#87: Three Things that got me thinking

🎾 Serena Williams + 👨‍👧public parenting + 🐘 autonomous art

Bonjour tout le monde,

Here are today’s Three Things that got me thinking about why we do the things we do:

1. Serena Williams

2. Parenting for an audience

3. A 9-year-old’s sculpture

Shall we?

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1. A grown-up decision

You’ve heard the news: Serena Williams has declared the end of her career as a professional tennis player, chiefly because she wants to focus on growing her family (her daughter Olympia has just turned 5). Williams had a sparkly last hurrah at the US Open last week, after announcing her decision in Vogue magazine in August.

In that first-person essay, she describes what she loves about tennis:

This sport has given me so much. I love to win. I love the battle. I love to entertain. I’m not sure every player sees it that way, but I love the performance aspect of it—to be able to entertain people week after week.

Williams loves the sport but she did not choose it¹: her father, coach Richard Williams, famously decided to raise tennis champions. On the first episode of Archetypes², the new podcast hosted by her pal Meghan Markle, which aired on 23 August, Williams describes that paradox, and the novelty of making her own momentous decision (around 44:40):

— Markle: How does it feel to be choosing a path for yourself?

— Williams: Oh my gosh. […] Tennis was chosen for me and I loved that choice and I couldn’t have made a better choice, right? So I was really happy that that happened. But now, for the first time in my entire life, I’m choosing to do something, and it’s hard! […] It’s something I’ve actually never done.

I find that quote fascinating. I naïvely expected such a high-caliber champion to be used to making hard decisions for herself. But of course expectations, obligations weighing on her shoulders must make it hard to pause and ask Wait, what do I want?

Now, she writes in Vogue that she wants her child to follow her own interests:

I got pushed hard by my parents. Nowadays so many parents say, “Let your kids do what they want!” Well, that’s not what got me where I am. I didn’t rebel as a kid. I worked hard, and I followed the rules. I do want to push Olympia—not in tennis, but in whatever captures her interest. But I don’t want to push too hard. I’m still trying to figure out that balance.

serenawilliams

A post shared by Serena Williams (@serenawilliams)

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2. Performative parenting

I’ve been thinking about Claire Zulkey’s spot-on essay about trying to look like a good parent in public, in her excellent newsletter Evil Witches:

Trying is an aspect of public parenting. For me, that involves a lot of telegraphing that I’m working really hard to raise polite and conscientious young men who will be a benign-to-positive presence in the world. This little show started early when we were instructing near-infants at the playground to “share” and “take turns” even though they couldn’t even poop in a toilet or watch a whole TV show.

Trying is often performative, to show that despite what your child is currently doing, there is a certain standard of behavior you wish for that you hope reflects your values.

How relatable is this?! Do you also find it hard to parent your kid(s) in a way that works for you and your family at that moment, instead of performing (what you think is) a socially acceptable version of an adult-child interaction?

This reminded me of a woman (let’s call her #1) describing³ how another mother (#2) deeply focussed on her child who was having a hard time at nursery drop-off. #1 was impressed because #2 was (apparently) not caring about the other adults around her, whereas she (#1) would probably have been flustered, giving anxious glances to the other parents/nursery staff, not wanting to look like a sh*t mother. But worrying about the opinion of other folks at the scene doesn’t make for serene, competent parenting, right?⁴

The humiliating part about trying is that your kids know that in public, you likely won’t respond with some sort of meltdown or a doomsday option like leaving the pool early or declaring no screens at 10 AM. They know you have to choose your battles and that sometimes means looking like an idiot going “Guys. Guys. Guys. Guys. Guys,” over again over again so you don’t look like you gave up.

Photo by Robert Tudor on Unsplash

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3. Ganesh

Okay, LinkedIn is full of dubious business “lessons” and pompous #mindset prescriptions and 🤦🏽‍♀️. But this one was cute.

Source: Shreenivasa Venkataramaiah on LinkedIn

1. I wonder what would have happened to Serena and Venus Williams if they hadn’t liked, and excelled at tennis.

2. As always, anti-beauty-culture writer Jessica DeFino hit a nerve in her critique of a fragment of the Archetypes interview.

3. This was shared in a private online group years ago.
#2 was a professional actress; #1 recognised her from TV or something and thought #2’s secure, heightened presence must have been a side-effect of her job. I find it interesting that a professional performer was actually not treating that situation like a performance!

4. It’s also easier to ignore tutting onlookers when you’re a “nice” white, middle-class family. Not everyone can laugh confidently about their “feral creatures” (in Zulkey’s words) just being children in a public space; some parents will be judged more harshly than others for their kids’ behaviour.