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Jan. 30, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
20:32
1571 Philosophical Parenting - Part Two - Freedomain Radio

The plan for philosophical parenting, and the results so far - what I admire about my daughter.

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This is Philosophical Parenting 2.
One of the things that I find really moving and powerful about being a parent is the degree to which I am not superior to my daughter.
I think that's really, really important.
If you look at parenting as, I am bigger, stronger, smarter, faster, and all that, then I think it's going to be a little bit ego-based.
You can start to invest your ego in being stronger and smarter and Wiser and all that than your kid.
And I think that not only decays the mutuality that is required for a respectful relationship.
In other words, we both have things of value to bring.
But I think it's easy then to get even unconsciously ego invested in that position and thus having some sort of resistance to your child's growth because it, you know, overturns that ego gratification.
The one thing I can say with absolute complete certainty Something I will say with complete and absolute certainty is that I admire my daughter enormously, just enormously.
I admire and I respect her, and she has an enormous amount to teach me.
I'll just give you a simple example, and there's many, many more, but this is a simple example.
So, she started to walk at around 11 and a bit months, 11 and a half, I think.
And she fell all the time.
She fell all the time. All the time.
And yet, she did not escalate in frustration.
And even now, she doesn't.
She's now starting to learn how to run.
And so, she's falling more than when she was just walking and stabilizing herself there.
And every time she falls, and it is, you know, dozens of times a day, every time she falls, she props herself back on her legs, gets up, and keeps walking.
There is no escalation of frustration.
I know that's not because she has no memory of past and future, because if she did have no memory of past and future, we wouldn't teach her one word one day and she'd remember it the next day.
So she has a memory.
She has things that imprint upon her.
But she does not escalate in frustration.
Do you know what an amazing thing that is to watch and to absorb?
That she tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails and very, it's not even patiently.
It's not even she's like fighting the frustration.
She just gets up and tries again.
She gets up and tries again. Now, I have seen her when she is frustrated, like when she wants something that I can't give to her and I don't immediately have something with which to distract her.
I have seen it when she is frustrated, so I really do know the difference.
I know she's certainly capable of feeling and expressing frustration.
But when it comes to learning to walk, I mean, imagine if you spent months trying to learn how to play tennis and you hit the ball more often than you connected.
Wouldn't you just become mad with frustration after a while?
I mean, that would certainly be something I'd be damn tempted with if not actually succumbed to.
But she doesn't.
And that is an amazing, amazing, amazing thing.
She greets each day with joy and happiness and enthusiasm.
She sees something new. The first thing she wants to do is figure it out.
She's a little bit past the eating phase, but she wants to figure something out.
And that's something that is very exciting.
She lives without fear. She lives in an environment without fear.
And it's one of the reasons why she doesn't have frustration, right?
She's not absorbing frustration from those around her.
So she does not escalate in frustration when continually failing at something, trying and failing at something.
She's very incredibly enthusiastic about new things, always wants to try and figure things out.
She is amazingly sensitive emotionally.
She is staggeringly bright.
I'm sure every parent says that, but I'm going to say it anyway.
She's staggeringly bright, figures things out really quickly, observes and notices things very quickly, integrates new things amazingly quickly.
And I admire that.
My God, if I could have the expansion of her brain for 10 days, I mean, my God, I would leave my existing self in the dust intellectually.
We'd all be geniuses if we could get the brain growth of a baby for 10 days.
And so, I really admire that.
I really, really admire her assertiveness.
That is something that it's not aggressive, it's not impatient, it's not invasive, it just is what it is.
If she wants something, if she wants to be held, and I try to put her down, she will lift her legs up.
And if I want to move her, and she's standing somewhere, and she doesn't want to be moved, she will just sit down.
She gets all gandhi.
And that's an amazing and beautiful thing to see, that level of just assertiveness, without invasiveness, without aggression, without any of those things.
Just plain assertiveness.
This is what I want. I'm going to communicate it to you.
Her level of emotional communication, as I mentioned in the last cast, is just amazing and wonderful and magnificent.
And, I mean, I could go on and on, but I think it's really important as a parent to figure out what you have to learn from your child.
And that doesn't mean that your child is going to be sort of actively teaching you, but what can you absorb?
What lessons can you learn from your child about patience, about curiosity, about enthusiasm, about affection, about openness, about honesty, about assertiveness?
What lessons can you learn?
I mean, I had an unbelievably smashed up childhood, and so for me, seeing what is possible with genuinely healthy development is eye-opening.
I mean, the experiment is working far better than I even conceived, because I conceived...
Thank you.
So, I think it's really important to find things that you admire about your child, find things that you can learn from your child.
And trust me, there are countless things that you have to admire and to learn from your child.
And if there aren't, then I would say that it probably reflects on the quality of your parenting, right?
It means that, like, if your child has no assertiveness, it's because I think you've broken that assertiveness and you may need to go back and you should go back and repair that as best you can.
I really... The way her face lights up, the openness of her mighty heart, all of those things are just fantastic.
Fantastic. The fact that she can take great delight in everyday moments, going to the grocery store, it's like Disneyland for her.
It's an adventure. Can I make it exactly like Disneyland for me?
Well, no. But, but...
I can look through these new eyes and see the world anew to some degree.
And so she's teaching me a lot about really enjoying...
You know, look at a...
I mean, when we go to the fruit section, she's just a cog.
And then I look at it through her eyes and I see mountains of multicolored nutritional devices.
I mean, these Himalayas of kaleidoscopic nutrition.
It's fantastic. I mean, so to see the beauty in...
The corner of the store where the fruits and the vegetables are.
To see that beauty is fantastic.
When she sees a container, a food container or whatever, with a picture of a baby on it, she's very enthusiastic about the baby.
And isn't that great? Isn't that great?
That I can look at that and see the beauty of a baby on a A baby mum box or whatever that I wouldn't have seen otherwise.
To see balloons.
I mean, I would walk through a store and not see the balloons.
And you get her within 12 miles of a balloon.
She sees. She's got this x-ray vision.
She sees the balloon.
All of this stuff is just wonderful.
And so to reawaken those parts of me that have grown overly habituated to some of the humdrum of the everyday, it's something that I really admire about her.
Now, is it something she's earned?
No, it is genuinely all new for her.
But nonetheless, it is something I can really learn from her.
And I think that's really, really important for there to be a sense of mutuality.
It's so, so, so important for children to feel like they Have something to contribute.
That they are contributing something to their parents.
The degree to which children want to please their parents and to make their parents happy is entirely underestimated.
And that, I think, that people forget how much their children want to please them is one of the reasons why they get suspicious and hard-hearted and heavy-handed with the discipline.
And then that, of course, creates children who don't want to please their parents quite the opposite.
And then you get that escalation, right?
So, she really, really wants to please us and she really, really wants to help.
She's now taken to, you know, she wants to, Wipe the floors.
She wants to broom, sweep.
She wants to sweep with the broom.
She wants to help unpack the laundry.
She wants to fold. She wants to help with the laundry.
She really, really wants to help. The degree to which children want to contribute and want to be experienced as beings with genuine value should never be underestimated.
It is a very, very primal source.
Try taking that broom away when she's sweeping.
She just is not at all happy.
She really, really wants to enter into adult productivity.
Of course, it'll be a while until she actually can.
But I really respect that enthusiasm for that.
Trust, the degree to which she trusts is just fantastic.
I think that is just amazing.
The degree of security that she has, I could learn a lot from.
I mean, I have a huge amount of security, and yet, partly because of my history, partly because of culture and all that, I have a tough time sometimes hanging on to that.
Sense of security and contentment and the fact that she has that so deeply is something to really admire and respect and gain from, to gain value from.
Because otherwise you become a drudge, right?
Otherwise you become, you know, you're just drudging around, taking care of a kid and not getting anything out of it other than, you know, some cute moments and a whole lot of diaper changing and other things, right?
You have to, I think you really have to try and find the value in your kid and what they can teach you and what you can learn from them.
And, of course, if your parenting is better than your parents' parenting, which I hope it is, and I hope that hers is better than mine, then you're going to have an enormous amount to learn from your kids simply from the very basic fact and reality that they are experiencing better childhoods than you did.
And I think that's something which can help us really renew ourselves emotionally and spiritually.
Now, another thing that I admire about my daughter, and I think this is true of all children that I've known, It's that she almost perfectly embodies the philosophical virtues that I strive to live up to.
And I'll give you some examples of that.
She is an excellent, excellent, excellent teacher of philosophy, far better than me in many ways.
Because, right, you understand that if people were raised in a healthy manner, they would have far less need of philosophy, just as those who are not ill require much less knowledge of medicine.
So, Let's take one example.
Humility. And humility is one of the key, in fact, it's the philosophical virtue, because it is recognizing that it is the mind that is capable of error, not reality, and very rarely the senses.
But it is our conceptions, it is our reasoning that is subject to error, not the evidence of our senses, nor the operations of external reality.
And Isabella manifests that to a T. When something goes awry, when she doesn't get the results that she expects, she tries again.
So she's learning how to...
I have this little headset extension cord which loops back on itself.
It's a 3.5mm jack and it plugs back into itself if you wanted to.
It's not supposed to, but you can.
And she's learning how to put these little things, these little plugs into the little holes.
And it's tough for her, right?
The thing that is amazing when you have a baby is you realize just how tough everything really is.
It's astounding. You know, when I'm pointing at a picture of a daffodil and I say picture, Does she think it means wall?
Is it my finger? Is it the frame?
Is it the paint? Is it the color?
Is it yellow? Is it daffodil?
Right? It's really tough to figure out.
This is why I try not to teach her with representations, but rather with objects themselves.
And I try not to use phrases in the absence of those objects, right?
So she understands that the word and the object are represent.
Represent, brother. But humility is an amazing thing with her.
She tries to get these little plugs into the holes, and when she fails, she tries again.
She doesn't assume that reality has shifted on her.
She doesn't give up. She says, I have made an error.
I will try again.
If she rolls something under the couch, she doesn't say, well, it's vanished, right?
I mean, she says, it's under the couch.
I rolled it there, and I can go and get it.
There is an essential humility to her existence, which is just wonderful.
Like, her mind is trying to wrap around reality the same way that water pours into a vase and wraps itself around the vase.
I mean, it's a beautiful thing.
So, humility is one issue.
Babies are relentlessly empirical, relentlessly empirical, and that's what troubles people so much, like the second-handers who live by the virtue of language rather than the virtue of action.
Who call themselves good rather than behaving in a good manner.
And this is why I say babies are just these clear mirrors back to who you are, because babies are relentlessly empirical.
If you want to see why a baby's doing what a baby's doing, look first to the actions, not the words of the parents.
Look first. It doesn't mean look only, but look first.
And this relentless empiricism is also something that I strive to achieve, to remind myself that It comes back to evidence and reason, not opinion.
She's relentlessly empirical, because you can't convince her she's not hungry when she is.
You can't convince her that God will protect her from bad dreams.
She doesn't have language, so she is relentlessly empirical, and that is a beautiful, beautiful thing to see.
And she delights in the material, which is really, I think, the spirituality of philosophy is delight in the material, which, to me, there's much more to delight in than the sad, grim, drab, Faintly echoing fantasies of otherworldly nonsense.
To me, there was enormous sensual pleasure in the material, and she takes all of that pleasure in the material.
I could sort of go on and on, but I just wanted to point out that babies represent, in many ways, the entire stomach of philosophical virtue.
I just think she's a very wise little girl, and I think that that's how we're born.
We're born wise, and it takes a lot of aggression and violence to make us unwise.
I have a lot to learn. I have a lot to learn from her.
She reminds me of the virtues on a daily basis, of the virtues of philosophy and the joys of living.
And so it is a fair trade, right?
I think it's really, really important to recognize I'm not serving her.
I mean, I am, of course, helping her and making up for some of her physical deficiencies and keeping her safe and feeding her when she can't feed herself, which she can't do.
So, I'm keeping her safe and protected and fed and all that and loved and nurtured and cuddled and held and played with, but she is giving me enormous gifts and I think that's really, really important because otherwise it just feels like, you know, it can start to feel like a one-sided relationship, like the child is just taking and you're sort of a martyr and this isn't what you signed up for and all this kind of stuff.
I think that's really important just to recognize the degree of virtue and wisdom and happiness that babies can teach you about so that you are receiving gifts.
Happiness at the mere expense of 12 hours a day of menial labor.
So, I think that's important.
Now, I guess the question is, I think the question may arise.
It certainly has for me. Well, why?
Why would people not do philosophical parenting?
Why would people not do philosophical parenting?
It means to reason with, to have a frank exchange of values, to use evidence and rationality, and to not Punish, right?
But philosophy is really about enthusiasm in many ways.
Without enthusiasm, you can't overcome obstacles, and philosophy is certainly the acquisition of wisdom, or rather the reacquisition of a wisdom that often was pounded out of us is full of obstacles.
Well, why not? Well, I think there's two main reasons.
One is psychological, in my opinion, and one is practical.
The psychological one is that You can't practice philosophical parenting without humility.
Without humility. If my child is upset, it must be something I'm doing.
If there's a problem in our relationship, it's me.
It's me. Why? Because I'm the parent.
I have all the power. I have all the control.
I have all the knowledge and the wisdom and the skills, and I have all the options.
I can hire a babysitter to take a break or pass it to my wife, but she can't take a break from us, right?
She can't call a babysitter and say, take me out.
I have language. I can communicate my challenges both with my wife and she can't.
She has no language. She can't communicate her challenges.
I deny myself certain things, sweets and chips and cookies and chocolate and so on.
She doesn't know why she's denied certain things that she wants.
So, if there's a problem, if she's having a problem, I need to look to myself first.
If she's having a problem in the world, if she's having a problem with me.
Now, there's always, for me at least, there's a low-grade fear that comes with parenting, and this was particularly acute in Mexico, because the hotel room had these stucco walls, you know, and these little blobs of stucco stick out, right?
And so, if she'd fallen against and hit her head against the wall, then, I mean, she would have really shredded her scalp.
It would have been most unpleasant.
And so the fear of her falling, the fear of her plunge, this is why I like to take her to the mall or to Best Buy or some open space where she can't fall into stuff, right?
So there's a little bit of anxiety always when, you know, during this phase, and I'm sure it'll come back when she learns to ride a bike and all that.
But there is this low-grade anxiety.
When the child falls and hurts herself, I mean, you either catch her or you don't, and, you know, sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.
And when she falls and hurts herself, you immediately, at least I self-recriminate, oh, I should have been closer, I should have been more careful, and so on.
And so it feels like she's doing something bad to me, but the reality, so you have to catch yourself and say, well, no, no, it was my job, I'm the parent, right?
First of all, she's going to fall.
I mean, you can't prevent all the child from falling unless you put them in that Seinfeld bubble boy situation.
You can't prevent the child from falling, and she's going to hurt herself occasionally.
She's actually been remarkably unhurt, I would say.
But... She's going to fall, and you can't catch her all the time, and you can learn the lesson and try and be a little closer if you feel it's feasible, but fundamentally, it's my responsibility to keep herself safe.
It's not her responsibility to not fall, right?
And I think that's really, really important.
So, there's a humility that you need when you're a parent to say, if there's a problem, I'm going to look at what I'm doing, first and foremost, and in fact, almost exclusively.
I'm not going to attempt to modify my child's behavior if we have a problem.
And, I mean, I think fundamentally, that's a good approach to take in every relationship.
And this is self-RTR, right?
Exhaust the possibilities that you're the source of the problem, and then you can work on the other person, or at least invite that conversation.
And that's something you would do in conversation with someone, and I can't do it, of course, in conversation with Aziz.
She's too young. But it's humility.
If there's a problem, if something happened, then the first place I'm going to look to is myself.
And that's something I learned from her.
I mean, I have it as a principle, but it's being reinforced through seeing her.
That if she can't figure something out, if she can't figure out how to open something, then she'll bring it to me because I will open it for her.
But she doesn't just sort of throw it aside or just toss it aside indifferently assuming that it can't be opened.
She knows that it can be opened.
She knows she can't figure it out.
She knows that I will open it for her.
And so she has that humility of not assuming that reality is the problem, but recognizing that she is lacking a particular capacity, which I have, and so she'll bring it to me.
So that's also something that is really, really important.
And it's tough as a parent to be humble, especially if you weren't raised by humble parents.
It's really, really tough to be humble and say, no, no, no.
If there's a problem, then it starts with me.
If there's a behavior problem, then it starts with me.
So, for instance, we used to give her some ice cream, and that was my doing and my fault.
And it was no sugar-added ice cream.
It was pretty good for her, but we've decided not to, because reading up on all this sugar stuff.
And so, for a little while, and not too long, but she would still go to the freezer and want some ice cream.
And there's no way that I could be annoyed at her about that, even though it was inconvenient at times, because I was the one who set that up.
It was my fault that she was going to the freezer to get some ice cream.
And so, I give her a little bit of no-sugar-added popsicle instead.
But I can't get mad at her for that.
It's my issue. I was the one who set that up.
And so when she goes, she's perfectly within her right and it's perfectly sensible for her to go and want ice cream.
And now we've decided not to give it to her.
The transition where she's upset that she doesn't get it is entirely my doing, entirely my responsibility.
So that's really, really tough.
The second thing, and this is one example, right, of why it's tough to parent philosophically.
But boy, the second one...
I said, man, it is monstrously time-consuming.
It is amazingly time-consuming.
And we'll get into a little bit more of that in the next show.
If people find this of interest, please let me know.
Certainly, I am doing everything as a parent that I want to do, and the effects are even better than I thought they were going to be, and I really wanted to share that with people.
But please let me know if you find this stuff of interest.
If you find this stuff interesting.
And once more, if you've found this stuff to be of value, please donate a little bit at freedominradio.com.
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