Today's title comes courtesy of Nobel prize winner André Gide. For those with children reading this, you've probably got a wry smile on your face. Yep, today's article is all about parenting.

I'd like to start with a couple of Lifehacker interviews: one with Mike Adamick, author of Raising Empowered Daughters, and the other is with Austin Kleon, best known for Steal Like An Artist. Adamick makes a really important point for those of us with daughters:

Kids, and I think especially girls, are expected to be these perfect little achievers as they get older. Good grades, good at sports, good friends. There’s so much pressure and I wanted her to know, and I think I make a compelling example, that everyone messes up all the time and it’s okay.

Mike Adamick

Towards the end of the interview, Adamick goes on to say:

You get to define what your circles look like, and you can do tremendous good in your social, work, and family circles by playing a more active role in helping our girls not have to navigate a sexist society and by helping our boys to access their full emotional selves, not just a one-size-fits-all masculinity that can so easily slide into anger and entitlement. We’re all in this together, and we have a lot more power than we imagine we do.

Mike Adamick

It's hard to realise, as a straight white man that, despite your best intentions, you're actually part of the problem, part of the patriarchy. All you can really do is go out of your way to try and square things up through actions, not just words. And that includes in your role as son and husband as much as parent.

Austin Kleon, being an author and artist, frames things in terms of children and his work. This image he shares (which I've included as the header for this article) absolutely slayed me. Although I try to explain to my own children what I'm doing when I'm using my laptop, I'm pretty sure they just see the very different things I'm doing as just 'being on the computer'.

He gives the kind of advice that I sometimes give to soon-to-be fathers:

During a birthing class, my father-in-law, who was a veteran parent at that point, was asked if he had any advice for the rookie parents. He stood up and said, “You’re going to want to throw them out the window. And that’s okay! The important thing is that you don’t.”

Austin Kleon

Parenting is the hardest, but probably most rewarding, job in the world. You always feel like you could be doing better, and that you could be providing more for your offspring. The truth is, though, that they actually need to see you as a human being, as someone who experiences the ups and downs of life. The vicissitudes of emotional experience are what makes us human — and, perhaps most importantly, our children learn from us how to deal with that rollercoaster.

Also check out:

  • You Don't Have to Define What Type of Parent You Are (Offspring) — "My standards vary based on the day of the week, the direction of the wind and my general mood. I have absolutely no idea what kind of parent I am other than hopefully a decent one."
  • Parents: let your kids fail. You’ll be doing them a favor (Quartz) — "The dirty secret of parenting is that kids can do more than we think they can, and it’s up to us to figure that out."
  • Parents Shouldn’t Spy on Their Kids (Nautilus) — "Adolescence is a critical time in kids’ lives, when they need privacy and a sense of individual space to develop their own identities. It can be almost unbearable for parents to watch their children pull away. But as tempting as it may be for parents to infiltrate the dark corners of their children’s personal lives, there’s good evidence that snooping does more harm than good."