All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood

by Jennifer Senior

ON PAGE 1 OF The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis makes a distinction between what he calls Gift-love and Need-love. “The typical example of Gift-love,” he writes, “would be that love which moves a man to work and plan and save for the future well-being of his family which he will die without sharing or seeing; of the second, that which sends a lonely or frightened child to its mother’s arms.” In my conversations with parents of young children, it’s Need-love that often most bedazzles, and with good reason: there’s nothing like it. To be adored unconditionally, to be hoisted on a plinth and held above reproach, is rare for most adults, no matter how much they’re loved by their spouses or cherished by friends. “Maybe it’s egocentric to say this,” said a woman in Angie’s ECFE class, “but you’re their whole world, at this age. I love that. . . .” “ . . . and maybe that’s why,” finished the woman next to her, “you don’t want them to grow up.”