We don’t always have time for books, guides, and a review of interesting articles. That’s why we’ve collected 4 TED talks about family for you.
In the summer or work run, stop for a few minutes to fire up these videos, nothing enriches you like the clash of your own experiences with those strangers. We like to learn on our own, but it’s worth listening to others. What connects us, what separates us, with whose story we are on the way?
Each meeting is a few or several minutes, the essence of storytelling. Sometimes stories interrupted by bursts of laughter, sometimes full of undisguised emotion. Today, TED scientific conferences are held all over the world, and the speakers have one thing in common – they want to tell us a story that is close to them. Today, from the sea of lectures, we pick out a few of those devoted to parenthood and we do not count on discovering new truths in life, but rather remembering those we know well.
1.Jennifer Senior, associated with the New York weekly, author of parental bestsellers – All Joy and No Fun and The Paradox of Modern Parenthood – really gives food for thought in 18 minutes of her speech.
It also makes you laugh, because she is a consummate speaker. As a parent, are we lost in a maze, a winding path that is supposed to lead to the Happiness Olympics? How about a more tangible and realistic goal? All I want for you is to be happy, right?
2.Do you know the non-profit organization Girls Who Code?
Meet its founder, Reshma Saujani, who fights for equal opportunities for women in the IT world. Be brave. What’s behind it? Reshma, at 33, pledged the media, family, and savings to run for congress. She lost. The media accused her of wasting money and taking unnecessary risks because it was known that she would not win. We teach boys to reach for goals, climb higher, and not worry about falling. Girls better stay in their comfort zone, train in what they know and what they are good at. Over time, unlike boys, they will see challenges as a threat and withdraw themselves. And then? According to research, a man will apply for a job, meeting 60% of the requirements in the advertisement. Women? Only if they feel that they meet the criteria 100%.
Raising boys to be brave, and girls to be perfect. Fortunately, this approach is changing, also thanks to Reshma’s actions. By coding, girls learn that it is possible to make a mistake, that the code is good or bad, there is no middle ground. Let us teach our daughters the courage not to be afraid to raise their hands to admit that they cannot do something. Imperfection – this is where ideas are born.
3.Alexandra Sacks works in reproductive psychiatry.
She cannot count how many times a day she hears a voice on her phone: “I just had a baby. It’s not what I thought, I don’t feel fulfilled, happy, walking five centimeters above the ground. Is this depression already and what should I do about it?”
Becoming a mom is a kind of transition, transformation – just like our children, they slowly, gradually become teenagers, with all the baggage of changes in their body, hormones, and behavior. Alexandra Sacks, faced with the lack of appropriate terminology, after years of searching in the literature of anthropologists, discovers the word matrescence – the birth of a mother, becoming a mother. It takes time to mature into the role of a mother – for some, it will be faster, for others, it will be slower, and feeling torn between the old and the new self, lost and misunderstood are completely normal. We are afraid of ambivalent feelings, after all, we have prepared for 9 months to feel only full happiness. Matrescence is also sometimes confused with the actual postpartum depression, we even attribute it to ourselves, staring at the pictures of the family idyll on Instagram during night feedings.
A conversation with your mother, friend, partner, or other mothers about what it will be like is more valuable than a thousand pictures in social media.
4.Over 140,000 people follow him on Instagram, and on YT he shows the normal life of a father of four. Serious conversations, antics, emotional moments.
Everyone has a story. Glen Henry, or Beleaf In Fatherhood in Instagram, acquired superhero powers and was not helped by any secret weapon. He simply quit his job, which he hated, and, fully aware of (or not having it at all), stayed at home with the children. He honestly admits that the moment he was left alone with the kids, he realized that he didn’t know anything about parenting and began an adventure that is both beautiful and hellishly exhausting. Stay-at-home dad already knows why he pisses a woman off when her husband returns home asks “but what have you been doing all day?” What has he gained? Amazing relationship with children and they have a dad who is just 100% present. As Glen concludes, “For the kids to follow you, you have to be with them first.” Listen!
I have an appetite for more and not much time to read large books. Check out other topics of interest to you on TED, the parenting area is deep as the ocean. Interesting meetings!
