The Harry Harlow School of Parenting

Old School: Take your kids to the market to buy brownie mix. Consider whether the 15-ounce package for two dollars is a better value than the 30-ounce package for $3.59. Politely greet the cashier in the checkout line and introduce your child. Emphasize addressing the cashier as “Miss.” Demonstrate that all jobs, especially menial ones, have value and are to be respected. Teach child how to measure brownie mix and other ingredients with measuring cups. “If one batch of brownies uses three teaspoons of oil, then how many teaspoons of oil will we need for two batches of brownies?” Seamlessly expose child to how useful and pleasant mathematics can be. Allow child to learn patience waiting for brownies to cool. Play counting games and sing songs to pass the time. Ask child to cut brownies into two inch squares. Inquire whether three rows of four brownies is the same as four rows of three brownies. Consider articulating the phrase “commutative property of multiplication.” Send child next door with three hot brownies for elderly neighbors. Allow child to dry and put away mixing bowls and pans after you wash them. Reflect on how great it is that your child is seamlessly acquiring another set of useful skills–cooking, cleaning, and sharing–among them.

The Harry Harlow School of Parenting recommends avoiding this time consuming method that can leave the kitchen a mess. Besides, who has the patience for this shit when “Game of Thrones” is on TV? The Harry Harlow School of Parenting suggests instead that you send your nanny to the store to buy ready-made brownies. While the nanny is in the SUV, have your children watch a video of an animated robot making brownies.

Old School: Take child and family dog to wilderness area on outskirts of town. Throw Frisbee for family dog to retrieve. Lose Frisbee. Teach child colorful language not to be repeated in polite company regarding family dog. Watch dog chase evil squirrels. Wonder aloud whether family dog is actually famous mythological beast, the harpy. Unpack lunch from backpack. Turn around because you thought you heard something in the trees over there. Turn back around. Discourage family dog from devouring the remainder of your lunch. Express concern to child about where the other half of the lunch wrapper may have gotten to. Notice one half of lunch wrapper in dog’s mouth. Point out to child how the family dog looks both smug and guilty at the same time. Using compass and position of sun, go for long walk with child and family dog. Attempt to teach child orienteering skills. Get hopelessly lost. Tell child story of Odysseus and his return from the Trojan War emphasizing the role of Argos, a family dog who did not, to our knowledge, clandestinely eat all the lunch when out hiking with Telemachus. As sun goes down and weather turns cold, congratulate yourself on having remembered to bring sweaters for both yourself and your child. Reuse colorful language upon reflecting that said sweaters are safely in the backseat of the car. Display and model for child cheerful attitude and good character when thoroughly convinced of how completely and hopelessly lost you are and how dark it is getting. Consider whether the odds of being able to make a fire without matches are one in a hundred or one in a thousand. Discuss elementary probability theory with child. Berate child for interrupting elementary probability theory lecture with the words, “Look, dad. The car is only a hundred yards over there.” Teach child about orders of magnitude by counting bug bites.

The Harry Harlow School of Parenting recommends avoiding both bug bites and lost Frisbees by staying home and planting your child in front of the 42” television screen. There are plenty of shows about the outdoors on the nature channel.

***

A Bit of Background on the Harry Harlow School of Parenting. To study maternal bonding, Harlow separated new-born monkey babies from their mothers, replacing the flesh and blood monkey moms with cloth or wire ones. Unsurprisingly, the monkey babies who grew up without interaction or connection to real-life monkey moms were disturbed; the phrase “monkey psychopaths” comes to mind.

Even half a century later, it is hard to envision a more horrific holocaust of abused animals. Needless to say, the monkeys brought up without contact with other animals, never recovered. They went through their short lives rocking, damaged, and detached. Even when subsequently exposed to other monkeys, they were unable to interact. They were never anywhere even close to normal.

Stop me if you could have figured this out without torturing generations of primates, but we “attach” to members of our own species not to inanimate objects made of cloth. This horrific lesson, that human children turn out better if brought up by their actual parents rather than by glowing rectangles, is one that we overlook at our peril.

In short and without irony, it is better to make a mess in the kitchen and be bitten by countless bugs than to let your children be brought up by screens.

There is no substitute for real parenting in real time.