parents need to urgently take back control and be far, far, far less driven by the “rules”—the pressure to do certain things and avoid other things.
What I mean by “Rules” and where they come from
I am not talking about things like school rules or laws about child welfare.
Quite simply, we have too many voices telling us too many things, about too many areas, creating too many requirements that are all too urgent.
The kinds of things I am talking about are the collected, often unwritten, but very real pressures parents feel that they must conform to.
These come from assumptions, expectations, mandates, preferences, and imperatives we absorb from our culture about what it means to be a good parent. This happens in both the larger culture we inhabit, as well as the smaller cultures in which we live and spend our time, whether online or in person.
Of course, a lot of this pressure comes from a situation that can be good: we just simply know more than we used to and have more efficient ways of communicating that.
For example, we all want our children to be healthy now, as well as later in life. And, we are blessed to live in a time where we know so much more about good nutrition, sleep, physical activity, and so forth.
Good so far.
But you all know what comes next.
Lots and lots of voices that take this general goal and turn it into a huge list of “dos and donts” that will get very granular very quickly.
Eating healthy: a quick example
Eating healthy quickly goes from a general focus on nutrition to a whole list of things you must never allow your child to ingest and a whole list of things they must absolutely ingest.
And, to make it harder, this will evolve and change, and some information will be contradictory.
A lot of this, at least a lot of the initial stimulus and response, will start in the larger culture we all inhabit. However, you will likely encounter other parents in more local settings, smaller sub-cultures and communities, and these interactions may just enhance and amplify this process.
For example, your child might eat lunch next to another child who never eats anything that is not 100% organic, doesn’t eat sugar, and whose lunchbox and serving dishes are all made of unique materials that are guaranteed to never have had any chemicals in them.
You might be in charge of sending a snack for the soccer game and are surprised by the intensity that another parent displays about this.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea and have probably experienced this.
This is only one small example in one specific area. I could easily do a similar example for sun protection expectations, or sufficient educational achievement for college, or extracurricular activities, etc.
Think of all the areas we parents are expected or required to oversee, all the dimensions of parenting in which we must engage, all the choices we are responsible for making, all that we are supposed to know and understand and have opinions and knowledge about.
Let’s call this the surface area of parenting, and it has expanded greatly in recent years.
The Surface Area of Parenting: A backyard pool becomes a wave pool set constantly at maximum force and speed
Now, consider that the number of voices has also expanded. There are more areas a parent needs to consider and think about, and within each of those areas, there are more voices telling you what to do2.
This might run the gamut from a government agency, to a pediatric association, to researchers, authors, influencers, to opinionated parents or peers in your own circle.
With all the new media, we get all this input more often as well—and with greater urgency.
So now you have a greater surface area and an increased number of inputs commenting on that surface area.
It’s not only the quantity of rules that have mushroomed. The intensity behind these imperatives have also multiplied.
It feels that everything is critical and urgent and if you don’t do the right things, or do the wrong things, you will mess your kid up—or maybe contribute to the destruction of the world or other bad things.
This only gets worse and more heightened as so many things that used to be pretty routine take on a political valence, and we become more tribal politically, which adds another layer of shibboleths and imperatives, signaling and constant self-scrutiny.
It’s sort of like parenting used to be a backyard swimming pool but we have expanded it to be a giant wave pool where the settings are always on an maxed out and so you are constantly being hit by new tidal waves.
That’s what I mean by “rules.”
Does that all make sense?
I am going to write more next week, with some suggestions about how to help yourself break free of the “rules” that are not working for you, or that are simply causing too much stress.
Homework
But before doing that, I am going to ask you to think about a few things.
How big is your parenting surface area?
Does it truly need to be that big?
Are there areas you can trim?
Does that make you nervous? Why?
Do you need as many inputs as you have?
Are there voices that may not be necessary or helpful? See footnote 2 if you are struck by the irony or a parenting writer saying this.
How much do you feel pressured to do because of other people around you?
How much do you feel pressured to do or not do because of your political or cultural leanings and perceived or desired membership in a particular tribe?
How much do you feel you must do because there might be huge consequences for your child?
How many times do you feel heightened fight-or-flight, life-or-death feelings when you are making parenting choices. Note: I’m talking about your feelings, the sensations you have when making parenting choices, not if these are literally life-or-death.
Happy parenting—and if it’s not currently happy, hopefully we can help you break the rules that make it hard! You’ve got this.
Warmly,
Braden
Jessica Grose. “Efficiency Is an Ultimately Empty and Unattainable Life Goal.” The New York Times. July 5, 2025.
Yes! It’s ironic that a parenting writer who hopes you’ll subscribe to his newsletter is asking that. But helping parents be happy and successful is the most important thing and if my presence contributes to that, then great! But if that is better achieved by my absence, that is also important to the objective.