Rational vs. Emotional Parenting
Rational vs. Emotional Parenting
A conversation about the Nanny
In our marriage Vanessa and I have struggled parenting our five children. When times were really difficult we started a process I called “Monday morning quarterbacking.” We would sit together at the end of the day and recount our day parenting. We would analyze our children’s behavior, but most importantly we analyzed our behavior to make sure we were the leading example we wanted to be.
We wanted to bring that approach to our audience, but instead of sharing our parenting analysis and behavior we decided to share our thoughts on the parenting and behavior of some of our favorite family 90s sitcoms.
Tonight we found ourselves watching the 90’s sitcom The Nanny. The show centers around Fran Fine a wedding dress sales woman who gets dumped and fired and then turns to selling makeup door to door to make ends meet. She stumbles along the Sheffields who are looking for a nanny and gets hired out of desperation. Maxwell Sheffield is a wealthy widower with three children, Maggie, the oldest, Brighton, the middle child, and the youngest Grace. He hires Fran to help fill the parenting hole left when he lost his wife.
Here is the conversation my wife and I had about the pilot episode.
J: What did you think of the parenting style of Maxwell?
V: I think its hands off and mis-directed, due to the loss of his wife and his inability to process and allow his children to process from that level of loss.
J: I agree. He is successful business man who is leaning into his strengths. He understands sometimes it’s best to find others to complete tasks that we may struggle with. He is acting rationally. The problem here is his children are not only rational, but they are also emotional, and they require a different type of focus.
V: What did you take away from the breakfast scene the day after Fran was hired to be the Sheffield nanny?
J: Fran walked in like she had lived there for years. She was confident and comfortable with the children, and they responded well to her. Her intuition picked up on the oldest daughter, Maggie who is 14, insecurities quickly. She formulated a plan to help, and immediately put it into action. It showed she is intelligent, caring, and thoughtful.
V: I agree with you 100%. One of Fran’s greatest qualities is her ability to share her free spirit and opinions without hesitation. She’s able to playfully banter with Niles (the families butler) when he makes judgment on how much eggs she’s putting on her plate, and she shrugs off the fact she didn’t come to the breakfast table dressed for the day. Fran has a unique ability to draw out information from the kids to aide her in planning how they’d spend the day together.
J: What was Fran doing for Maggie by taking her shopping for a party dress?
V: Lots of different things a 14 year old girls needs at that stage in life. It was almost too sad for me to watch when she asked Maggie what her favorite color was and the response was “beige.” Not having a relationship or ability to have a relationship with your mother is detrimental in my opinion. What Fran gave Maggie is the female attention she desperately needed which fueled her confidence and it shined brightly when the kids were introduced at the big party later that night. After only 24 hours is was easy to see the strong relationship Maggie and Fran were developing.
V: How did it make you feel when you saw the big reveal of Maggie at the party?
J: Old. LOL It made me think of our oldest daughter Julia and how mature she looks. It frightens the emotional side of me, and my natural reaction is to protect her, by keeping her a child. The rational side of me is comforted though by the fact that she has a strong female role model who can guide her through such difficult times. And based on the reaction of Maxwell in the show, I imagine he felt the same way.
V: Agree. Obviously this made me think of Julia, but it also made me think of our twin girls that are six today and in a blink of an eye will be 14. As a mother I want nothing more for my daughters to feel beautiful, empowered, and comfortable in their skin. The world today makes that difficult, but it makes me strive to have good communication with them so I will be in position to guide them when they need me.
J: How do you think Maxwell handled seeing Maggie kissing a boy?
V: Maxwell handled it like any dad would have handeld seeing their little girl kissing a boy. He was reactionary, angry, and a smidge over protective. He lost sight of the moment, a moment his daughter wished would happen, but never thought WOULD happen and turned it into emotional Dad protecting her from “boys.”
J: I agree and I might end up reacting the same way one day… I appreciated how Fran reacted to his overreaction though. She wasn’t intimidated and stood her ground saying to Maxwell of Maggie “she is going to grow up and someone has to help her.” He fires her anyway.
V: What do you think caused Maxwell to reflect and change his mind after firing Fran?
J: I think it was a classic shift from emotional to rational thought, combined with a man who isn’t afraid to be wrong. Once his emotions had tempered and he reflected, his rational brain kicked in and he understood that Fran was right about Maggie needing to grow up and maybe Fran was the right person to help her. It also helped that the butler Niles, clearly a close confidant to Maxwell, was on the Nanny’s side and was nudging Maxwell in right direction.
V: For me it was a mixture of self reflection, shared perspective from Niles, and Maxwell seeing Fran at her house when he drops off items she forgot. He witnessed how different his life was compared to Frans. This allowed him to see things from a different lens and chipped away a little at the walls he built since his wife died. I think Maxwell realized that Fran’s approach maybe different, but her female touch might be just what he needs to get his family back on track.
At the end of the day parenting is hard, it’s easy to judge, but it’s better to reflect, analysis, and learn. Sometimes we react emotionally when we should be thinking rationally, sometimes we react rationally when we should be thinking emotionally. Having a partner to help guide us through the difficult days of parenting is paramount in raising successful, healthy, happy children.