It's not all or nothing
Cities and adults weren't built in a day
Parenting is intense. It’s joyful, frustrating, mind-blowing, tedious, tiring, instructive, and unexpected. And it’s hard not to become utterly consumed by it once you have a child. Me and my partner tried to correct for this intensity we knew was coming by taking time for ourselves from the start and trying to keep up at least some of our former hobbies. I’m glad we did that for sure, and I think it made a big difference. BUT it’s still very hard not to let things related to your child take up a very big portion of brain space every day, and there’s no shortage of things you can talk yourself into feeling guilty about. The thing is, there’s also real value in being able to separate yourself from the drama of parenting from time to time and letting yourself just be a person every once in a while.
With that said, as we slowly ease our son into daycare and navigate all the ups and downs that come with that, it got me thinking about another way people tend to think “all in” is the only approach to success. This attitude comes up a lot in urbanist circles, where people can feel shamed for not being “true urbanists” because they drive or like Costco or whatever. But, like with parenting, this kind of overlooks the long-term nature of the urbanist endeavour, which is making cities and towns gradually better over time for people with disabilities, pedestrians, cyclists, and really all road users.
Parenting and urbanism are marathons, not sprints, both quite intense and with the capacity to make you feel guilty if you let them. But it’s worth zooming out, basking in milestones or improvements every now and then, and then getting back to work with renewed energy.
A very good post, as usual. In both cases you need to consider not only your actions, but te other downstream actions you are enabling!