Parenting? Not My Job!

I’m lying beside my not-quite-asleep-yet-toddler late one night, and obsessing over all the things I still need to get done before I, too, can retire for the evening. The sink is full of dinner dishes, there are toys carpeting the living room floor, wet laundry that needs to be hung, and tax forms that should be filed tonight. Hoping he’s finally asleep, I try to gently extricate my arm from under his sleepy head, when pop! His eyes open. He asks for another song, more cuddles. Begrudgingly, I comply, but my inner dialogue is one of stress, impatience, and biting injustice. Shouldn’t this part of my day be over by now? Surely I deserve to clock out and get my own stuff done? Grumble grumble grrr.

This refrain of grievances is familiar to most parents, especially with younger kids. When do I get a break? What about ‘me time’? Of all jobs, parenting has the longest hours, the worst salary, and the toughest bosses. We joke about learning what multitasking really means, about acquiring new skill-sets, about developing the ability to handle any crisis. 

We call parenting the hardest job we ever had.

Indeed, parenting is a 24-hour responsibility. It is a tremendous amount of work. It can be exhausting, demanding, frustrating, and intensely challenging. It requires patience, dedication, and a constant eye on the long game. 

But parenting is not actually a job. And I want to propose that we do ourselves a disservice when we frame it as one.

Parenting as Work

Equating parenting to career employment is a paradigm that gained traction post-war, when women were being subtly snubbed from the work force, and gently evicted from the factories. To make room for the men returning from battle, women were lured away from employment aspirations, and enticed back into the home. But after building skills, earning promotions, and experiencing job-satisfaction and incomes, legions of Rosie-the-Riveters were understandably reluctant to be swept back into the lonely sphere of unpaid domestic servitude. And thus launched a massive media campaign of rebranding: running a home was now a Career. 

This sweeping paradigm redefined the humdrum tasks of home maintenance into esteemed subjects and skills: home economics, culinary science, decorating arts. The potential monotony was trumped by scholarly attention to details, with new school subjects instructing the proper way to store a vacuum cleaner, what order to best wash dishes, the art of organizing coupons, how to expertly match new pants to old shoes… Rules were invented, studied, required for passing exams (“Green on green must never be seen”, “No white after labour day”…). The rebranding effort was embraced by educational institutions, science, and all forms of media. Policies changed, fashions shifted, social mores all adjusted to accommodate this new balancing of gendered vocations.

But keeping a home spic and span, even using the most modern methods, women were still at risk of a certain ennui. The isolation of the domestic sphere and the repetitive nature of its duties could be deflating after the public recognition, pay-cheques, and camaraderie of the workplace. Which is possibly why parenting got re-packaged as the central tenet of the housewife’s new job description. Running the house wasn’t the professional goal of the house-wife; no, it was raising the children. Raising the children was the real job.

The Work Analogy

Towards the end of my first pregnancy, the company I worked for held a good-bye party for me. There were baby-shower type gifts, sparkly non-alcoholic beverages, and speeches. Some of the speeches talked about my work legacy, and how they would cope without me during my maternity leave, but most focused on my new “career” as a parent, drawing pithy parallels between the role I had at the company, and the demands of raising children. Placating clients, handling crises, managing employees–every example lent itself humourously and fittingly to my impending parenthood.

The notion of parenting as a job has certain obvious appeals: It breaks down an overwhelming life change into quantifiable skills. We believe we can be more prepared from classes on how to change diapers, manuals on how to feed babies, theories on how to potty-train, consultants on getting baby to sleep. We have books explaining or teaching almost every chore involved. 

Seen as a job, parenting becomes something one can get better at, something one can learn. In a capitalist ideology, it lends social legitimacy to staying home with one’s children. Like a job, parents can bemoan the long hours, the tyrannical personalities, the thankless tasks. Parents have a framework within which to reference the stringent demands of looking after children. We all understand hard work. Our society respects a tough job well done. The sidestepping from paid vocation into the less esteemed role of hausfrau, a potentially deflating shift, is conveniently cushioned by its construction as a simple career-change. It can now be an almost lateral move.

But however convenient the parallel, the definition of employment includes three fundamental aspects that simply do not apply to parenting. 

The first is income. While we might use the term ‘job’ loosely with regards to charity work or social obligations, we all understand that an actual ‘job’ pays money. We work to earn a living, or to contribute towards an income. On the other hand, barring meagre tax exemptions, there is no financial remuneration for parenting.

The second is that a job is finite. There are contours. Whether our employment is based on the work-week, an hourly rate, the terms of a contract, or a project, there are limits to the time frame we are expected to work. Built into our job description are weekends, evenings, holidays. Even the most arduous jobs encompass some understanding of work/life balance. Parenting, on the other hand, promises no such thing.

The third is that jobs are volitional. Even though jobs can be scarce or coveted, and acknowledging that we sometimes cling to one out of desperation, we can, ultimately, walk away if we truly want to or need to. We can choose which jobs we take, and at least theoretically, if it does not work out we can quit. As we know, this is not an option for a parent.

These three distinctions are obvious, and perhaps seem finicky, with a ‘job’ still offering the most apt analogy for parenting. But the implications involve more than splitting hairs. How we frame parenthood is fundamental to how we experience it. The work analogy, while fitting in many ways, leads us down a path of perpetual dissatisfaction. But more on that later.

If in doubt that we do consider parenting a kind of job, consider that in moments of uncertainty, parents most often seek to acquire skill sets, techniques, and methods for solutions. Picture babies who don’t sleep, toddlers who don’t listen, teenagers who don’t tidy… We read how-to books, we google strategies, we consult experts and trainers. We push this job-model of parenting within our pedagogies, too, teaching high school students by breaking parenthood down into a manageable to-do list of chores. Whether the assignment involves an egg, or a doll that cries when you put it down, the essence of parenthood is distilled to a point-form job description; a set of learnable duties. Prenatal classes, also, often focus on the how-to’s of parenthood: techniques for bathing, burping and diaper-changing, as well as flow-charts for how to swaddle or when to soothe.

Is Parenting a Job?

When I was a brand-new parent, I devoured parenting books. I read all the popular ones at the time, as well as a bunch of obscure ones various friends had recommended. I read internet articles, and I subscribed to three different magazines. What was I looking for? Tips, probably. Ideas on how to do things better, make it easier, more efficient. I wanted to know if I was doing things “right”. I sought water-cooler camaraderie; the comforting familiarity of story-sharing with kindred parents. And I wanted to know the latest research, the current data on which methods achieved what results. I wanted to do the best job I could do. 

I definitely ended up with a lot of information in my head, but did any of this contribute to my experience of parenting my children, or to my children’s experience of being parented? Does the work analogy help us, or our children, to navigate this epic venture we call parenthood? Is this paradigm necessary, and is it even functional? 

They both share the elements of tasks, expectations, accomplishments, and even rewards. They are both something you do all day. But I would suggest that the ways in which they differ are much too important for parenting and career to inhabit the same terminology. I think positing parenting as a job wrongly places the emphasis on a set of tasks, rather than on the fundamental crux of parenthood, which I would propose is not the work at all, but rather the relationship. 

The Parenting Relationship

My mother often tells me this story. I was only a couple weeks old, and her well-intentioned husband and in-laws thought her prospective mental health hinged on enjoying a baby-free night out. She was hesitant to leave me alone with a babysitter, so they offered to hire a professional nurse to look after me. She couldn’t think of any argument against this proposal, without it sounding like she was just making excuses. She didn’t want to be accused of being an overprotective or nervous mother. Her instinct was to stay with her baby, keep me close, but her sense of logic (and her family) insisted that surely a nurse knows how to look after a baby–if a nurse can’t do the job properly, who can? 

If parenting were merely a set of skills, this question would get a very different answer. But parenting is not a job. It’s a relationship.

A single glance at developmental psychology reveals that the hub of successful, or functional, parenting is attachment. “Attachment” is basically psych-speak for relationship, and it is the axle of human growth, the centre-point from which all development occurs. This probably can’t be overstated: None of the ‘how’s’ seem to matter much in the face of the overwhelming importance of attachment.

Children, after all, don’t care if their babysitter is a professional nurse. They don’t care if their guardian is an experienced parent, teaches a course on parenting, or has a PhD in the subject. What matters to the child, or baby, is whether they know the person, feel safe with the person, and can be themselves around the person. In other words, it’s not the skills. It’s the relationship.

Parents need to foster a relationship with their children, need to provide a solid and unwavering, secure attachment base, and need to exhibit joy and delight in their interactions with their children. When children feel adored, loved, safe, and gently guided, they thrive. 

Now, in the job context, this sounds laughably oppressive. You want me to get them to sleep, bathe them regularly, force feed them spinach, make sure they brush their teeth, AND I have to do it all while feigning delight and joy? It’s like being told to smile while juggling an anvil, a pin cushion, a jellyfish, and a live grenade.

But it’s different. 

Imagine that the focus, here, is not on the millions of duties included in parenthood, but rather the very concept of it. Seen this way, parenthood is not the sum of the tasks themselves, but the relationship between parent and children: the knowing each other, the talking, the laughing, the communication, the time spent together, the love. Seen this way, there are no failures at the end of a day. Whether or not your kid ate spinach or went to bed on time is no longer the pinnacle of your role, but only a small side effect. Just as your marriage or close friendships do not boil down to the many little tasks you might do as part of your conjoined lives.  

This is a drastically different paradigm than paid employment. With relationship being the primary homology, parenting cannot be segmented into an unending series of lists and obligations. Rather, it demotes the chores to mere by-products, rather than the main substance. No longer can parenting courses that teach diaper and bathing techniques be considered comprehensive preparation for becoming a parent. They lead us in entirely the wrong direction, and in fact, are barely relevant when stoking the love is the actual crux of the matter. 

Parenting Skills

Another problem with labeling parenting a job, is that with the employment model, we perceive parenting challenges as simply a dearth of skills. 

Imagine if, instead, we saw all these challenges within the context of a relationship. Instead of seeking applied strategies or tricks to fix our kids, we instead sought to mend or strengthen the relationship. It is easier for two people to find agreement when they’re in a state of attachment rather than a state of conflict. Picture how much easier it is to negotiate or to explain your reasoning with someone you feel is on your side, understands you, and has your back.

In a doctor’s waiting room with my second child, I flipped through some pamphlet on how to properly bathe a baby. I don’t know when it was published but it had a 1950’s aesthetic. It broke the task of bathing a baby into thirty neatly ordered steps, beginning with assembling a tray of tools worthy of a surgical team, and ending with a tidily swaddled baby tucked into a crib. It included nuggets like disinfecting the mother’s nipples with a cotton ball and sterilized water, instructions on the correct procedure to snap up baby pajamas, and how to efficiently hold baby to maximize digestion. This insane microscopic focus on an essentially uncomplicated task zaps any potential for parental instinct, and also any sense of pleasure or play that might otherwise be sparked (even though ironically, the pamphlet featured images of grinning mother and laughing baby). Bathing a baby can be fun for both parties, and there is nothing about it that requires study. The pamphlet’s pedantry hijacks any joy in the act, and instead reduces it to its most dry components, needlessly burdened by complicated rules.

Likewise it is easier to exert influence over a child during moments of love and connection. But more importantly, the status of the ‘task’ in question becomes less significant than the overall relationship. Baby won’t sleep? Toddler won’t listen? Maybe sleep and obedience are not the ultimate goals. Picture these as relationship issues, rather than a parenting job poorly done, and imagine the new possibilities, unencumbered by any possible notion of ‘failure’.

Consider the equivalent with a spouse. If a spouse won’t listen or leaves the room when you talk, I think we might see it as a relationship issue, rather than something to be solved with simple corrective steps from a magazine. Either way, when we see parenting through the relationship lens, the goal shifts away from being task-oriented: success is now about the human connection, not some short-lived accomplishment.

The Job Paradox

Another problem with the job analogy that’s a bit weird, is that when we use the employment model as our filter through which to understand parenting, we simultaneously become both worker and boss. 

On the one hand, we make the fateful mistake of seeing our children as our employees, expecting them to follow orders, thinking that they’re supposed to do what we say without questioning, or even without emerging as individuals with separate wishes and aspirations. But paradoxically, at the same time, we see ourselves as the employees, forever working for these little tyrants, who demand crust-free sandwiches, scatter their lego on the stairs, stay up ‘til all hours, and never fold their own laundry.

This model is misleading in both cases. 

Children are not our employees. Their brains are not wired for spontaneous obedience. They are supposed to question, to individuate, to learn, to grow. They naturally resist someone else’s agenda being imposed on them, just as we would. Besides, a successful day at the “office” is not measurable by micro-success moments of obedience. 

If we use a relationship analogy instead, imagine how ornery we would get if our partners or friends ordered us around all the time without preamble. No one likes to be unceremoniously bossed, and of course that includes our children. Instead, we all like to receive instructions within the context of connection, when we feel understood and appreciated. When children are feeling connected to their parents, they are more receptive to our guidance. To quote Dr. Gordon Neufeld, children are easier to parent when we have their heart.

Conversely, when we see ourselves as the employees, and our poor kids as the ones in charge, we turn the relationship upside down. Children do have needs, yes, a great many! And meeting their needs does keep us on our toes. It is challenging, and it is tiring. But if we ever let that show, if we reveal that we resent looking after our children, they feel wounded and confused and guilty. And this usually expresses itself as rejection towards us. If you’re getting “I don’t care”’s and “whatever”’s from your child, consider whether you let slip that you had better things to do than look after them. 

Again, to shift the analogy from work to relationship: who wouldn’t be hurt if their spouse or friend said “I’ve already spent an hour with you, now I have more important things to do”? In the context of work, tallying up the hours spent reading or rocking, and then expecting a break makes perfect sense. But in the context of relationship, time together is the whole point; clock-punching is an insult. It grossly undermines the very principles of relationship.

When my three children were roughly three, six, and nine, I found an art class that they could all do together. I remember the elation when I realized I would actually get a break! For two hours, once a week, I would get time off: time to go for a run, or have a coffee, or read my book. The prospect was thrilling, and I found myself telling anybody who would listen that this would be my first real, regular break in almost ten years. All parents need re-charge time. But please don’t tell the kids.

Children should never think we need a ‘break’ from them. This can be deeply wounding and can negatively affect the parent/child relationship. Ideally our kids should never sense our own longings for independence, our fatigue, or our boredom. These feelings are normal, obviously, and every parent has them. But just as it would be hurtful to make our spouses or close friends feel like they’re a burden to us, so too must we protect our children from this dismal reality of parenting. You don’t have to hide your tiredness, but please blame the laundry or the tax season, and allow your children to feel that they are the rays of sunshine in your dreary day. Our children should not feel that we are merely ticking them off our chore list. On the contrary, they need to feel like we value every minute we spend together. As much as possible, they need to feel cherished and adored.

Redefining Parenting

My partner is a gifted musician. He knows he could have pursued a career in music, but he purposefully chose not to. He loves to compose, to play; he can lose hours letting the music roam through his fingers. But he never wanted it to become an obligation. He never wanted to resent his guitar. He could imagine that if it was a job, he might find himself avoiding playing. He didn’t want to risk compromising the deep pleasure, the creative release, the relaxation and satisfaction that music brings him. He didn’t want to ever sour the joy he gets from making music. In short, he didn’t want to turn the relationship into a job. And this brings us back to the potential dissatisfaction I mentioned earlier.

When we defer to an ideological model of parenting as a job, we fail to appreciate its most central axiom. This misleading construction diverts us dangerously off course, creating actual difficulties in raising our children. With the job model, we aim for unachievable standards, we endure thankless tasks, we see unappreciated labour and a nagging failure at ever getting anywhere. We see our children as things that need to be managed, work that needs to be accomplished, deadlines that need to be kept. 

The difference is partly perceptual. The shift from wanting to, versus having to, changes the nature of the experience. I loved–adored!–reading books until I was in graduate school. Having to read with a deadline, and with an added emphasis on focus and retention, completely altered the carefree escape that reading hitherto provided. What I thought would be a dream situation–having to do nothing but read books all day–was more stressful, fraught, and unpleasant than I ever would have imagined. 

When we see parenting as a job, when we perceive spending time with our children as something we are contractually obliged to do, when we frame parenting in terms of shifts and breaks, the effect is damaging to our ability to enjoy it. We are effectively imposing a context in which ‘carefree escape’ is impossible, eclipsed as it is by a sense of being on the clock. This model, as I mentioned, channels us into a rut of inevitable dissatisfaction. 

With the job paradigm, we think being more organized, or having more time, or having more experience, has anything to do with it. We attribute ‘expertise’ to other people who don’t even know our kids. We live for breaks, for time-off. The whole parenting gig becomes something we strive to master in a way that will never be possible, because we have misunderstood its very foundation. We end up in a state of perpetual malcontentment, a cognitive dissonance in which the model can never fit the experience.

Paradigm Shift

Think of how it feels to be paid to babysit someone, versus how it feels to hang out with someone for pure pleasure. Would you choose to spend your leisure time with people you usually get paid to tend? How would you feel about your close friend if you got offered an hourly rate to be with them?

If we can shift our idea of parenting to being a relationship, one that cannot be understood as a summary of chores or skills–at least no more so than a marriage or friendship–then we are able to get closer to relaxing into it in a satisfying way. We can enjoy people with whom we are in relationship with more unaffected ease than people with whose care we are charged. Spending time with someone because we want to, rather than because we have to, fundamentally changes the nature of that time. 

I would propose that parenting is easier, more carefree, more enjoyable, if we don’t believe we have to achieve anything, and if we don’t see it as something anyone can be ‘good’ at. 

If we focus on the family aspect of our children, on the bond, then the tasks become a mere footnote–a by-product of family life–much as the dishes are not the central aspect of any marriage. At least I hope not. Think of how deeply disappointing a marriage would be if we saw it that way: how trivializing that would be to the nature of a deep, lasting relationship based on trust, respect, and growth. And then consider what a disservice we do to the amazing potential–the joy, the wonder, the emergence–in the relationships inherent to having children, when we think of parenting as being a job. We might agree that marriage can take work, but we would be sorely remiss to define it entirely AS work. So too with parenthood. There is lots of work involved–no argument about that–but it is not, in itself, a job.

The distinction may be subtle. Thinking of parenthood differently does not take away the many, menial tasks it entails, it does not buy us more free time, obedience, or sleep. Objectively, this perspective shift changes nothing, but subjectively it changes everything. It gets us thinking of all those tasks and goals a little differently, so that they fade into lesser importance within a bigger and better picture. Just maybe we would feel less burdened by meeting our children’s needs if we saw it all as nurturing a relationship, rather than performing repetetive tasks. 

For the record, I have to correct my inner compass many times a day, whenever I notice myself slipping back into the job frame of mind. Moments of impatience, frustration, and irritation seem to congregate around the job-model: leaving the house on time, getting kids to bed, getting kids to eat vegetables… But whenever I’m able to shift my perspective, just slightly, to nudge my sense of my own role in the situation from task-master to relationship-participant, I find it subtly alters my agenda just enough that I can step back and see the moment differently. The frustration might still prevail, but it is no longer inevitable. And now, humour and connection, although not guaranteed, are actually possible.

Besides, no one is good at parenting if we see it as a job. We are all doomed to feel like failures. Every single day. By it’s very nature, the “job” of parenthood is endless and thankless.

So although it offers tempting parallels, I propose we shift parenting from venture to adventure, and utterly reject the model of parenting as career, reconstructing it instead as a relationship. We can give our all to relationships, knowing that they offer intangible rewards and indefinable joy. Our children deserve this approach, and frankly, so do we parents. Parenthood is the worst job in the world, but can also be the most rewarding relationship.

Stephanie Ondrack is a retired birth doula (or maybe on an extended sabbatical) and has been with The Childbearing Society since 2003. She lives in East Van with one partner, four kids, four chickens, and five cats. You can read more of her rants on birth, parenting, and learning at www.thesmallsteph.com