What’s your parenting style? Are you a dry-clean parent?

One of the features of modern life is that we have learned to outsource. I can no longer fix my car, my computer, or my dishwasher—and I know I cannot ‘fix’ my children! These things are tremendously complex, and I am more likely to do harm than good if I tinker. The solution for the first three is to take them to an expert who understands them and can do something about it. I can rest assured that the mechanic at the garage can sort out my brakes, my suspension, and my tyres, and get me safely back on the road. I even have an expert in dishwashers called Geoff, who I occasionally call around. He sucks through his teeth, then gets on with the job and charges me next to nothing.

Is the same true for our children? After all, we outsource their physical health to doctors and hospitals—not to mention sports clubs. Most of us outsource their educational development to schools and let them get on with it. What about their spiritual health? Is that something we outsource too? 

This model of “dry-clean parenting” uses that same image of outsourcing: we take our dirty coats to the local shop, drop them off for a fee, and when we return a few hours later, all the dirt is gone and they are ready to be paraded in public again. Is this how we should parent, too? Incidentally, I researched how dry-cleaning works for this article. Apparently, they use a petroleum-based solvent—so it’s not dry at all! But there you go.