That is, in parenting matters where there’s disagreement between mother and father, mother is innately more right.  Egalitarian and progressive as I’ve always believed myself to be, I have found myself falling into this trap.  It venerates the mother and marginalizes the father and, perhaps worse, can lead to decisions that are less beneficial than children.

Because, dear reader, the paternal instinct can be a brilliant thing.  Here’s why.Okay, before I actually tell you why, I need to make this disclaimer: The definitions of the maternal and paternal instincts that are to follow are mine alone.  They are my observations, based on my particular cultural vantage point and my life and my therapy practice.  So what I’m calling “instinct” is really just shorthand, since at least some of it may be culturally reinforced tendencies.

Whew, disclaimer over.

What I’ve noticed is that the maternal instinct is often to pull a child closer, while a father’s is more toward letting go.  That’s not to say that men aren’t loving and affectionate and nurturing toward children; rather, it’s to say that some of the nurturing takes a different form.

A father may nurture by encouraging a child to explore independently, by expressing utter confidence in the child with few check-ins.  Or it may be through more vigorous play.  You notice that at the pool, the fathers are more likely to be the ones tossing their kids high in the air.  Or they’re more likely to be hanging out and chatting or reading in a lounge chair, looking up less often, figuring that their kids will be all right until they communicate otherwise.

Mothers tend to do more scanning of the area, more anticipation of possible trouble.  If a child falls, the maternal instinct compels them to hug the child and express concern over potential injuries, rather than to suggest that the child is okay and can go right back to playing.  And what this can mean is that a mother is less personally fulfilled, feels less free herself, than a father does.

That’s where the paternal instinct can be superior to the maternal instinct.  By letting the child go, the child can learn to trust himself more, and the father can feel less beholden.  It can be win-win.

Now, this is not to celebrate lax parenting–the abdication of responsibility in cases where intense supervision is essential.  What I’m saying is that there are different situations where either the paternal or the maternal instinct has its benefits, and that we all benefit when we’re willing to examine those situations individually, rather than blanket assuming that one is superior.

Our instincts guide us, but they do not have to dictate how we behave all the time.  There’s a lot of room for engaging in healthy dialogue about what the best course of action is, and for learning for our partners.

I know that for myself, I can stand to learn from how my husband reads a book on the floor next to my daughter while she plays alongside him, independently (as my instinct is to comment on what she’s doing all the time, introduce new games, etc., often to the exhaustion of both myself and my daughter.)  I want my daughter to have the experience of being found incredibly interesting; I want to hold her close.

My husband is helping her have the experience of being self-sufficient, and knowing she can engage him if she wishes.  He’s being less intrusive.

Both our approaches have virtues at different times and places.  The key is, knowing when to be paternal and when to be maternal, when he should act like me and I should act like him.  It’s about finding the balance, and not presuming the supremacy of one approach.

So this Father’s Day, I sing the praises of my husband, for all the ways he is different, and for all I can learn.

Father and son surfing image available from Shutterstock.

I’m not sure if what he did was right, if it will have some unforeseen national security consequences, but from all I’ve read so far, it was done from a place of conscience: He believed the American people ought to know the extent of the domestic surveillance program, and how it’s being carried out.

Many of us are confronted with such moments on a smaller scale, moments when we can act on our conscience, when we have to decide whether to speak up or remain silent.  When you find yourself in a moment like this, what do you do?The situation that is most familiar to many of us is when we witness other people seemingly mistreating their children.  For example, we’re in the grocery store and we see someone speak harshly to their child, do we speak up ourselves?

It’s not a simple question, in my mind.  It rests on our judgment about other people, on our sense of what’s right and wrong, on a split-second interpretation.  Yet we don’t know anything about the other person’s culture or situation; we don’t know if that parent was having a terrible day and snapped and felt awful about it, if that parent will subsequently learn through his or her own shame.

What if by speaking up, we thwart that natural process?  Meaning, instead of the parent realizing she did something wrong, now she’s responding to a stranger’s judgment of her.  So instead of focusing on her own behavior, she’s focused on yours, on what gall you had to interfere.

In some cases, speaking up can actually allow someone to avoid his/her own self-reflection and, thus, responsibility.  And if no one is asking for our help or opinion, there’s no reason to believe that it will be welcomed.

But what if the behavior we witness seems so unjustifiable that we feel we have no other choice but to speak up?  Our conscience wouldn’t allow us to do anything else, regardless of how it will be received.

That’s when it’s important to remember that no one likes to be shamed; somewhere inside, I suspect that parent knows he or she is behaving badly.  If you’re going to speak up, you have to do it with compassion, with the awareness that you’ve never walked in that other person’s shoes.

You don’t know how that person grew up, how he/she was parented, what their current frustrations are.  You don’t know the love they feel for their children, and you can’t assume that bad behavior equals a lack of love.

Speaking up means realizing your own potential fallibility: You know what you saw, or what you heard, but you only know that much.  You need to respect that other person if you want him or her to show more respect for the child.

“Excuse me,” you could say, “could I talk to you for a minute?”  You could speak so that everyone else can’t hear.  And you could add, “I don’t know you or your situation.  I feel like the way you just spoke to your child could be hurtful, and that concerns me, for both of  you.”

Could you be told to butt out? Of course.  But maybe somewhere inside, what you’ve said will register.  That person will realize maybe things have gotten out of control, if kind-seeming strangers need to comment.

I feel like what Edward Snowden did when he leaked that information is bring something out into the light from the darkness.  Whether that’s ultimately the right thing–history can judge.  But for the rest of us, we’re deciding, moment by moment, what our conscience requires.

Woman covering her mouth image available from Shutterstock.

And even now, for a lot of us, when we get deeper into June, there’s a certain exhilaration, a sense that now the good stuff is about to happen.  There are vacations to plan and anticipate, warm weather to take advantage of with outdoor activities…there’s a sense of possibility.

But with that possibility, comes the possibility for disappointment.  Then there’s the reality that life isn’t like when we were kids.  We don’t really shuck off responsibilities for a couple of months.  And therein lies the potential for depression.

Inevitably, we all have expectations.  And anticipation is one of the best parts of life, really.  Someone just told me there’s a study that says people are at their happiest the week before they go on vacation–it’s that last day of school/first day of summer feeling, I guess.  That “anything can happen” feeling.  I’m guessing the low point is the week after vacation, when you return to the every day.

So expectation can work in our favor, but expectations that go unrealized lead to negative feelings, and that can spiral into depression.  Let’s say we wanted to have a certain kind of day with our families, but the kids are cranky or uncontrollable or otherwise difficult, and there’s so much traffic, and it starts to seem like there’s no way it’s going to turn out right.

Those moments–when we were wedded to a certain outcome–are understandable and human.  But finding a way to be open to however something turns out, being open to experience itself, can help.  It’s the difference between fuming about traffic and using that extra time to connect with your kids by playing a silly game.

Also, the mindfulness that regardless of how it turns out, there are more days, and more experiences to come, that it isn’t all resting on this one particular day, can help.

With the summer fast approaching, a time when many of us do spend more time with our families, it’s important to be aware of the expectations we hold so that they don’t interfere with our ability to enjoy ourselves.  For example, we might be tense because we really “want this to go well”, and that influences the outcome.  It limits spontaneity, and fun itself.

And when things don’t go as planned, we might take it more to heart.  We might say things to ourselves like, “Things never turn out the way I want!”  It might make us harder on ourselves and the experience, or less likely to try again to plan something.

Here’s to being open to whatever this summer brings…

At the beach image available from Shutterstock.

It got me thinking about the meaningful emotional connections–attachments–that children make to people outside the family, those whose influence can span a lifetime, and how, as parents, we can encourage our children to make those sorts of attachments.For a while, that phrase about it taking a village to raise a child was in heavy rotation; at any rate, most of us are familiar with the concept.  But often the American family is very centered on the nucleus (the parents and the children), for a myriad of reasons.   Some of it might be cultural–that is, we tend to be more individualistic than collective.

This can take a toll on everyone.  The children get more limited perspectives and influence; the parents can feel overburdened, stressed by the need to be everything.

But it can be hard to relinquish control, which is what it means to allow your child to attach deeply to another adult.  Parents can feel jealous when they keep hearing, “Coach said…”  They can feel unseated in their children’s affections; they might not agree with everything Coach says.

While parents realize that they need to share their children’s love with relatives, it might seem stranger to share it with an outsider.  That outsider might be the daycare provider, the coach, the teacher…there are scads of people with whom children might come in contact, and for whom they may feel an affinity.

And in some situations, our children may feel an affinity toward another that seems greater than what they feel towards us.  It is difficult to compete when two people have so much in common–for example, the coach and the child might have the same love, reverence, and understanding for a sport, like Djokovic and his tennis coach.

Now, that’s not the same as saying the child loves the mentor more than his parents.  But it may feel that way, and that is undeniably threatening.  It might make a parent more critical toward the mentor, tempted to curtail the activity or the relationship.

Yet, that would be a loss for everyone.  A child is enriched by more voices, by the ability to nurture and manage different emotional connections.  A parent is enriched by being able to push through envy and pettiness, and do what’s best for a child.

Let go, and the child will come back. Hold on too tightly, and the child can’t wait to get away.  Letting the village in can be hard, but valuable.

Girl and mentor image available from Shutterstock.

That’s not an uncommon experience for those suffering from depression.  But honestly, it’s not that uncommon for a lot of people.

Sometimes, life is downright depressing.  A lot of times it’s just humdrum, which can be depressing, too.

For my client battling depression, we talked about how much she has to take on faith: She might not feel like getting up, or going out, or exercising, or doing things she might ordinarily enjoy, but she has to do them anyway, and believe that at least some of the time, something will kick in.  She’ll catch herself feeling better.  From there, she can get some additional momentum.

But when life is humdrum and you start to feel down, it’s important to examine your expectations.

For example, I find that sometimes I’ll feel down when I want to have greater control over my life than is currently possible.  As a parent to a young child, her needs are paramount; that’s what I signed up for.

Life, right now, can’t be as exciting or stimulating as I’d like.  So I have to practice my gratitude for what is.  I have to notice what I do have.  And just recognizing how much worse it could be provides a good reality check.

So I have to do something similar to what I advised my client: I have to take it on faith that certain things will get easier as we go along.  (Of course, certain things will get harder, but we don’t need to dwell on that.)

It’s good to take a minute to be grateful for the humdrum, for the sheer lack of crisis or catastrophe.  That can be worth celebrating.

Bored man image available from Shutterstock.

But it occurred to me that our own assessment about those things might not always be accurate.  It will most assuredly be shaped by our own experiences of success and failure.

I think of my own recent experience–finally selling a novel after years of trying.  It occurs to me that if my daughter was older (say, 10 or 12), this could feel like a teachable moment: See, never give up on your dreams!

But is that necessarily the right lesson for her?  It could mean that she sets up an extremely difficult life course for herself, goes for something high risk/high reward with no back-up plan, with the idea that “dreams eventually come true.”

In an alternate reality, one where I didn’t sell the novel and in fact gave up trying, it’s possible that I’d send a very different message: “We can waste years struggling for something that will never happen.  Better to conserve our energy; better to play it safe.”

Now, I realize that children do not simply absorb our lessons, verbal and non-verbal; there are many intervening influences and variables.  But parents powerfully shape how their children come to view the world.  Our own failures and successes (and how we reflect on them) can be quite formative.

For me, it’s important that my daughter grows up to take some risks.  But it’s critical that she be able to evaluate the level of risk, and the potential rewards.  She has to also understand that embedded in every risk is the possibility of failure.  Failure will not be a dirty word in our house.

Because often, failure is the prerequisite for success.  I couldn’t have sold this novel if I hadn’t written those that failed to sell; the earlier novels allowed me to hone my craft.

And if I hadn’t sold this novel, if I’d chosen to give up on writing in service of other pursuits that felt more valuable, I would hope that wouldn’t be a failure, in her eyes.  But where that starts is in my own eyes.  It’s how I look at my own successes and failures that will shape her perceptions, not just of me but of herself and the world.

That’s why I think it’s incredibly valuable to embrace failure.  It means we had the guts to take a chance.  Then we can take the information we learned, and that will help us decide whether it’s worth it to try again, using the new information, or to move on, without shame.

Angry businessman image available from Shutterstock.

If no agent wanted to sell it, then I was giving up.  I’d write this blog and focus on my family and practice therapy and that was plenty, right?  It would have to be enough.

But dreams are about what’s more than enough.  They’re larger than life.  We want our kids to reach for the stars, until…?  When do we–and our kids–need support and when do we need a reality check?

My daughter is still so young.  She has a vocabulary that consists of “Mama”, “Dada”, and “Yeah.”  We’re not talking about dreams yet.

But one of these months or years, she’ll start to have an image of who she wants to be.  She’ll start dreaming of her grown up life.  She’ll want to be a pop princess or a veterinarian or an astronaut.

And my husband and I will encourage her imagination for a while, no strings attached.  Then we’ll start using her dreams as a way to tell her to do her math homework, or to not give up so easily when things are hard.  We’ll recognize her aptitudes and help her develop them and hope that her dreams align with these.

But what if they don’t?  What if she wants things that we think are unlikely to ever happen for her?  Either because she doesn’t seem to have the degree of talent, or the willingness to work as hard as necessary, or the odds are simply too great (in acting, in sports, etc.)?

At what point do you interject reality?  Is it when she’s 9, or 15, or 22?

I know that for me, if I didn’t continue to have belief in my own talent (perhaps even an unrealistic sense of how I measure up against the many people who are also trying to publish their novels), I would have given up three novels before.  I might never have tried at all.

And I have to credit my parents for their belief in me.  When I was 16, my father drove me to downtown Philadelphia, to the office of the one literary agent in the Yellow Pages, so I could hand-deliver my manuscript.  (I was treated kindly by the receptionist, and later received a typed rejection letter.  I’m sure that if I hadn’t been a nervous and pimply teenager, I would have been told to follow proper channels, which do not involve hand-delivering manuscripts.)

I meant to be S.E. Hinton, who published “The Outsiders” as an adolescent.  It hasn’t exactly turned out that way.  But it is turning out, many many rejections later.

We want our kids to be resilient enough to handle rejection, to try and try again, but sometimes the odds of success can seem impossibly low.   We want to protect our children from banging their heads against doors that will likely never open.

Our job as parents involves helping our kids make determinations about their odds, and decide how best to allocate their resources: when to dream, when to work hard, when to get a day job, when to get a real job, when to find a new dream.

That means we have to help them learn to balance dreams and reality.  Then they have to do the rest.

Dreaming image available from Shutterstock.

“Well,” I said, “that does sound like a real mother’s day.”  We both laughed, and what I was thinking of was my own Mother’s Day (my second), from a few weeks ago.

My husband, my daughter (a burgeoning toddler), and I went to an outdoor fair.  I’d heard there would be funnel cake, and I got nostalgic, since I haven’t had that particular artery-clogging delicacy in I don’t want to say how many years.

It seemed fun to go in search of something, like funnel cake, because that was what my husband and I used to do before the kid.  You know, crave something, and spontaneously satisfy that craving.  Or at least, enjoy ourselves trying.

But life isn’t that way now, as we quickly learned.  Our daughter has started begging for food (well, more accurately, whining for it) whenever we’re eating and she isn’t.  Funnel cake was no exception, and offering her Cheerios wasn’t going to cut it.

We tried to distract her; we acted like court jesters.  All to no avail.  My husband recalled an article he’d recently read on how her whining was a “first world indulgence problem”, but he couldn’t remember the solution for this.

The fun was largely sucked from the day, and we went home early.  I felt a little deflated, because I miss the days where we had only our own moods to worry about.  Basically, I miss control.  I miss quiet.

So it wasn’t exactly a celebration of motherhood, or of me as a mother, but it was a reality check.  Sometimes you have to just acknowledge to yourself what you miss, before you turn to appreciating what you have.  Otherwise, it’s a false appreciation, a Hallmark card about gratitude, rather than the real, warts-and-all experience.

I love you, little one, to an unfathomable degree, but I don’t always love mothering you.  And that’s okay.

Parents holding crying child image available from Shutterstock.

Why are we so susceptible?

I think it’s because it’s hard to keep hold of the big picture.  It’s hard to remain in a place of awareness and gratitude (that’s why there are so many books and blog entries teaching us how to do this!)

I help people with this, and yet it’s a struggle for me, too.  (Those who can’t do, do therapy…Is that a saying?  Well, it should be.)

I’m being a little facetious, but not entirely.  My husband and my 16-month-old daughter are away for five days, visiting his family in Alaska.  Where it was actually snowing yesterday.  And when they sent me a video of my little girl delightedly experiencing her first snowfall, there was nowhere I would have rather been.  Grass is Greener Syndrome hit me like a ton of bricks.

But then I reminded myself how good it’s felt to be on my own these past days.  I haven’t cooked, I haven’t had to care for anyone or think of anyone’s needs, haven’t heard anyone whining or crying.

Last night, I went out for cocktails and dinner with a friend.  Cocktails and dinner!  With a friend!  On a Saturday night!  Staying out until 11 or later!  I was actually a little giddy with excitement as I got ready.

And it was as much fun as I thought it would be, sitting at a bar with good lighting and great ambient noise, buzzed and giggling.  Though at some point, talk got serious.  She’s in her early 40′s, single, and hoping she’s still got a crack at meeting someone and having kids.  Deep into her second drink, she got a case of Grass is Greener Syndrome.

I told her about the snow video, and her maudlin expression deepened.  She was thinking, “See, look how good you have it!”, but that was just the set-up.

The punchline?  My daughter doesn’t spend all her time delighted by snow.  In fact, five minutes after that video was taken, she needs her lunch, and then she’s yowling because she’s overdue for her nap, or maybe she wants to play some tedious game for 20 tedious minutes, and you have to do all of these things because you’re her parent; because that’s the lot you’ve chosen.

If you choose the right snippet, anyone’s life looks enviable.  I envy that next weekend, when I’m burdened with chores and tasks and keeping my daughter happy, my friend will be out rowing on a lake or visiting a museum or once again having drinks at a swanky bar.  Everything that seemed revelatory to me last night was old hat.  She’s ready for the next thing: having a family.

Or at least, she thinks she is.  What I mean is, if/when she has her family, she will look back on the alone time fondly, feel nostalgic for her earlier self; maybe she’ll have Grass is Greener Syndrome as she meets up with a single friend.

Then, if she’s lucky, she’ll go home and watch the video of her daughter in the snow, and think, “Tomorrow.  I get to see my family tomorrow.”

Woman in green field image available from Shutterstock.

So what do you do about it? I wrote in my last post that we shouldn’t assume the inhumanity of the parties involved.  That means that you need to start by asserting yourself and seeing what happens.

Approach your co-worker or your boss, in private, and explain what has felt hurtful to you.  If the person involved is a bully, he or she might be dismissive or might try to demean you further.  Go into the conversation expecting this.  State again the impact of their behavior.  Request clearly that it stop.

This second part–the request–is important.  And that’s because of what I’m going to recommend next: that you document, document, document.  Every time you have a demeaning interaction with that person (co-worker or boss), write it down.

Many companies have policies about harassment and proper conduct.  Educate yourself as to what your company’s policy is.

You might even want to do your assertiveness in writing.  As in, send an e-mail that details what you feel is happening and that you would like it to stop. You might want to reference the relevant parts of your company’s harassment policy.  You might want to cc your supervisor (or if your supervisor is the bully, then his/her supervisor or someone in HR.)

Then you’ll have the other person’s response in writing.  Or if they fail to respond, that can also add to your case.

I don’t mean “case” in a legal sense.  I’m a mental health professional and not a lawyer.  I’m not qualified to dispense legal advice.  But I know that it has never hurt to have more documentation of the events in question, if you do choose to consult an attorney.

Maybe the bullying will stop there.  Maybe the person will realize the error of their ways and feel genuinely remorseful.  Maybe they’ll stop because they fear for their own jobs.

But maybe it doesn’t stop there, and you need to go up the chain of command.  If you’re dealing with a co-worker, you might go to your supervisor or to HR.  If you’re dealing with your boss, you might go to their supervisor or HR.

Now, I’m not saying any of this is comfortable, or easy.  It’s not a sure thing that you will get the responses you want, or the support you feel you deserve.  You might find that co-workers don’t see the situation as you do, don’t agree with your actions, or worry about their own jobs and therefore distance themselves.

These are all very real risks.  However, the risk to one’s self-esteem of doing nothing while being systematically harassed is, from a mental health perspective, one of the biggest.

If you stand by and allow yourself to be mistreated, you may begin to feel you deserve such mistreatment.  Or you might just feel a slow building anger inside you, or a sense of powerlessness, that infects other areas of your life.

This is not an exhaustive list of all you can do, or all the contingencies that may be involved in your personal situation.  I’m sure people will have all sorts of other advice that may be more relevant.  This is just a starting point for thought, and discussion.

Assertiveness is about saying, “I’m a person, and I have rights.”  Bullies want to trample on these, in order to feel better about themselves.  They don’t have that right.

Workplace bully image available from Shutterstock.