By now, I’m pretty sure most of you have read both the infuriating/fascinating Tiger Mother article as well as the fascinating/infuriating Mormon Mommy Blogger article that have been making the rounds over the past couple of weeks. (If you haven’t read them yet, I’m left to assume that you’re too busy berating your children into practicing the piano and/or baking seemingly-ubiquitous Mormon Mommy cupcakes to bother with such things. I do not judge you.) Since my husband makes most of the cupcakes at our house and I let my kids quit piano lessons, I’ve had plenty of time to read both articles, as well as another fascinating (but not, in my opinion, infuriating) article in the New Yorker by David Brooks about brains, social science, relationships, and happiness.
If you don’t have time to read the entire New Yorker piece (although you really should—just take a few minutes from the time you dedicate to shopping online for “cool vintage dresses”), here’s a snippet from the beginning of the piece that will give you an idea of Brooks’ thesis:
Occasionally, you meet a young, rising member of this class [described by Brooks as successful, healthy, educated, striving---the type of people it seems the Tiger Mother hopes her children will grow up to be] at the gelato store, as he hovers indecisively over the cloudberry and ginger-pomegranate selections, and you notice that his superhuman equilibrium is marred by an anxiety. Many members of this class, like many Americans generally, have a vague sense that their lives have been distorted by a giant cultural bias. They live in a society that prizes the development of career skills but is inarticulate when it comes to the things that matter most. The young achievers are tutored in every soccer technique and calculus problem, but when it comes to their most important decisions—whom to marry and whom to befriend, what to love and what to despise—they are on their own. Nor, for all their striving, do they understand the qualities that lead to the highest achievement. Intelligence, academic performance, and prestigious schools don’t correlate well with fulfillment, or even with outstanding accomplishment. The traits that do make a difference are poorly understood, and can’t be taught in a classroom, no matter what the tuition: the ability to understand and inspire people; to read situations and discern the underlying patterns; to build trusting relationships; to recognize and correct one’s shortcomings; to imagine alternate futures. In short, these achievers have a sense that they are shallower than they need to be.
All three articles (and blog post discussions associated thereto) have been swimming around in my mind, overlapping and connecting, and have lead me to a number of questions and conclusions. Among them are:
–The Salon piece on Mormon mommy blogs seems to affirm that one reason these blogs are so attractive is because the women who write them seem “distinct and different—in happy ways—from the women of the world,” a distinction that President Spencer W. Kimball told us we ought to be striving for (and discussed in greater detail in a post at A Motley Vision). Now, we all know that the women represented in the Salon article are not representative of all Mormon women, and that many of the blogs the article features offer a view of life that’s more complex than the article would lead you to believe. But even though the article’s author asserts that her attraction to these blogs is “not about religion. As someone married to a former Saint (my husband left the church as a teenager), I certainly have no illusions about what life as a Mormon would be like” . . . I beg to differ. Insofar as the authors of these Mormon mommy blogs actually do live lives that are as “easy” or “joyful” or “untouched by cynicism” as they appear to outside readers, it seems to me it’s probably almost all “about religion,” and very little about “vintage grosgrain ribbon.”
–The Tiger Mother article isn’t about Mormonism, of course, but it is about motherhood. In her own (verbally abusive) way, the Tiger Mother Amy Chua seems dedicated to the same notion people pick up on when reading Mormon mommy blogs: that motherhood is a high calling, an important job that ought to be taken seriously. (This notion was discussed in greater detail in a post at By Common Consent.) One of my biggest hang-ups with the Chua article, though, isn’t so much the verbal abusiveness, although it is horrifying. It’s that our children—and by extension, all of us, even as adults (perhaps through our children?)—should pay whatever price is necessary in order to be successful by worldly standards. The goal of such a life isn’t happiness, necessarily, but recognition, status, and achievement, which somehow ought to translate into happiness. We Mormon mothers are not immune to being driven by such goals; in fact, I think ours is a highly recognition-driven culture. But Chua’s article left me wondering about what my goals should be, both for my children and for myself, and whether or not it’s really possible to have both a highly accomplished life and a truly happy one. (I’ve not arrived at an answer to this question. Just musing.)
–Then the Brooks article in the New Yorker brought it all together. Among the many fascinating scientific tidbits scattered throughout the article, we learn that researchers have found that “what the inner mind really wants is connection,” that “the daily activities [and professions] most closely associated with happiness are social,” and that “joining a group that meets just once a month produces the same increase in happiness as doubling your income.” So while it might be pretty impressive to have a child who plays at Carnegie Hall at the age of 14, according to scientific studies, we’re more likely to set our child up for a happy life if we encourage her to go to Young Women’s on a Wednesday night and make some friends instead of forcing her to stay home and practice Rachmaninoff.
Being a Mormon means you’re around people. A lot. Generally speaking, we get married young, we have big families, we’re called to do things in a group setting that we’d never volunteer to do of our own free will (Webelos!). Being Mormon takes a lot of time. In addition to the aforementioned early marriages and quivers full of children and time consuming callings, we’re also asked to dedicate ourselves to other forms service (missions, cannery assignments, visiting and home teaching) and develop an inner spiritual life (scripture study, frequent meaningful prayer, temple attendance). The 5 Browns notwithstanding, it seems to me that achieving both tremendous worldly success while living the life of family, service, and sacrifice that the Church teaches us to strive for is very difficult, if not impossible, for most of us. (The 5 Browns seem like very happy, nice people. I am not judging them and am more than willing to concede they might be exceptions to the rule.)
“Happiness” is a tricky state to quantify, and all of us, Mormon or not, accomplished or average, will experience various levels of satisfaction and sadness throughout our lives. Some of us are naturally inclined to joy and exuberance, while others struggle to find happiness. Our personal happiness set-point is not an indication of our righteousness, but most often due to genetic and other circumstances outside our control. Even Elder Marlin K. Jensen admits in an excellent Ensign article on the subject of happiness that “although I am richly blessed and have every reason to be happy, I sometimes struggle and do not always have the natural inclination toward happiness and a cheerful disposition that some people seem to enjoy.”
However, each of us can optimize our happiness in this life. In addition to the blessings of eternal life, “happiness in this life” is meant to be one of the outcomes of living the gospel. I want my children to grow up with the greatest chance for happiness. I want to be happy myself. It’s easy in this world—even for Mormons—to get so swept up in the fervor of accomplishment, to think that “if only” we’d had the chance to become that world-famous or extraordinary [baseball player, novelist, CEO] we’d be happier, that if we don’t supply our kids with an endless parade of [Little Leauge, SAT tutoring, Suzuki method instruction] then THEY won’t be happy and, horror of horrors, will blame us. (They’ll probably blame us no matter what we do, right?) Of course, Little League and the Suzuki method can be components of a happy life, but when I fall for the idea that they’re necessary ingredients to a happy life, that’s when I seem to get off track.
Despite being immersed in Mormon theology and culture, I still have to remind myself more often than I’d like that these are the components of a happy life: love, family, service, faith. This is the Good News. The fact that it makes me feel okay about letting my kids quit piano lessons is just a bonus.
How do you juggle the demands of living a successful life as well as the demands of being a member of the church, and how does finding that balance contribute to your happiness? And if you followed all the embedded links in this post and read every article, are you going to tell your husband/wife/boss/children the truth about what you did all day?
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