Philosophers have written far too
little about parenting, a trifle in fact when compared for example to what they
have produced in the present and previous centuries about science.  Facile
explanations for this come to mind but in truth I don’t understand it.  A
consequence of this gap in philosophical energies is that any new endeavor
along these lines should be given serious attention and notice.  It is
with this in mind that I looked forward to Seamus Carey’s The Whole Child:
Restoring Wonder to the Art of Parenting.

Carey sets out the parameters of
his project in a number of places early in the text.

"€¦ to make philosophical
wisdom and insight into wholesomeness and Being relevant to and useful in the
nurturance and guidance of children." (x)

"€¦help the reader find some
new ways to think about his or her relationship to children and about human
nature in general." (xi)

"€¦ to assist parents and
children in developing their whole and highest selves." (3)

"€¦ [to provide] an account of
the dynamics involved in sustaining an awareness of the emotional,
psychological, and spiritual development of children that is necessary for them
to reach their highest potential."(4)

"€¦ to help parents uncover a
thoughtful context within which they can understand the essential needs of
their children and provide insightful guidance that will facilitate the healthy
development of all aspects of their children’s lives." (6)

Some philosophers are architects,
intending to create bold and different conceptual spaces within which human
activities can proceed.  Others are building inspectors, inspecting the
integrity of the reasoning that we humans use to make our ways about. 
Carey’s project falls clearly within the traditions of the former.  He
intends to demonstrate how the philosophers who interest him, Heidegger,
Aristotle, Plato, Levinas and Tillich can provide ways of approaching daily
life, and by extension parenting, that far surpass our everyday thinking. 
In the philosophical literature on parenting Sarah Ruddick’s Maternal
Thinking, Towards a Politics of Peace, 1989 shares Carey’s architectural
project while in contrast one could mention the building inspector Jeffrey Blustein’s
Parents and Children, 1982.

Carey is not subtle about his
disdain for the patterns and behaviors of both everyday life and everyday
parenting, at least in the west.  He speaks of "cycles of
contempt" in which unreflective parents direct deeply repressed pain onto
their children, of the predominance of a "calculative mind" that
limits human experience and corrupts human relationships, he sneers that
limousines to transport families on first communion day are even worse than
their prom night predecessors, and charges that the use of Ritalin is motivated
by a desire of parents and educators to medicate and manipulate children into
conformity.  He notes, "Unfortunately, the conditions of our culture
favor the diminishing of Being, as it becomes less and less necessary for human
beings to be consciously present to accomplish the tasks that they are
obligated to perform." (25)   Finally Carey tells a story of a
courageous woman, his wife Noreen as it later turns out, who worked her way
through college, became a successful accountant, well-regarded, accomplished
and well-paid, who then put it aside to become a full time mother.  The
story is unremarkable though not the manner in which the author understands
it.  His wife has made the courageous decision to reject a selfish life of
personal gratification for a selfless life of caring.  Her prior life, one
of professional and material success, was by its nature, "€¦ dominated by
the interests of the ego €¦" and from this she entered "€¦ into the
ethical relation of infinite responsibility to care for others."  His
point is grounded in the idea, so obvious to Carey as to require no mention,
that the ordinary lives of work, even at their most accomplished, harbor no
possibilities for ethical expression or caring.

As an alternative to the
stultifying consciousness of the everyday Carey proposes "the
contemplative mind", one that is "€¦ open, nonjudgmental, and
receptive." (19)  Unlike the calculative mind the "contemplative
gaze" is able to perceive, "€¦ the depth, meaning, and fluid presence
€¦" that provide the context of otherwise ordinary things.  To
illustrate the advantage brought to parenting by the detached contemplative mind,
Carey relates that the kitchen of his home is often "€¦ a battleground
where strong wills clash €¦ between my wife and one of our two
daughters."  As the food cools, " €¦ the intensity of my wife’s
and daughters’ willfulness grows €¦"  To such situations the
contemplative spouse "€¦ can often find a calm and peaceful way
out."  This parent, " €¦ can perceive the background or
unconscious factors that contribute to the child’s resistance €¦ The nonengaged
parent has the opportunity to be more contemplative€¦ A mother may be tired€¦ She
may have unpaid bills hanging over her head€¦ To perceive this the contemplative
parent needs composure, patience, and wonder, not a will to control or
judge."(19-20)

Carey understands the contemplative
mind in Heiddegerian terms as being able to regain the understandings and
reactions that have been lost by the rise of calculation, to peel back the
onion of history.  He speaks of wisdom and wonder, illustrating the latter
with a story of his own experience of an ant colony and of his daughters’
reactions to a snowfall.  In this sense there is something important in
Carey’s idea of the contemplative mind.  Applied to parenting he notes
that, "€¦ the primary function of a parent €¦ is to help children become
aware of their beauty and their potential." (36)  Presumably it is
the parent who is contemplative, who is "open to being", who can
succeed as a parent.  Carey is aware that this can seem impractical. 
He counters this with a story about how his own "openness to the
other" prevented him from acting inappropriately when his daughters
argued.  Talking with his oldest daughter, he discovered the source of her
upset and diffused the situation.

While the many vignettes in this
discussion are simply stated, the theoretical framework is presented through
the technical language of the philosopher under discussion.  And so
philosophical phrases such as das Heilen, wonder, allurement, conscious
presence, Sheol, the ontology difference, ontological forgetfulness,
necessarily appear and then are gone quite quickly.  

Part II of the book contains
analyses of some of the virtues that parents should bring to their
responsibilities, courage, integrity, discipline, and higher love.  These
are interesting discussions, in some instances very well written.  Good
use is made of  Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illych to illustrate
the existential issues that surround living in the face of death.  There
is an affecting account of Carey’s niece protecting his daughter during a
frightening swim exercise.  And there is an unconvincing attempt to
present Socrates’ desertion of his children as a lesson in good
parenting.  There are many reasons for philosophers to admire Plato’s
Socrates, perhaps even to take him as a model, but his devotion to Xanthippe
and the children is surely not one of them.  All in all the chapters of
Part II are instructive and readable, though not as satisfying as Sara Ruddick’s
earlier treatment of parenting virtues in Maternal Thinking: Towards a
Politics of Peace, 1989.

There are two main issues that I
have with this treatment of parenting.  The first is that it not
sufficiently empirical.  It is not a philosopher’s job to act in
systematic ways to produce empirical knowledge.  On the other hand he or
she should not ignore scientific traditions that call into question the
philosopher’s claims or assumptions.  Carey makes his belief clear that
parenting practice will have long-term effects upon the child.  For
example:

"€¦ parents are entrusted to
guide their children toward a happy and good life." (34)

"The way in which we
receive and respond to €¦ [our children] €¦ plays a significant and enduring role
in the formation of their character. (36)

"The primary goal of
parental discipline is to prepare children to be responsible citizens who are
capable of living healthy and fulfilling lives€¦" (137)

            The enduring of effects of parenting
practice is a familiar assumption.  Ironically it is a mainstay of the
very everyday common sense that Carey so mistrusts.  However the most
important tradition today in child development, behavior genetics, has cast
serious doubt on the causal effects of home life (shared environment) upon the
child after early adolescence. (David C. Rowe The Limits of Family Influence,
1994)  In addition is Carey’s penchant for quantitatively unspecified
generalizations.  Parents who are unreflective are said to often
direct their repressed pain at their children (7), unhealthy relationships are often
caused by an insufficient capacity for wonder (15), and, "If the parents
meet certain basic needs such as comfort, food, tenderness, affection, and
love, the infant will learn that the world is a place that can be
trusted."(46)

Finally there is a delicate and
subtle issue involving authorial attitude that I do not understand entirely but
which sticks in my brain regardless.  Certainly any writer who sets
fundamental social critique as his or her task necessarily places himself
outside of and above his topic material.  The critic cannot escape the
claim that he or she knows better than those whose practices he finds
wanting.  This applies to the ancient Prophets, to Socrates, to
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and to Seamus Carey.  Mild mannered Jesus for
example referred to the pious Pharisees as whitened sepulchers (Matthew 23:27, harsh words indeed.  The difficult problem of the critic is to stand overtly
outside and in-the-right compared to his or her subject(s) without emitting
that annoying vapor of smugness.  Socrates and Kierkegaard succeed at this,
Nietzsche and Carey do not.  The author’s contemplative nature has already
been contrasted with the "willfulness" of his wife’s.  In
another story the author’s wife was tired with patience worn thin when their
daughter complained of a painful ear and began to act out.  The mother
wanted antibiotics but Carey reminded her of their opposition to their
overuse.  "My wife was tired and didn’t want to hear it.  But I
remembered the remedy for ear infections and went to the medicine cabinet to
get the tree oil€¦ Looking back on the previous night, we realized that my
wife’s fatigue and the frustration that resulted caused a temporary lapse in
discipline." (130)  One need not be a feminist to wonder, why is
Seamus Carey never tired?  Why doesn’t he ever worry about bills or get
interrupted too many times during the day?  And if the wife’s decision to
leave the workforce was courageous, a rejection of egotism in favor of care,
why was Carey’s decision to stay in the workforce not cowardly and
egotistical?    

There are other examples to be
presented.  Carey’s wonder at the workings of a colony of carpenter ants was
disturbed by his father-in-law’s mundane concerns for the integrity of his
house’s support beams.  Here is the author gently scolding and instructing
his niece whose language was not appropriate.  Here he is harshly
condemning parents of ADD children with no attempt at empathy for their
frightful situations.  These concerns about authorial attitude are not
relevant to the philosophical integrity of the work.  They could however
color the spirit in which it is received.

 

© 2004 John D. Mullen

 

John Mullen, Ph.D. is Professor of
Philosophy at Dowling College, Long Island, NY.  He is author of
Kierkegaard’s Philosophy (New American Library, 1988). 

Categories: Philosophical, Ethics, Relationships