All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood

by Jennifer Senior

It’s amazing how many parents at ECFE talked about the joys of shedding their grown-up inhibitions, if only for a few minutes each day. For women, it tended to come out around singing and dancing: Kenya talked about watching her kid bounce and howl to Katy Perry’s “Firework” in the backseat of their car; another woman talked about going to outdoor concerts. (“No one looks at you if you dance like crazy with your kid.”) And then there was Jessie, who so loved her dance parties. The second time I visited her home—an evening this time, with her husband, Luke, and all three kids romping around—she showed us a new dance move Abe had done in his underpants earlier that day. Her impersonation was dead-on, wild, ridiculous, communicated in a private shorthand that her husband seemed better than anyone in the room to understand; the two oldest kids spontaneously joined in, forming a conga line as Estelle’s “American Boy” boomed in the background. When a sudden hissing sound issued from the kitchen, Luke assured Abe, who seemed concerned, that it was just the potatoes on the stove coming to a boil.