When is parenting ever easy?

Yesterday was about the importance of doing the work of listing your assumptions and constraints, to understand the conditions under which your promise holds up.

Rarely does a statement hold up without context.

The statement. If I had money, then I would be a better parent. Produces this linear graph.

The argument might appear too simplistic but it’s all too familiar.

“When I make more money, then I can relax and spend more time with my kids and my family.”

So what new information do you need to see that would change your mind?

In his book David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell builds an argument for two breakpoints in our example of a linear relationship between wealth and parenting.

The first is the point of diminishing marginal returns, which research suggests is $75,000. A point at which money no longer equates to a linear increase in happiness.

The second is a point above which parenting, despite increasing wealth, can get harder again.

All this leads Gladwell to the conclusion that the parenting graph is actually an inverted U shape graph. Described by Gladwell as being in three parts.

“The left side, where doing more or having more makes things better. There’s the flat middle, where doing more doesn’t make much of a difference. And there’s the right side, where doing more or having more makes things worse.”

Who knew u shape graphs could be so inspiring?

If you want a big return for your effort. Here it is. Doing more or having more might well improve the situation in a rapid linear manner. Our stalling parent, who sits on the left side of the U shape curve, was not wrong. They simply did not have enough information.

If you are a parent on the left side of the curve, then finding a way to get to the point of diminishing return is a conditional statement worth testing.

Telling yourself that you are doing better than most, is a trap, for parents spinning their wheels in the middle of the curve. And for parents on the right side of the curve, being humble enough to accept a challenge to your thinking might just be what halts the slide.

To be continued……