All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood

Playful parenting is so much more than just getting down on the floor and ‘playing’; it’s an approach to everyday interactions with children which can help with the hardest parts of parenting — arguments, big emotions, anxiety — and bring more joy into every part of our life. It can help us to reconsider what it means to be a parent, and allow us t

To be a father in more than a biological sense—to make fatherhood an integral part of my identity, to care about my child in an active and passionate sense—requires that I sustain an existential, life-defining commitment to my child. This is why parenthood can be such a transformative event, reorienting my deepest relation to the world, making life

Most parents love their children, and it would seem terrible to admit that you would be better off if someone you loved didn’t exist. More than that, you genuinely prefer a world with your kids in it. This can put parents in the interesting predicament of desiring a state that doesn’t make them as happy as the alternative.

Parenting is enlivening but it is also exhausting; for parents it can be difficult to disentangle exhilaration from enervation.