I am a graduate student in coursework, and I am also the parent of a 2-year-old. With offices and daycares closed due to COVID-19, my typical workday is shortened and often interrupted with requests to walk to the park, read a book, or get a snack. I bring this up not as a complaint, however; I find the time I spend parenting to be one of the most meaningful and enjoyable parts of my day. Perhaps the only silver lining of quarantine has been that it has forced me to spend less time on work and more time with my son. I’ve lately found myself genuinely thankful for this, and yet at the same time, it’s hard to shake the sense that I should somehow feel guilty for prioritizing parenting over research.
On reflection, it’s a curious thing that a discipline with such deep roots in the quest for the good life would produce a culture where a person could feel like less of a philosopher for choosing to spend time with one’s child over spending time writing. It is fair to wonder how friendly the discipline of philosophy even is to those who value their roles as parents. Research on the philosophy of parenting, for example, is shockingly sparse. That’s not to say there’s nothing; Alison Gopnik, Sally Haslanger, Martha Nussbaum, Sara Ruddick, and a recently growing number of others have all made wonderful contributions to the philosophy of parenting and the experiences that arise from it. And, the Spring 2020 issue of the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy was dedicated to this topic. But given that parenting is among the most common of human experiences, one might have expected there to be more journals, anthologies, conferences, and systematic theorizing dedicated to it. It is natural to question why this inattention might be.
There are likely many answers. The primary one is plausibly that parenting has tended to be considered a feminine-coded good, and feminine-coded goods are often overlooked and devalued. But I think another reason is that often the message communicated in academia that to be a top-tier academic, one must be willing to sacrifice everything. Academia can be a malevolent god. Whatever its acolytes sacrifice at its ever-burning altar is never enough; it always demands more. Everyone knows that time must be sacrificed, but given the nature of the beast, it should not be a surprise that further sacrifices are demanded of our personal lives as well. It is often communicated, for example, both implicitly and explicitly, that one cannot be both a top-tier academic and also an involved and exemplary parent to their children. Women have borne the brunt of this dilemma and often receive advice such as to avoid talking about their children or wearing their wedding ring in job interviews. Mothers—and to a lesser degree, fathers—risk the perception that they lack sufficient commitment to their careers if they also indicate a serious interest in parenting. Perhaps this idea is so pervasive that it even affects the research interests philosophers take. Is it the case that to show serious interest in the philosophy of parenting is to metaphorically bring your kids to work? I hope not.
I have found the parenting I do to be profoundly formative in the way I think about philosophy. Spending the extra time with my child during this pandemic has only made me appreciate this more. My hope is that more philosophers share this experience and that the philosophy of parenting gains increased attention and value in the discipline, as it deserves.
Derek Estes
Derek Estes is a PhD student in philosophy at Saint Louis University. His research interests in philosophy are primarily in bioethics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. He is especially interested in accounting for the concept of human dignity in a way that can ground moral intuitions in health care decision-making.
