A Creative and Spiritual Practice

Listen, I love science and I have deep respect for good research. Yet, I cringe when I see the the words "science-based" or "research-based" in the same sentence as the word "parenting."

Human development is a science. The sacred, delicate, spectacular, mundane interactions between a parent and child are something more.

Over-relying on the legitimacy of science to gain buy-in on the value of such an ordinary phenomenon undermines the existence of the beautiful nuances and possibilities of the parent-child relationship.

Some things just can't be measured. Some things don't need to be measured.

Rather than searching for that one proven right way to do things, parents should be gathering ideas and inspiration from a variety of sources, including science and peers and elders and history and their hopes for the future, their values, and their own gut instinct, and weaving those together to build a tapestry of soft, flexible, adaptable parenting practices.