When I was born, there was really only one book about how to raise your children, and it was written by Dr. Spock. (Laughter) Thank you for indulging me. I have always wanted to do that.
當我出生時, 真的就只有一本書, 是有關如何扶養孩子, 那是史巴克博士寫的。 (笑聲) 謝謝你們這麼配合我! 我一直以來都想這麼做的。
No, it was Benjamin Spock, and his book was called "The Common Sense Book of Baby And Child Care." It sold almost 50 million copies by the time he died. Today, I, as the mother of a six-year-old, walk into Barnes and Noble, and see this. And it is amazing the variety that one finds on those shelves. There are guides to raising an eco-friendly kid, a gluten-free kid, a disease-proof kid, which, if you ask me, is a little bit creepy. There are guides to raising a bilingual kid even if you only speak one language at home. There are guides to raising a financially savvy kid and a science-minded kid and a kid who is a whiz at yoga. Short of teaching your toddler how to defuse a nuclear bomb, there is pretty much a guide to everything.
不是啦,是班傑明.史巴克! 他的書叫做「嬰幼兒保健常識書」, 直到他死掉為止 那賣了快 5,000 萬本。 今天我身為一個 6 歲小孩的母親, 走進「邦諾書店」, 看到了這些! 讓人驚嘆的是 可從這些書架上 找到種類這麼豐富的書。 有指導如何撫養不損害環境的小孩、 無麩質飲食養育法、 怎麼養出不生病的小孩等等, 我個人是覺得 不生病的小孩有點嚇人。 還有如何扶養會講雙語的小孩, 即使家裡只有單語環境。 還有怎麼教出財務小神童、 有科學頭腦的小孩、 小孩是瑜珈高手的書。 除了教小孩 拆解原子彈的指導書以外, 基本上每一件事都有指南可以參考。
All of these books are well-intentioned. I am sure that many of them are great. But taken together, I am sorry, I do not see help when I look at that shelf. I see anxiety. I see a giant candy-colored monument to our collective panic, and it makes me want to know, why is it that raising our children is associated with so much anguish and so much confusion? Why is it that we are at sixes and sevens about the one thing human beings have been doing successfully for millennia, long before parenting message boards and peer-reviewed studies came along? Why is it that so many mothers and fathers experience parenthood as a kind of crisis?
所有這些書都是好意的, 我相信大多數是很棒的, 但擺在一起時,我就很抱歉了, 因為我找不到有用的, 就當我看著那個書架, 我看到了不安、 我看到了糖果顏色般繽紛的巨大名勝, 對應於我們集結出的恐慌。 這讓我想要知道: 「為什麼撫育孩子 是這麼痛苦, 以及這麼多困惑?」 為什麼我們會是七上八下的? 這件事我們人類 已經成功做了上千年, 且早在「育兒訊息留言板」、 還有「同儕檢討學習」的出現以前。 為什麼這麼多父母們 體認當父母就像一場災難?
Crisis might seem like a strong word, but there is data suggesting it probably isn't. There was, in fact, a paper of just this very name, "Parenthood as Crisis," published in 1957, and in the 50-plus years since, there has been plenty of scholarship documenting a pretty clear pattern of parental anguish. Parents experience more stress than non-parents. Their marital satisfaction is lower. There have been a number of studies looking at how parents feel when they are spending time with their kids, and the answer often is, not so great. Last year, I spoke with a researcher named Matthew Killingsworth who is doing a very, very imaginative project that tracks people's happiness, and here is what he told me he found: "Interacting with your friends is better than interacting with your spouse, which is better than interacting with other relatives, which is better than interacting with acquaintances, which is better than interacting with parents, which is better than interacting with children. Who are on par with strangers." (Laughter)
「災難」看起來像是一個激烈的字詞, 但是有資料指出用「災難」不會激烈。 實際上曾經有論文就是用這來命名── 1957 年發表的「當父母就像場災難」。 而且從那之後的 50 多年裡, 有很多的學術研究 記載父母苦悶 的一個非常清楚的圖像。 父母們比非父母者 承受更多壓力, 他們對婚姻的滿足感較低。 有很多的研究 探討父母親們 花時間陪小孩時的感受是怎樣的。 答案經常不是太棒的。 去年我跟一位研究者 馬修.奇林史渥茲聊過, 他正在做一個非常獨創的研究專案, 要追蹤紀錄人們的快樂。 他告訴我,他發現: 「與你的朋友們互動 比與你的配偶互動更快樂, 前者又比與親戚們互動更快樂, 前者又比與點頭之交們互動更快樂, 前者又比與父母親互動更快樂, 前者又比與小孩們互動更快樂, 小孩們就跟陌生人沒兩樣。」 (笑聲)
But here's the thing. I have been looking at what underlies these data for three years, and children are not the problem. Something about parenting right now at this moment is the problem. Specifically, I don't think we know what parenting is supposed to be. Parent, as a verb, only entered common usage in 1970. Our roles as mothers and fathers have changed. The roles of our children have changed. We are all now furiously improvising our way through a situation for which there is no script, and if you're an amazing jazz musician, then improv is great, but for the rest of us, it can kind of feel like a crisis.
不過重點來了, 三年來我一直在探討 構成這些資料的東西, 小孩子並不是問題, 當下有關當父母的一些事情 才是問題。 特別是我不認為我們懂 當父母應該是怎樣一回事, 「當父母」做為一個動詞, 到 1970 年之後才普遍使用, 我們身為父母親的角色已經變了, 我們小孩子的角色也已經改變了, 現在我們大家拼命地即興演出 度過一種狀況, 那就是沒有劇本的狀況。 假如你是一個非常傑出的爵士樂手, 那麼即興演出是很棒的, 不過對我們其他人來說, 這有種像是一場災難的感覺。
So how did we get here? How is it that we are all now navigating a child-rearing universe without any norms to guide us? Well, for starters, there has been a major historical change. Until fairly recently, kids worked, on our farms primarily, but also in factories, mills, mines. Kids were considered economic assets. Sometime during the Progressive Era, we put an end to this arrangement. We recognized kids had rights, we banned child labor, we focused on education instead, and school became a child's new work. And thank God it did. But that only made a parent's role more confusing in a way. The old arrangement might not have been particularly ethical, but it was reciprocal. We provided food, clothing, shelter, and moral instruction to our kids, and they in return provided income.
那麼我們怎麼會變成這樣呢? 我們大家現在是如何 在一個養育小孩的世界中, 找出我們的方向? 而沒有任何準則可以指引我們。 好!首先, 發生過一個重大的歷史性改變, 直到不久前, 孩子們以前是要工作的, 主要是在我們的農場裡, 但是也有小孩在工廠、磨坊、 還有礦場等地工作, 孩子們被認為是經濟上的資產, 在「進步時期」的某個時點, (美國 1890-1920 政治及社會改革階段) 我們禁止了這樣的做法, 我們承認孩子們有權力, 我們禁止使用童工、 我們用教育來取代工作, 學校成為孩子們的新工作, 感謝上帝這做到了! 不過那只有讓父母親的角色 更令人難懂。 舊的做法可能不是高道德的, 不過卻是互惠的。 我們供應孩子食物、衣服、居所、 還有品性教導, 他們提供收入來償還。
Once kids stopped working, the economics of parenting changed. Kids became, in the words of one brilliant if totally ruthless sociologist, "economically worthless but emotionally priceless." Rather than them working for us, we began to work for them, because within only a matter of decades it became clear: if we wanted our kids to succeed, school was not enough. Today, extracurricular activities are a kid's new work, but that's work for us too, because we are the ones driving them to soccer practice. Massive piles of homework are a kid's new work, but that's also work for us, because we have to check it. About three years ago, a Texas woman told something to me that totally broke my heart. She said, almost casually, "Homework is the new dinner." The middle class now pours all of its time and energy and resources into its kids, even though the middle class has less and less of those things to give. Mothers now spend more time with their children than they did in 1965, when most women were not even in the workforce.
一旦孩童們停止工作, 養育小孩的經濟性就改變了。 孩童們變成了, 以一個聰明、或許可說是無情的 社會學家的話來說: 「經濟上毫無價值, 但是情感上是無價的!」 不再是他們為我們工作, 反而是我們開始為他們工作。 因為在幾十年下來, 這變得很清楚-- 「如果我們想要自己的孩子成功, 只有學校是不夠的。」 今天,課外活動是小孩們的新工作, 不過那也是我們的工作, 因為我們就是 載他們去踢足球的人。 成堆的家庭作業是孩子們的新工作, 不過那也是給我們的工作, 因為我們必須檢查它。 大約在三年前,一位德州的女士 跟我說過一些話, 那徹底地讓我心痛, 她用一種稀鬆平常的語氣說, 「家庭作業是新的晚餐。」 現在中產階級們 投注他們所有的時間、 精力以及資源給他們的小孩, 儘管中產階級者們 已經越來越少有那些東西能給了。 現在媽媽們花較多的時間陪小孩, 比起在 1965 年時所花的更多, 那時後大部分的婦女根本也不用工作。
It would probably be easier for parents to do their new roles if they knew what they were preparing their kids for. This is yet another thing that makes modern parenting so very confounding. We have no clue what portion our wisdom, if any, is of use to our kids. The world is changing so rapidly, it's impossible to say. This was true even when I was young. When I was a kid, high school specifically, I was told that I would be at sea in the new global economy if I did not know Japanese. And with all due respect to the Japanese, it didn't turn out that way. Now there is a certain kind of middle-class parent that is obsessed with teaching their kids Mandarin, and maybe they're onto something, but we cannot know for sure. So, absent being able to anticipate the future, what we all do, as good parents, is try and prepare our kids for every possible kind of future, hoping that just one of our efforts will pay off. We teach our kids chess, thinking maybe they will need analytical skills. We sign them up for team sports, thinking maybe they will need collaborative skills, you know, for when they go to Harvard Business School. We try and teach them to be financially savvy and science-minded and eco-friendly and gluten-free, though now is probably a good time to tell you that I was not eco-friendly and gluten-free as a child. I ate jars of pureed macaroni and beef. And you know what? I'm doing okay. I pay my taxes. I hold down a steady job. I was even invited to speak at TED. But the presumption now is that what was good enough for me, or for my folks for that matter, isn't good enough anymore. So we all make a mad dash to that bookshelf, because we feel like if we aren't trying everything, it's as if we're doing nothing and we're defaulting on our obligations to our kids.
讓父母親們去做好他們的新角色 可能會比較簡單, 要是他們知道為小孩們 做的準備是為了什麼。 這就是另外一件 讓現代當父母這麼令人困惑的事。 我們完全不曉得 我們哪一部分的智慧 對小孩來說是有用的。 這世界如此迅速地改變, 一切都很難說。 這是真的,即使當我還年輕的時候, 當我是小孩子時, 明確地說是在高中時, 我被告知 我會困在新的世界經濟大海中, 除非我懂日文。 無意冒犯日本人, 但結果並不是這樣的。 現在有一類中產階級的父母, 堅持要他們的小孩學中文, 也許他們是照著趨勢, 但是我們沒有人能百分百確定。 因為沒有能力能預測未來, 身為好爸媽的我們都在做的事, 是盡力為我們的小孩準備好 應付每一種可能的未來, 希望我們多項的付出中, 只要一項能夠成功就好。 我們教我們的小孩下棋, 想說他們有可能會用到分析的技能、 我們幫他們報名了團隊運動, 想說他們有可能會要用到 與人合作的能力, 或許有天他們念哈佛商學院時 會派上用場, 我們試圖教導他們 成為財務上很精明的、 有科學的頭腦、不損害環境的、 不吃麥麩的。 現在很可能就是一個 好的時間點來告訴你們, 我小時候既不是不損害環境的、 也不是不吃麥麩的小孩, 我吃過好幾罐的牛肉通心粉。 而且你們知道嗎? 我這麼做也沒事。 我繳稅 、 我有一份穩定的工作 、 我甚至還被邀請來了 TED演說 ! 不過現在的假定是, 以前對我或周邊朋友來說是足夠的, 現在不再是夠好的了。 所以我們全都瘋狂飛奔到書架前, 因為我們覺得如果 沒有試遍每一件事, 那會像是我們什麼事都沒做, 好像我們沒盡到教養小孩的責任。
So it's hard enough to navigate our new roles as mothers and fathers. Now add to this problem something else: we are also navigating new roles as husbands and wives because most women today are in the workforce. This is another reason, I think, that parenthood feels like a crisis. We have no rules, no scripts, no norms for what to do when a child comes along now that both mom and dad are breadwinners. The writer Michael Lewis once put this very, very well. He said that the surest way for a couple to start fighting is for them to go out to dinner with another couple whose division of labor is ever so slightly different from theirs, because the conversation in the car on the way home goes something like this: "So, did you catch that Dave is the one who walks them to school every morning?" (Laughter) Without scripts telling us who does what in this brave new world, couples fight, and both mothers and fathers each have their legitimate gripes. Mothers are much more likely to be multi-tasking when they are at home, and fathers, when they are at home, are much more likely to be mono-tasking. Find a guy at home, and odds are he is doing just one thing at a time. In fact, UCLA recently did a study looking at the most common configuration of family members in middle-class homes. Guess what it was? Dad in a room by himself. According to the American Time Use Survey, mothers still do twice as much childcare as fathers, which is better than it was in Erma Bombeck's day, but I still think that something she wrote is highly relevant: "I have not been alone in the bathroom since October." (Laughter)
所以真的很難去找出我們 新角色的方向- 身為母親還有父親。 現在還更增加了其他問題, 我們也正在找新角色的方向- 身為丈夫還有妻子。 因為現今大部分的女人都在職場上, 我認為這是另一個原因, 讓當父母親感覺像是一場災難, 我們沒有規章、沒有劇本、 沒有準則, 適用於當小孩子出生後 要做什麼事。 現在爸爸跟媽媽都是賺錢養家的人。 作家麥可.路易斯 曾經把這寫得 非常非常棒, 他說讓一對夫妻開始吵架, 最簡單的方法 就是讓他們與另一對夫妻 去外面吃晚餐。 而對方的勞動領域 與他們並沒有太大差異。 因為在回家路上,車子裡的對話 大概就像這樣: 「所以, 你有沒有聽到戴夫 是每天陪小孩走路上學的人?」 (笑聲) 少了劇本告訴我們誰該做什麼事, 在這個新世界裡,夫妻們會吵架, 而且媽媽們跟爸爸們 都有他們正當的怨言。 媽媽們非常可能 在家的時候 要同時處理多項事情。 當爸爸們在家時, 非常可能只做單一事情。 任你找一個在家的男人, 他是一次只做一件事情的機率很大。 實際上洛杉磯加州大學 最近剛做過一項調查, 觀察最普遍的 在中產階級家中的家庭成員分佈位置, 你猜怎麼著, 老爸自己一個人在車庫裡 ! 根據「美國人時間使用調查」, 母親們仍然做著 多父親們兩倍的孩童照護工作, 那比起在爾瑪‧邦貝克那年代好多了, (美國專欄幽默作家1960-90) 不過我仍然認為她曾寫過的一些東西 是極其適宜的: 「從十月以後我不再有自己 單獨在浴室的時間。」 (笑聲)
But here is the thing: Men are doing plenty. They spend more time with their kids than their fathers ever spent with them. They work more paid hours, on average, than their wives, and they genuinely want to be good, involved dads. Today, it is fathers, not mothers, who report the most work-life conflict.
但其實男人們現在做很多事情了, 他們花了更多的時間陪小孩, 比起他們父親當初陪伴他們的還多, 他們的平均工時 比另一半還要多, 而且他們真心地想要做個 盡心的好父親。 今天是父親而不是母親, 據說是最有工作與生活衝突的。
Either way, by the way, if you think it's hard for traditional families to sort out these new roles, just imagine what it's like now for non-traditional families: families with two dads, families with two moms, single-parent households. They are truly improvising as they go.
順帶一提另一個想法, 如果你認為讓傳統家庭 應付這些新角色是困難的, 就想像一下對非傳統家庭來說 是什麼樣的情況-- 有兩個父親的家庭、 有兩個母親的家庭、 單親家庭, 當他們前進時真的是即興演出。
Now, in a more progressive country, and forgive me here for capitulating to cliché and invoking, yes, Sweden, parents could rely on the state for support. There are countries that acknowledge the anxieties and the changing roles of mothers and fathers. Unfortunately, the United States is not one of them, so in case you were wondering what the U.S. has in common with Papua New Guinea and Liberia, it's this: We too have no paid maternity leave policy. We are one of eight known countries that does not.
如今身在一個比較進步的國家, 原諒我老調重彈, 還得借助瑞典為例: 「沒錯,父母親們可以依靠國家 給予協助。」 有好多國家都清楚明白 媽媽跟爸爸們的 焦慮感以及角色改變, 不幸的是美國並不在其中。 因此要是你想知道美國 跟巴布紐幾內亞和賴比瑞亞的相同處, 那就是: 我們全都沒有 給薪的母親育嬰假政策, 我們是已知的 沒有這項政策的八國之一。
In this age of intense confusion, there is just one goal upon which all parents can agree, and that is whether they are tiger moms or hippie moms, helicopters or drones, our kids' happiness is paramount. That is what it means to raise kids in an age when they are economically worthless but emotionally priceless. We are all the custodians of their self-esteem. The one mantra no parent ever questions is, "All I want is for my children to be happy." And don't get me wrong: I think happiness is a wonderful goal for a child. But it is a very elusive one. Happiness and self-confidence, teaching children that is not like teaching them how to plow a field. It's not like teaching them how to ride a bike. There's no curriculum for it. Happiness and self-confidence can be the byproducts of other things, but they cannot really be goals unto themselves. A child's happiness is a very unfair burden to place on a parent. And happiness is an even more unfair burden to place on a kid.
在這個高度困擾的年代, 只有一個目標 全部的父母親都會同意, 那就是,不論他們是 虎媽或是嬉皮媽、直升機父母 或是無人偵測機父母, 我們小孩的快樂是至上的。 那就是 扶養小孩的意義, 當他們在經濟上一點價值都沒有, 但是情感上是無價的。 我們都是他們自尊的監護人, 不曾有父母懷疑過的這口號是: 「我最想看到的就是 小孩們能快快樂樂!」 別搞錯了, 我認為快樂對小孩子來說 是一個很棒的目標, 但它是很難達到的目標。 「快樂」還有「自信」, 教小孩子快樂和自信 不像教他們如何犁田、 不像教他們如何去騎單車, 沒有學校的課程來教這些。 「快樂」和「自信」可以是 其他東西產生的副帶品, 但是不能真的拿 「快樂」和「自信」來當目標。 一個小孩的快樂 是一個加諸於父母身上 非常不公平的負擔, 而且快樂是一個更不公平的負擔 來加諸在小孩身上!
And I have to tell you, I think it leads to some very strange excesses. We are now so anxious to protect our kids from the world's ugliness that we now shield them from "Sesame Street." I wish I could say I was kidding about this, but if you go out and you buy the first few episodes of "Sesame Street" on DVD, as I did out of nostalgia, you will find a warning at the beginning saying that the content is not suitable for children. (Laughter) Can I just repeat that? The content of the original "Sesame Street" is not suitable for children. When asked about this by The New York Times, a producer for the show gave a variety of explanations. One was that Cookie Monster smoked a pipe in one skit and then swallowed it. Bad modeling. I don't know. But the thing that stuck with me is she said that she didn't know whether Oscar the Grouch could be invented today because he was too depressive. I cannot tell you how much this distresses me. (Laughter) You are looking at a woman who has a periodic table of the Muppets hanging from her cubicle wall. The offending muppet, right there.
而且我必須跟你們說, 我認為那造成非常怪異的過分。 我們現在是這麼不安的 想保護我們的小孩避開世界的醜陋, 我們現在不讓他們看「芝麻街」。 我希望自己是在開玩笑, 不過假如你們出門購買 最初的一些「芝麻街」 DVD 影集的話, 就跟我因為懷舊所做的事一樣, 你會看見一段警告就在片頭處, 「本片內容不適宜 給兒童們觀賞。」 (笑聲) 可以讓我再重複一遍嗎? 原版「芝麻街」的內容 對孩童們來說是不適宜的! 當被紐約時報問到這問題時, 該節目的製作人給了 多種的解釋, 其中一個是在某短劇裡, 餅乾怪獸用一根水管抽菸, 之後把管子吞了下去, 不好的榜樣吧!我不知道啦。 但是讓我掛心的事 是她說如果是今天創造芝麻街的話, 她說愛發牢騷的奧斯卡 可能不會被創作出來, 因為牠太抑鬱了。 我的難過無法言喻。 (笑聲) 你正在看著的 是一位牆上掛著 布偶家族的元素周期表的女人, 這就掛在我辦公室。 抑鬱的布偶就在這。
That's my son the day he was born. I was high as a kite on morphine. I had had an unexpected C-section. But even in my opiate haze, I managed to have one very clear thought the first time I held him. I whispered it into his ear. I said, "I will try so hard not to hurt you." It was the Hippocratic Oath, and I didn't even know I was saying it. But it occurs to me now that the Hippocratic Oath is a much more realistic aim than happiness. In fact, as any parent will tell you, it's awfully hard. All of us have said or done hurtful things that we wish to God we could take back. I think in another era we did not expect quite so much from ourselves, and it is important that we all remember that the next time we are staring with our hearts racing at those bookshelves. I'm not really sure how to create new norms for this world, but I do think that in our desperate quest to create happy kids, we may be assuming the wrong moral burden. It strikes me as a better goal, and, dare I say, a more virtuous one, to focus on making productive kids and moral kids, and to simply hope that happiness will come to them by virtue of the good that they do and their accomplishments and the love that they feel from us. That, anyway, is one response to having no script. Absent having new scripts, we just follow the oldest ones in the book -- decency, a work ethic, love — and let happiness and self-esteem take care of themselves. I think if we all did that, the kids would still be all right, and so would their parents, possibly in both cases even better.
那是我兒子出生的那天, 我當時因為嗎啡 心情高亢得像風箏一樣, 我做了沒預料到的剖腹手術。 不過即使在吸了麻醉霧氣的狀態下, 在我第一次抱他時, 我成功抓住一個非常清楚的想法, 我低聲傳進他的耳裡, 我說:「我會竭盡心力不讓你受到傷害。」 這是「希波克拉提克誓詞」, 我甚至沒意識到我唸了它, 但是我現在想到, 「希波克拉提克誓詞」 是個比「快樂」更真實的目標。 實際上就像每對父母親說的, 這真的是困難到不行, 我們所有人都曾說過或做過 傷害人的事情, 那些向上帝許願, 希望我們可以收回的事。 我想在另一個時代的話, 我們不會期望 自己為小孩做到那麼多事, 下次當我們站在書架前 看著那些書天人交戰時, 這點是很重要的,我們全都要記住了。 我不是非常肯定如何建立新的準則 給這一個世界, 不過我認為 在我們極度渴望養出快樂的小孩時, 我們也許接受了不對的道德負擔。 這讓我想到一個更好的目標, 而且我大膽說是一個比較 道德高尚的目標: 「要注重培養能做事的小孩、 還有行為良好的小孩」, 以及單單希望快樂會來到他們身邊, 透過他們所做出的好事、 所達成的高尚品德; 還有他們從我們這裡感受到的愛。 這是面對沒有劇本時的一種回應方式, 缺少了新的劇本, 我們只要遵從書上最舊的劇本: 「正直、工作道義還有愛」, 還有讓「快樂」跟「自尊」 自己管好自己, 我認為我們都這麼做的話, 小孩子應該仍然沒有問題的, 還有他們父母也一樣沒問題的, 非常有可能兩者都會更好。
Thank you.
謝謝大家!
(Applause)
(掌聲)