Recently, I was in a class with my middle school Montessori students. It was one of the last classes of the year, and we had finished our main “content” for the year, so we were working on crocheting a coral reef model. This actually does make use some very interesting mathematical ideas, and I’d given them a quick lesson on the math involved, but once we finished that, we just chatted and crocheted. The conversation was delightful, and went all over the place; we talked about Minecraft, the shape of the universe, General Relativity, their plans for the summer, my kids, a bit of everything.
But the entire time, there was this niggling voice in the back of my head: “I should be making them do something productive. This is a waste of time. This is too much fun. They should be doing some real math. I should be stricter about how they approach their crochet. It’s not enough.”
Does this sound familiar?
I call it the fear of joy. It’s not natural or healthy.
Joy makes our lives worth living. Relaxed togetherness gives us connection, which we need for our psychological health. We need downtime to listen to our own inner voice and understand our own desires and purpose. We need joyful, relaxed work to build up the resources to do challenging, scary work.
Why do we fear joy? Our culture of “grind”, which says that you are only as valuable as the work you produce, depends on this fear of doing anything too pleasant, relaxing, or enjoyable. It comes from our culture, but we learn it in school, with its constant demands for “productivity”, its sharp distinction between work and play, and its expectation to do more, more, more, sooner, sooner, sooner!
Unlearning this fear is hard, but it’s one of the most radical things we can do to live a contented life, raise healthy children, and push back against a culture of overwork.
I’ve been on this quest for years. I haven’t completely overcome the fear of joy, but now I’m inviting other people to join me in this journey with my new course, Deschooling Parenthood. We'll learn about how school teaches us to fear joy and parenting advice teaches us to be constantly anxious. Then we'll learn about how and why to let go of that worry and embrace joy. Click here to find out more and join me!