I wonder what happens when we turn the lifelong, emotionally charged, familial relations central to who we are into some culturally inflected abstraction called “parenting.” The way back to the good life—and there is a widespread sense that we have lost it or forgotten it—depends much more than we realize on the language we use and the suppositions implicit in the words.

T.S. Eliot has a rough character in his fragment Sweeney Agonistes who is often quoted. “I gotta use words when I talk to you,” he says. It’s worth thinking about which words they are and what they might imply. 

Several weeks ago, my wife and I heard an in-person interview with Harrison Butker, the placekicker for the Kansas City Chiefs whose field goal (with eight seconds left in the game) won the Super Bowl for his team back in February. Mr. Butker has distinguished himself, not only for his skills on the field, but also for his willingness to profess his Catholic faith and to urge others of his generation to marry and have children—advice that seems shocking only in a culture that celebrates everything but the natural ends of human sexuality. During the conversation that we heard, Mr. Butker (only 27) spoke with humility about his growing family, his seriousness about “parenting,” and the importance of his public witness to young people who might be influenced by his example. It was moving testimony. He reminded me of the graduates of Wyoming Catholic College, who have the same beliefs and similar counter-cultural courage, if not the same platform.

But what might “parenting” be, exactly? I do not blame Mr. Butker but the culture for his use of the word, which bothers me every time I hear it. There are parents, no question. More specifically, there are fathers (male) and mothers (female) who have children together and bring them up through thick and thin.

The word “parenting” buzzes a little, if you listen closely, because it refuses to distinguish between the sexes, as though there were a gender-neutral activity applicable to various types of unions in which there is “parenting” to be performed. The intransitive verb was first used in a book called How to Parent (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) in 1970—the era of the growing hegemony of the birth control pill and Planned Parenthood. “Parenting” sounds like a skill set to be mastered by people obsessed with shallow notions of success; it sounds like a gender-neutral set of calculations and recommended behavioral manipulations meant to produce “successful children”—as opposed to real ones.

I hope to God that I have never intransitively “parented.” When I used to tell stories to our children or read aloud from the Chronicles of Narnia, I was not even “fathering” (much less “parenting”) so much as enjoying the delighted imaginations of our children. My wife might show them how to set the table while telling them about the Sundays at her Sicilian Nana’s, and the conversation would be interrupted by questions, corrections, complaints, quick flares of temper, and moments of fascinated wonder as a woman, long dead, moved before them in the fragrance of an imagined kitchen. A novel might hope to capture some of that reality, but never the blank word “parenting.”

Every emotion, good and bad, goes into bringing up children, and the feelings and concerns do not stop when the children grow up. Most of our own children are now parents in their own right. My wife and I do not assess their “parenting.” We remain father and mother to each of them, part of the dense, emotional reality of who they and our grandchildren continue to become. I’m all for love and worry and reason and correction and help wherever possible. But I wonder what happens when we turn the lifelong, emotionally charged, familial relations central to who we are into some culturally inflected abstraction called “parenting.”

We know that being good parents helps our children live a good life. God bless Harrison Butker for caring about his responsibility in bringing up his children. My quibble is entirely with the undertow of the word “parenting” itself. The now-popular phrase “human flourishing” worries me almost as much. I started hearing the term several years ago during its heyday before Covid-19. Doing this or that, someone might say, will lead to human flourishing—and the combination of words is just enough out of the common usage to be instantly recognizable as jargon. People use “human flourishing” a little solemnly, with satisfaction, aware that it has a meaning somehow more sophisticated than, say, “the good life.” It suggests a higher perspective from which to observe the species. Look at those humans flourishing—as though a broad landscape of wholesome human activity were being discerned (another word for another day) from Olympus by a more-than-human flourishment-detector—Hephaistos, maybe. The smith-god contrives on the shield of Achilleus plowed lands and vineyards, herds and weddings and dances: a god’s view of human flourishing.

The way back to the good life—and there is a widespread sense that we have lost it or forgotten it—depends much more than we realize on the language we use and the suppositions implicit in the words. Words exist in time, as T.S. Eliot reminds us in “Burnt Norton.” They “slip, slide, perish,/Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,/Will not stay still.” Given the massive redefinitions and the ideological bullying of our day over words (for example, pronouns), it makes sense to be as critical as possible of the words we use for the reality most central to us.

Republished with gracious permission from Wyoming Catholic College‘s weekly newsletter.

The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.

The featured image is “Parents happiness” (1903) by Jean-Eugène Buland, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.