Involution Labs

Category: Authentic Parenting

  • The Children We Were, The People They Are

    A few years have passed since I wrote my first 500 words of wisdom, and one thing has not changed: I still stand with children.

    Perhaps that is because I remember being one.

    Adults often tell children to enjoy their freedom before work begins, but childhood is not always free. Children spend most of their days in school, followed by homework, expectations and activities arranged by adults. Their time is managed, their behaviour assessed and their distress frequently dismissed as a phase.

    Growing up can be magical. It can also be exhausting.

    My children helped me recognise parts of my own childhood that I had learned to overlook. Their teenage struggles were not inconveniences to manage. They were experiences to understand. Parenting, for me, became less about shaping children into successful adults and more about protecting the space in which they could discover who they already were becoming.

    A parent leaves a mark, whether they intend to or not.

    My children are not my legacy, because they do not belong to my story. They have stories of their own. But being their mother has changed me more profoundly than anything else I have done. They have brought me more joy than any story I have written—and I have written quite a few.

    I still consider myself a beginner. Not because I have achieved nothing, but because I am still curious. Expertise can become another identity to defend. Curiosity leaves the door open.

    As I entered what I once called my second rebellion, I began coming out in more ways than one. Menopause was not an ending. It was a refusal: of shame, silence and the idea that a woman becomes less valuable as she ages.

    Grey hair, wrinkles and a changing body are not evidence that life has gone wrong. They are evidence that life has happened.

    My identity has changed too. I once wondered whether I had lost my Swedishness. I had not. It had travelled with me, becoming entangled with my Karelian roots and my Irish life. We do not have to choose one place from which to belong. Sometimes belonging is what grows between places.

    I have also spent much of my life thinking about death. My children used to think it strange that I practised dying each night and returning each morning. But death gave shape to life. Having survived times when I did not want to be here, I no longer see my continued existence as something ordinary.

    It is not always easy to make peace with living.

    I once wanted to disappear completely. Perhaps I wanted freedom from being remembered. I understand that differently now. We do not control what remains of us. We live in other people’s memories, in stories, in digital traces and in consequences we may never see.

    What we can do is live honestly while we are here.

    Tell your children your stories, including the ones that make you uncomfortable. Let them see that adults make mistakes, change their minds and continue becoming. Listen when their version of events differs from yours.

    Allow them to be gloriously themselves, especially when they challenge who you thought they would be.

    Perhaps that is what authentic parenting asks of us: not to create children in our own image, but to meet them as they emerge.

  • Change Is Freedom, and Freedom Is Change

    If you are here, you have a right to be here.

    You do not have to earn your existence through achievement, obedience or usefulness. Worth is not a prize awarded to those who perform life correctly. It begins with being alive.

    Children arrive as people, not unfinished adults. They deserve love, safety and guidance, but also respect. Their wisdom is often ignored because it does not arrive in the language of authority. We ask children to listen, but how often do we listen to them?

    Parenting can change the world because it is one of the first places where power is learned. A child discovers whether love is conditional, whether their body belongs to them, whether questions are welcome and whether disagreement is dangerous. Families can take many forms. What matters is not how closely they resemble tradition, but whether the people within them are free to grow.

    Love is not control.

    Education should expand a child’s relationship with the world, not reduce it to obedience. Yet many schools reward compliance more easily than curiosity. They teach children to compete before they understand what they are competing for. By the time formal education ends, many people have learned how to meet expectations but forgotten how to recognise their own interests.

    This does not mean learning has failed. Learning continues wherever curiosity survives.

    Question what you inherit. Not because everything old is wrong, but because nothing becomes true simply by being repeated. Systems are created by people, and people can change them. What feels permanent may only be familiar.

    Choice is a human right, but no choice exists entirely outside circumstance. Freedom is not simply doing whatever we want. It is understanding what shapes us well enough to decide what we wish to carry forward.

    Being yourself is not a final achievement. The self is not something hidden inside us, waiting to be uncovered once and for all. We are always becoming—through experience, relationships, mistakes, loss and change. Differentness does not need to be corrected. Belonging should not require disappearance.

    Make friends across the imaginary borders we are taught to defend, but also learn to be present with yourself. Self-knowledge is not self-indulgence. It helps us recognise when we are living from desire and when we are living from fear.

    Do not turn pain into a moral failure. People reach for substances, distractions and escape for many reasons. Judgment rarely heals what understanding has not yet reached. Sometimes we save ourselves. Sometimes another person helps us remember that we are worth saving. Most often, healing is something we do together.

    Talk about death, because death gives shape to life. We do not need to pretend certainty about what comes next. It is enough to recognise that endings are part of being alive—and that awareness can make the present more vivid.

    Look after your body, your mind, your sexuality and your capacity for joy. Pleasure is not the enemy of wisdom. Laughter is not a distraction from seriousness. Gratitude, empathy and forgiveness are forms of wealth, but even these should not become obligations used to silence anger or avoid truth.

    Find the language that connects you to something larger, whether you call it God, nature, humanity, mystery or cosmic love.

    Change is not the loss of freedom.

    Change is how freedom remains alive.

  • What Astrid Lindgren Understood About Children That We Still Don’t

    We like to believe that we respect children. We say we care about them, we protect them, we educate them, and we make decisions for them in what we call their best interest. But respect is something else entirely, and if we’re honest, we’re not very good at it.

    Astrid Lindgren understood that, not as an idea, but as a way of being. She didn’t just write stories for children, she wrote from their perspective, which is a very different thing. Most adults write down to children, simplifying, correcting, shaping, but Astrid entered their world without trying to control it.

    That’s why characters like Pippi Longstocking didn’t make sense to adults. She was too independent, too strong, too unpredictable. Adults were uncomfortable with her, but children weren’t. Children recognised something in her that adults had forgotten or perhaps never really trusted in the first place.

    We often say we love children, but love without respect easily turns into control. We decide what they should feel, what they should learn, how they should behave, and we call it guidance, when in reality it often becomes management. Astrid believed something much simpler and much more radical: give children love, more love, and then some more love, and common sense will come by itself. It sounds soft, but it isn’t, because it requires trust, and trust is exactly where we struggle.

    We don’t trust children to know themselves. We don’t trust them to feel deeply. We don’t trust them to grow without being shaped into something acceptable. And it shows in how we speak to them, how quickly we correct them, and how little space we give them to be fully themselves.

    Astrid didn’t just write about children, she defended them. She influenced how people thought, and her work contributed to Sweden becoming the first country to ban corporal punishment. That didn’t happen by accident. It came from a very clear understanding that children are not something to control, they are people.

    And yet, even now, that idea still feels radical. We celebrate her stories, we turn them into films, we quote her, but we don’t always live by what she believed. Because if we did, we would have to change how we listen, how we respond, and how much control we think we are entitled to have.

    It’s easier to admire Astrid Lindgren than to take her seriously. But maybe that’s the point. We don’t just struggle to understand children. We struggle to respect them.

  • Education and the Fear of Thinking

    Education is often described as the foundation of a healthy society. Politicians praise it, parents worry about it, and schools are expected to shape the next generation into capable adults. Yet the question we rarely ask is a simple one:

    Does our education system actually encourage thinking?

    In many ways, modern schooling rewards the opposite.

    Education as a system of obedience

    In Ireland, the Leaving Certificate and the CAO system determine much of a student’s future. A single set of exams decides which university course a student can enter and often what career path becomes possible. The result is predictable: students learn how to play the exam game.

    Instead of exploring ideas, questioning assumptions, or making intellectual mistakes, students become experts at recognising patterns in past papers and reproducing expected answers. Success is measured not by curiosity or creativity, but by how well someone can memorise and perform under pressure.

    The system produces excellent test-takers. It does not necessarily produce independent thinkers.

    Other countries have taken a different approach. Finland, for example, emphasises creativity, collaboration, and flexible educational pathways. Students are encouraged to experiment, question, and even fail. In such systems, mistakes are treated as part of learning rather than evidence of failure.

    The contrast reveals something deeper than educational policy. It reveals different attitudes toward risk and authority.

    Fear as a motivational tool

    Schools often rely on fear to maintain discipline and motivate students. Children are told that if they do not work hard enough, they will fail in life. Sometimes the warnings are even more dramatic: that they will end up unemployed, addicted to drugs or living under a bridge.

    Many teachers believe they are motivating students. But fear is a dangerous tool. Some children respond with compliance, but others respond with anxiety, perfectionism or despair.

    A child who is constantly worried about failure does not learn freely. Instead, they learn to avoid mistakes at all costs.

    When fear becomes the underlying emotional atmosphere of education, curiosity slowly disappears.

    The forgotten students: those who feel deeply

    Schools are designed around averages. They assume that children learn in similar ways, at similar speeds, and respond to pressure in similar ways.

    But children are not a homogeneous group.

    Some children are particularly sensitive to their surroundings. They process information deeply, ask difficult questions, and respond strongly to injustice or hypocrisy. These children are often curious and imaginative, but they can also struggle in rigid environments where conformity is rewarded.

    In such systems, sensitivity is often treated as weakness. A child who feels deeply may be told not to be so emotional, not to overthink, not to ask too many questions.

    Over time, many of these children learn a painful lesson: school is a place where they do not fit.

    The myth of “teaching critical thinking”

    Educators frequently claim that schools teach students to think critically. Yet critical thinking cannot simply be taught as a technical skill.

    True criticism requires something deeper: a critical spirit. It requires teachers and students who are willing to question assumptions, debate ideas openly, and tolerate uncertainty.

    In many classrooms, however, students are encouraged to repeat approved perspectives rather than challenge them. Discussions that appear critical sometimes function more like intellectual exercises in conformity.

    When questioning becomes selective, education begins to resemble indoctrination rather than inquiry.

    Education and the courage to think

    A healthy education system should cultivate something far more valuable than exam scores: intellectual courage.

    Students should be encouraged to explore ideas, challenge authorities, and pursue their own interests. They should learn that knowledge is not a set of fixed answers but a continuous process of discovery.

    Most importantly, they should feel safe enough to think freely.

    Education should not train students to memorise the correct answers. It should prepare them to ask better questions.

    Because in a rapidly changing world, the ability to question, adapt, and think independently will always matter more than the ability to pass a test.

  • Navigating the Journey of Parenthood: Insights from Sociology

    Navigating the Journey of Parenthood: Insights from Sociology

    We need to understand children to understand ourselves. We carry the child within and they carry the adult within. Adults are not superior. We are just further along the life course than they are.

    The Family as the Crucible of Socialisation

    Family is our first socialisation process and the one that will have the most impact and last the longest. Socialisation is extremely important not just to become a human but to find one’s place within society and throughout different stages of the life course. Family is the nucleus of society, it’s the smallest part of society and if the family doesn’t work, society doesn’t work.

    Childhood is when we become humans, and parents do the most important part of socialisation. When the first five years are gone, parents might doubt whether they have done a good job, but don’t worry, your job is not done and it’s never too late to become a better parent, as well as a better teacher and a better friend. Socialisation is a lifelong process.

    The socialisation process is an interactive process that most of us do without thinking, but we should because it’s how we become who we are. In our diverse culture, it’s important to make space to understand differences but also question them. We all come from different cultures, but we live in the same country. We must talk about what happens when we parent without purpose and when we continue to do what was done to us without questioning it. This is not about judging different cultural practices but reaching conclusions as to how we can bring our children through childhood into adulthood in the best possible way.

    We tell children to not grow up so fast, to enjoy childhood, but when children start school, a place where only a few thrive, most cope and survive, some children want to escape childhood. School is like a soft prison. Children start school as early as age 4, and in most countries won’t be released until they are 16. Leaving at this age won’t guarantee a job or a fulfilling future, so many continue until their mid-twenties and some don’t start working until their early thirties.

    The Schooling Dilemma

    Fear of school can be a healthy expression of an unhealthy environment. Not fitting in doesn’t have to lead to school shootings or a terrorist mindset. A pressure cooker mindset can come from maladaptive socialisation and a refusal to listen to a child who doesn’t fit in. The child knows. We need to listen to children.

    We know children need love, play and imagination, but school kills what sustains us on the life course. In school, children learn to compete for grades and rewards. They learn that failure is their fault and they also learn gender roles which can be too strict because while we’re all either male or female, we also contain both female and male energy. If you are a tomboy, be one without thinking you have to change your body. Your body is fine. If you are a feminine boy, be one without thinking you have to change your body. Your body is fine.

    Teachers are doing a difficult job too; they are stuck in a system that refuses to change. We live in a different era from when school began.

    We all have to breathe to listen to understand our children. Instead of talking down, let’s sit down and listen to how our children experience life. We can design a new blueprint for life by listening to the experts on how they wish they could be treated. Culture is the software and society is the hardware. If we don’t scrutinise what we teach, we could end up with a society no one wants to live in.

    Children and young people need boundaries. Absolute freedom isn’t liberating, it’s paralyzing. We all have to learn to follow rules and the law, but also when to question it, and when to protest it. Children don’t need authoritarian parents or teachers. We can lead with authority without being dictators. We must admit that socialisation is an interactive process, we learn from those we teach too.

    Listening to the Voices of Children

    We must listen to our children because we don’t always know best. No one knows a child better than the child. We can be authoritative adults while still listening. We need a listening society.

    We all want what’s best for our children, but many of us disagree on how to achieve that. Teachers have training on how to teach and how to control large groups of children and teens, but parents do it by how it was done to them. How would society change if we parented with purpose? If we went to parenting classes on how to be the best parents we can be? Family is for life and so will some friendships, but while it’s important to have close friendships as children grow and move towards independence, parents continue to matter, so hold on to your children because many will go through an identity crisis in their early adulthood and your support will be as important if not more important than their peers.

    Of course, peers are important in the socialisation process and even more so friends, some who might become lifelong friends. Peers provide emotional support. Peers teach us who we are by reinforcing or punishing behaviours and social interactions. Peers show each other who they are, don’t want to be or aspire to be. Peers teach how to conform and adjust in a group setting. Peers help in the confusing search for an identity, but belonging to a group also creates tension. Peer pressure happens when a person searches for an identity outside of the accepted norms and values of the in-group.

    Challenging Cultural Norms and Redefining Parenthood

    There is intended and unintended socialisation and unintended socialisation is more powerful. If you want your child to grow up honest, you can’t lie, not even a little bit, you have to practice radical honesty or your child will eventually find out and dismiss your teachings. You have to walk the talk.

    Childhood is too short for parents and too long for children. We say don’t grow up too fast, but children don’t want to be trapped in childhood for as long as we want them to be, there is nothing magic about pretending after five or six years of age. Some parent insists on making up magic and discarding the magic of reality, but children must live in reality and the more we tell the truth in an appropriate to development way, we help them to thrive in life.

    The Authentic Child