I can’t remember whether I was already a parent when I read “All Joy and No Fun” for the first time, but reading it as a 5-year-old parent took me on an intense emotional ride that I wouldn’t have fathomed. For one, Jennifer Senior analytically lists down all the reasons why parenting is such a drag. I sometimes confess “I don’t enjoy parenting”, much to the shock of my interlocutors, and now I have Jennifer’s words to back me up. So, parenting is the antithesis of flow & I also confess in the same breath that I would rather work than parent. As a father, I am exasperated when my children live too much in the now, which is why Jennifer’s explanation about children’s undeveloped prefrontal cortexes was immensely helpful. I hate nagging, but that’s what I do every day with my son. And geez, I am just sooooooo bored. I’m really not the kind of guy who likes assembling Lego bricks. I rather binge watch mindless Netflix shows. All these reasons are covered convincingly in Jennifer’s book, which already makes it yield its money’s worth.

There are other chapters about how being with children gives you permission to relive life and “act like an idiot” (exact quote from the book) and how parenting defiant adolescents decreases life satisfaction. I wish there were a chapter that explores how parents come to terms with their lost options. The closed doors, the shunned opportunities because chauffeuring your child to his extra-curricular activities takes precedence above all else. How do fellow parents feel about giving up their dreams?

But my gripe seems super petty as I read the last chapter. It is kinda centered on a grandmother who parents her grandson because her daughter died of cancer. Two years from the time when this grandmother got acquainted with Jennifer, she was diagnosed with brain cancer and would have to surrender her grandson to her relatives. And guess what she was doing in her dying moments? Watching “Curious George” with him, trying to prepare her 4 and three-quarters grandson for the ominous eventuality.

I swear, I’m typing this with a lump in my throat. What does unrealised self-actualisation matter when confronted with the Grim Reaper?