Last week’s volley aimed at the Parent Coaching industry got a lot of responses, some on the site, some by email. It wasn’t the most diplomatic post I’ve ever written (parent coaching “seems like bullshit”! The Parent Coaching Institute offers “pseudo-degrees”!). But for the most part, the aggrieved parent coaches out there took the upper hand, and were far more measured. If they can keep their cool and equanimity in the face of petulant teenagers or preschoolers that well, then I’m going to guess they are pretty good at what they do.
Now, to the comments:
This came from parent coach Rhonda Moscowitz:
My first reaction as I read your article was that it was written by someone who hadn’t bothered to get any information–clearly not by a journalist. What a shock to read your your credentials on the About page! Worse than that, I am a fan of Matt Gross’s The Frugal Traveler.
First off, let me say that you are right. There is nothing worse than being a fan of the Frugal Traveler. I curse the day I started to love that man’s recession-friendly travel advice.
To the substance of your point, Rhonda: true, I am a journalist, but I would hope that what we do here at DadWagon is a little different. A magazine article is in many ways a closed feedback loop. The conversation ends once it goes through its last edit and is printed. You hear plenty from readers, but you rarely get to revisit a topic because of something they said. One of the joys of blogging is that it can be a bit more Socratic than that: I put some ideas out there, and by the magic of the tubes you guys come to me with your own thoughts on it. Cool.
It’s clear that the Parent Coaches of the world are used to having to defend what they do. As this 2005 Times article points out, they exist in a space between layman advice-giver and a psychologist or family therapist. That is, of course, something to be celebrated. A lot of families need help but don’t have $150 an hour or don’t have an issue that’s serious enough for family therapy.
But that brings me to a basic question that came up when I was talking, as I have been all weekend, about professional Parent Coaching: why do we need it now if we’ve gotten along without it for the last 10,000 years?
I suppose it’s a comment on today’s dissolving webs of friends and family that we’ve had to professionalize the giving and receiving of advice about parenting. Either we’re not being offered that guidance from our elders or peers, or we don’t want them to get involved. Either way, many people are left to seek out parent help in the way that, as commenter Lee Gentemann put it, we would a mechanic. I can’t help but find that a little sad. But, to be fair, it’s no sadder than paying a stranger to watch and care for and love your infant while you’re at work. That’s just the way we live these days.
PCI grad Barbara Bushey and other commenters made the case that PCI is the most rigorous credential out there for Parent Coaches. I have no reason not to believe that. It’s obviously the biggest name out there, which is why I singled it out. But it’s healthy to be skeptical of all commercial enterprises that spring up around parenting. Other than personal beauty, is there a richer or more easily exploited vein of anxiety than parenting? Quackery abounds, as DaddyTypes has been showing in his lovely contiguous beatdowns of BabyPlus.
So I would have liked some more concrete information about what exactly is taught at PCI and what’s passed on to parents. I will definitely take up PCI founder Gloria deGaetano’s generous offer for more written information. And I’ll raise the ante a bit: if there’s a New York-area Parent Coach who feels strongly enough about their profession that they want to come out and meet my kids or the kids of one of the other DadWagoners, and tell us what Parent Coaching can offer, I’d love to hear from you.
This whole debate seems a little loony to me. We were very fond of our parenting coach — from the hand holding and graphic demonstrations she offered during conception to the advice she offered in the first few days after the birth. (So THAT’S what diapers are for! Thanks coach.)
I just wanted to read a few books and maybe talk to some relatives and friends about their experiences — and maybe even take a day to babysit a friend’s infant; you know, the things expectant parents had been doing for AGES — but my wife was insistent on hiring a parenting coach. (Please don’t tell her I said this, but I think it had something to do with a fear of not doing every. single. thing. perfectly. — no way someone would play on that emotion!)
Thankfully, we learned so much. Apparently my desire to just park the baby on the couch all day while we went for coffee was a big no no. The coach informed us that you have to HOLD the baby. Phew. That $150 an hour seems worth it now!
I’m just glad our coach was so down to earth — not the super yuppified alpha freak who caters to a new class of fearful parents who can’t imagine pushing a child around town in anything other than a $1,000 stroller and will do whatever it takes to put their child on the fast track to Harvard, even if that means shelling out large sums of money for advice you can find in any thrift-store book bin. Or by simply calling grammy. I’d like to offer a bit more, but I have to return those Baby Einstein videos that our coach said would give the baby a leg up on her preschool competition. Woops.
I’m certainly glad that I found this follow up article. I may have one answer to your comment on why we need coaching now. I have been on the receiving end of parent coaching and I just wanted to give you my take on what I got from it. Without my family support, I found myself with little resources which left me feeling alone and less able to handle some of the day to day stresses of being a mom and wife. My coach was someone who I felt I could trust and talk to. I can talk to my husband, however men don’t always understand the mom side of things. We moved across country twice in less than 2 years, my coach helped me to focus on what my family needed most to prepare for and make these trips. I also worked on keeping me from taking on too much of the responsibility that moving requires, that it’s important for me to take care of myself, first sometimes, in order to be a whole, functioning person that my family can count on. Without the weekly conversations I know that our moves would not have gone as smoothly as they did.