The Thinker

"...Not...every new mother loses her capacity for abstract thought and her engagement in the non-baby world. But I've known more new moms who were a little embarrassed by what motherhood had turned them into. Women who once enjoyed foreign films, presidential politics, or the latest Cormac McCarthy novel find themselves wondering: Did I really just spend half an hour weighing the relative merits of rubber pacifiers over silicone ones?

"But just because a mom isn't pondering politics and art or the latest dire reports on climate change doesn't mean she isn't using the best of her mind. All the time I wasn't reading books or watching the news, I was thinking-about how to give my children boundaries that would make them feel secure but not thwart their natural sense of adventure; about how to foster curiosity and kindness and gratitude and good humor; about how to help my kids feel connected to the world but not entrapped by worldliness.

"Even now what I discover from my children-from studying my glad, inquisitive, compassionate, creative, and life-embracing children-still strikes me as far more enlightening, and far more permanent, than what I learn by tuning in to the nightly news."

"The Thinker", by Margaret Renkl in Parenting Magazine (May 2008), pgs 59-60.