Erica Komisar: Healthy family life requires tradeoffs

Our culture tells parents that “you can do it all” – but that's “a very dangerous narrative” and “a narcissistic trope,” says social worker and parenting coach Erica Komisar.

Is it time for our culture to grapple with a hard truth: life requires setting priorities and making trade-offs between items like career and family, rather than trying to have it all at once?

Modern societies invest a great deal of resources into children. But often it comes in the form of trends like helicopter parenting, bulldozer parenting, or intensive parenting. Are these short bursts of anxious, structured engagement what children really need? Or do we use these to paper over the gaps our modern culture has left in traditional family and social structures?

Our economies and social norms prize autonomy, flexibility, and paid work. Meanwhile, many parents feel more stretched and isolated than ever, and the social networks they inhabit feel thin.

To discuss these challenges, Komisar joins Inside Policy Talks. Komisar is a clinical social worker trained in psychology, and an author whose work argues that the first years of childhood are foundational for attachment, mental health, and later resilience.

On the podcast, she tells Peter Copeland, deputy director of domestic policy at MLI, that “it's a narcissistic trope that you can do it all, that you don't have to take anything off the plate, that you don't have to sacrifice anything, that you can have everything and do everything all at the same time.”

She says that messaging sets up internal conflict for parents, especially mothers, when they face choices around whether to stay home with their toddlers or return to work. She says deep down many mothers would rather stay home, and the pressure to return to a career sets up internal conflicts leading to health problems or even resentment towards the child. For example, she points to the growing trend of women posting online that they regret becoming mothers.

“When you reject your own children and mothering, we know that we've taken a turn in society,” says Komisar.