Bear and forebear: Becoming a more tolerant parent

Tolerating difficult things is critical to parenting, but tolerance is becoming a lost art in the modern world. Stoic ideas can help.

The Caryatids at the Acropolis of Athens: Ancient women who could bear and forebear (photo from my travel to Athens in June)

Tolerance is a word we don’t hear very often these days. It seems to be a lost art in this era of conflict and extremism pumped up online for “engagement.” But I think we should talk about it, and try to understand the general movement away from tolerating things that annoy or bother us.

This is important to moms and dads—because if we are applying Stoicism to parenting, we’re in the business of tolerating a lot with our kids. I’d like to take a look at what’s going on, and how we can work to restore our tolerance as moms and dads.

Sidenote: I’ll add here that in our current American politics, you might feel that it’s wrong to tolerate other people’s opinions or the policies they are pushing that you disagree with on moral principles. If those opinions/policies mean harming people and are based on cruel assumptions, you have every reason to not want to tolerate them. We are at a point where our public conversation has deteriorated into tribalism. It remains to be seen what that will lead to.

People insulate themselves online

I’d like to talk briefly about tolerance in our everyday lives, and what’s happened to it.

In today’s world, you can insulate yourself from a lot of annoyances and avoiding having to practice tolerance if you have the means. For example, you could watch movies on a soft coach at home rather than going to a theater where people might talk, text, or kick the back of your seat. Rather than ride crowded public transportation where you might not get to sit down, you could drive a car and be comfortably seated in your own space, maybe even with the AC on.

But the ultimate insulation comes in going online. Rather than being bothered with IRL relationships that require conversation, negotiation, compromise, and disagreement, you can simply go to the Internet and find people you agree with to hang out with in the virtual space. There’s no real commitment; you can come as you please, and you can leave as soon as things get messy. And like magic, there’s no need to tolerate other kinds of people or people you don’t see eye to eye with.

What’s more, you can get your social needs fulfilled by spending time remotely with folks in your own bubble, and if you feel like getting angry, you can virtually “yell” at people you disagree with on social media (usually staying anonymous in the process, to protect yourself from having a personal stake, or from any real-world unpleasantness).

No-kids zones

This leads me back to being a parent. There have been many questions raised recently about why folks are choosing not to have children. It’s a complicated issue, and I think that the lack of support (financial, structural, emotional…) for parents is largely responsible. But there’s another side to it. My sense is that the desire to insulate oneself and to avoid having to tolerate tough things is now a factor in some people’s decisions not to have children. (There are surely many reasons, and I don’t want to be entirely reductionist, so this is just one perspective!) This creates a network effect: if there are fewer kids overall, people become less and less accustomed to being around children, and less and less tolerant of kids overall.

Here’s an intriguing example I read about recently: With the very low birth rate in South Korea, there just aren’t as many kids around. And now, people have become less willing to be near children in public places. South Koreans have created “no-kids zones” in numerous spaces to avoid creating an annoyance for adults. Then kids and their behaviors become even more rare, creating more potential frustration at proximity to young kids in zones where they are allowed.

What you need to tolerate as a parent

Which leads me to more reflections as a mom. Parents and caregivers will already know this: when you’re taking care of a child, you have to tolerate a lot of things that you will likely find difficult. From coping with a typical infant’s cries or the inconsolable wails of a colicky baby…. to worries when a young child is having nightmares… to coaching a preteen dealing with a rough friend breakup… to the moment when a teen first goes out driving by herself… there are many stressful and rough times. All of these things trigger emotions in us as their caregivers. Some of these are hard or anxious feelings. And sometimes we have to take actions that involve sacrificing our peace and comfort.

If you cannot tolerate feeling uncomfortable, or even disliked by your child, you’ll struggle to handle these scenes. You’ll also be more likely to give in to your kids tantrums, whining, or other behaviors that children display (quite naturally) when they want something.

So what should we do? You won’t be surprised when I say that the answer is to work on ourselves (it usually is!) – and that Stoicism can help (it usually does!).

With Stoicism, I have had the opportunity to grow two things: tolerance and patience. This is still aspirational much of the time, but it’s worth saying that I am on an upward trend! Tolerance and patience are really about temperance and how we respond to things we dislike or that frustrate us.

This has been a lifelong learning process for me. Growing up, like most kids, I was not very patient. I waited when I absolutely had to, but I always tried to speed everything up. There was a LOT of waiting back in those days, and a lot of potentially boring downtime that we had to fill on our own. Then came email, the Internet, smart phones, social media, online shopping, etc., and soon the chance to get instant gratification was omnipresent!

Having kids = growing tolerance (ideally!)

When I had children, though, I realized quickly that I needed to grow my tolerance and patience, and that things cannot be rushed with babies or toddlers. Sure, it’s a bit dull to do the same things over and over again, but that’s what babies require, and that’s what’s reassuring to young kids. The fact that you’re able to answer the same need or respond to the same behaviors again and again, with consistency and a sense of love and attention, creates a bond of secure attachment. That’s something all kids benefit from.

Aside from kids’ behaviors, we also have to tolerate their words. Sometimes the slang gets a bit out of control (skibbidi toilet, anyone?) but I actually find it entertaining as a lover of words. So that’s not what I’m talking about.

Words can hurt. Your kids (and other folks!) may say, “I hate you” and may verbally express displeasure with you, your actions, or your ideas. Whether they “mean” it or not is open to interpretation. In that particular moment, maybe. They are in an emotional red zone where they are not thinking rationally and not behaving pro-socially… and they need time and support to come back to their senses.

Rather than getting angry and flying off the handle, or sulking and expressing disappointment, our role as responsible adults is to restrain our negative emotions, and make it clear this kind of talk is not OK, and can be very harmful to relationships… but that we can still tolerate it when we hear it. We won’t banish the child from our home or our affections for saying something hurtful. In that moment, kids need someone to hold the line on standards and on behavior, someone who is not afraid to create and enforce boundaries kindly but firmly. That takes both courage and tolerance, as well as patience.

How Stoicism helps: Bear and forebear

A lot of Stoic virtues are involved here! You already saw that some of them come into play just above, including courage and temperance.

You may have heard the term “bear and forebear.” It’s a staple of the Stoic approach that was (likely) said by Stoic philosopher and teacher Epictetus in Roman times. As Massimo Pigliucci pointed out in a recent post, this wording was cited by Aulus Gellius, a Roman writer who wrote Attic Nights, a wide-ranging collection of thoughts and stories. He says that Epictetus believed there were two faults

…which were by far the worst and most disgusting of all, lack of endurance and lack of self-restraint, when we cannot put up with or bear the wrongs which we ought to endure, or cannot restrain ourselves from actions or pleasures from which we ought to refrain.

If anyone would take these two words to heart and use them for his own guidance and regulation, he will be almost without sin and will lead a very peaceful life. These two words are bear and forebear.

This is a Stoic concept I choose to lean into. Thinking about its ancient and philosophical origins in Epictetus elevates my ability to put up with things I don’t love tolerating, and helps me find patience to refrain or to exhibit self-control when human relationships—and especially parent-child relationships—get a bit messy.

The word endure resonates, too. Parenting is definitely an endurance activity, and there’s often something specific to endure with our kids’ phases and actions. I agree it can be difficult. But it’s worth it to me, and I am willing to make that sacrifice of time, effort, and cultivate tolerance.

As the Stoics said, the obstacle is the way. By facing the adversity of our children’s tough emotions and boundary-pushing, we can strengthen our confidence in ourselves as compassionate, non-anxious moms and dads. We can weather the difficult or just plain dull tasks in our daily caregiving. And we can come out with a renewed ability to tolerate not just what our kids dish out, but what the world throws at us. I’d say that’s a win.

A stele at the National Archeological Museum, Athens (my photo)