今天推薦的演講者是：Jennifer Senior，發(fā)布于2014年的TED演講大會！

書店的育兒專區(qū)讓人目不暇接，正如作家Jennifer所說，它是“我們集體恐慌的里程碑”。為什么為人父母會充滿焦慮？聽聽這篇TED演講！

When I was born, there was really only one book about how to raise your children, and it was written by Dr. Spock. (Laughter) Thank you for indulging me. I have always wanted to do that.

我出生那會兒，只有一本書是講述育兒經的，它的作者是斯波克醫(yī)生。謝謝大家配合。非常高興看到你們的熱情。

No, it was Benjamin Spock, and his book was called "The Common Sense Book of Baby And Child Care." It sold almost 50 million copies by the time he died. Today, I, as the mother of a six-year-old, walk into Barnes and Noble, and see this. And it is amazing the variety that one finds on those shelves.

事實上是本杰明?斯波克，他的著作叫《斯波克育兒經》。他離世時，該書已暢銷接近5000萬冊。如今，作為一名6歲孩子的母親，我走進巴諾書店時，看到了這個書架。書架上形形色色書籍多得令人驚訝。

There are guides to raising an eco-friendly kid, a gluten-free kid, a disease-proof kid, which, if you ask me, is a little bit creepy. There are guides to raising a bilingual kid even if you only speak one language at home.?

有關于“環(huán)保地”養(yǎng)育小孩的，有關于養(yǎng)育“無麩質”小孩的，有關于養(yǎng)育“百病不侵”小孩的，這些書，在我看來，讓人感覺有些不自在。還有關于如何讓孩子學會兩種語言的書籍，即使在家里你只會用一種語言跟孩子溝通。

There are guides to raising a financially savvy kid and a science-minded kid and a kid who is a whiz at yoga. Short of teaching your toddler how to defuse a nuclear bomb, there is pretty much a guide to everything.

有教你培養(yǎng)孩子金融思維的書，也有培養(yǎng)孩子科學頭腦的書，還有培養(yǎng)孩子成為瑜伽大師的書。除了教小孩如何拆除核彈，其它似乎應有盡有。

All of these books are well-intentioned. I am sure that many of them are great. But taken together, I am sorry, I do not see help when I look at that shelf. I see anxiety. I see a giant candy-colored monument to our collective panic, and it makes me want to know, why is it that raising our children is associated with so much anguish and so much confusion?

所有這些書籍可謂用心良苦。我深信其中也有許多優(yōu)秀作品。但把它們整合起來的話，非常遺憾，當我看著那一架子書時，我看到的不是它們會為我?guī)硎裁磶椭铱吹降氖墙箲]。我看到了一座高聳的糖果色的碑，集聚著整個社會的恐慌，這不禁讓我深思，為何養(yǎng)育子女會有如此多的苦惱，會如此讓人困惑？

Why is it that we are at sixes and sevens about the one thing human beings have been doing successfully for millennia, long before parenting message boards and peer-reviewed studies came along? Why is it that so many mothers and fathers experience parenthood as a kind of crisis?

這可是一件人類薪火相傳了上千年的事情，為何今天卻讓人摸不著頭腦呢？那時，可沒有育兒論壇，也沒有專家特地來研究。為何有這么多人會把為人父母當作一種危機？

Crisis might seem like a strong word, but there is data suggesting it probably isn't. There was, in fact, a paper of just this very name, "Parenthood as Crisis," published in 1957, and in the 50-plus years since, there has been plenty of scholarship documenting a pretty clear pattern of parental anguish. Parents experience more stress than non-parents. Their marital satisfaction is lower. There have been a number of studies looking at how parents feel when they are spending time with their kids, and the answer often is, not so great.

說是危機，看似言重了，但有數(shù)據(jù)表明這么說并不為過。事實上，1957年就有文章以此命名，《視為人父母如危機來臨》在此后的50多年里，諸多學術論文一五一十地反映了父母的苦惱。有孩子的夫婦的壓力要高于那些沒有孩子的夫婦，前者對婚姻的滿意度更低。有很多課題研究父母與孩子共度時光時的感受，而結論往往并不理想。

Last year, I spoke with a researcher named Matthew Killingsworth who is doing a very, very imaginative project that tracks people's happiness, and here is what he told me he found: "Interacting with your friends is better than interacting with your spouse, which is better than interacting with other relatives, which is better than interacting with acquaintances, which is better than interacting with parents, which is better than interacting with children. Who are on par with strangers."

去年，我與專家馬修?柯林沃斯有過一次交談，他正在研究一個極富于想象力的追蹤人們幸福感的項目，他與我分享了研究成果：“與朋友來往獲得的快樂高于與配偶來往獲得的，高于與其他親屬來往獲得的，高于與點頭之交來往獲得的，高于與父母來往獲得的，高于與子女來往獲得的，與子女來往的快樂跟與陌生人的差不多?！?/p>

But here's the thing. I have been looking at what underlies these data for three years, and children are not the problem. Something about parenting right now at this moment is the problem. Specifically, I don't think we know what parenting is supposed to be. Parent, as a verb, only entered common usage in 1970. Our roles as mothers and fathers have changed. The roles of our children have changed. We are all now furiously improvising our way through a situation for which there is no script, and if you're an amazing jazz musician, then improv is great, but for the rest of us, it can kind of feel like a crisis.

事實是這樣的。我對這些數(shù)據(jù)的前因后果做了為期3年的研究，我發(fā)現(xiàn)問題不在于孩子，而是在于如今養(yǎng)育孩子的理念和方法。具體說來，我認為我們沒有理解育兒的真正意義?！坝齼骸边@個動詞，在20世紀70年代才開始流行。作為父母，我們的角色已經發(fā)生了變化。孩子們的角色也發(fā)生了變化。養(yǎng)育兒女，宛如一場即興表演，但這場表演沒有劇本。如果你是一名響當當?shù)木羰恳魳芳?，即興演奏也會很棒，但對普通大眾而言，說是危機也無可厚非。

So how did we get here? How is it that we are all now navigating a child-rearing universe without any norms to guide us? Well, for starters, there has been a major historical change. Until fairly recently, kids worked, on our farms primarily, but also in factories, mills, mines. Kids were considered economic assets. Sometime during the Progressive Era, we put an end to this arrangement.

我們?yōu)楹螘萑脒@種狀況？沒有指引，我們如何在育兒的浩瀚世界中做到游刃有余？從頭說起吧，育兒理念發(fā)生過一次歷史性的轉變。這個轉變就發(fā)生不久，在這之前，孩子自小就勞作，主要在農場，也在工廠、車間、礦山。孩子被當作經濟資產。到了“進步時代”，對孩子的這種看法終結了。

We recognized kids had rights, we banned child labor, we focused on education instead, and school became a child's new work. And thank God it did. But that only made a parent's role more confusing in a way. The old arrangement might not have been particularly ethical, but it was reciprocal. We provided food, clothing, shelter, and moral instruction to our kids, and they in return provided income.

我們認為小孩也有權力，明令禁止雇傭童工，我們將他們的教育放在首位，因而學習便成了孩子們的新任務。幸好如此。但是，這樣會讓父母更加迷茫于自己應該扮演的角色。曾經的觀念也許不太符合倫理道德，但它是互惠的。我們提供給孩子衣、食、住，以及基本的道德教育，他們則提供經濟收入作為回報。

Once kids stopped working, the economics of parenting changed. Kids became, in the words of one brilliant if totally ruthless sociologist, "economically worthless but emotionally priceless." Rather than them working for us, we began to work for them, because within only a matter of decades it became clear: if we wanted our kids to succeed, school was not enough. Today, extracurricular activities are a kid's new work, but that's work for us too, because we are the ones driving them to soccer practice. Massive piles of homework are a kid's new work, but that's also work for us, because we have to check it.

一旦孩子們不再自小就工作，從經濟學角度來看，育兒的理念便發(fā)生了變化。引用一位非常有天分但又 “無情”的社會學家的話，孩子“經濟上一文不值，感情上珍貴無比”。孩子們從此不為我們工作，我們便要開始為他們張羅。因為僅僅數(shù)十年一過，事實已經浮現(xiàn)在眼前：如果我們想讓孩子成功，學校教育是不夠的。如今，各種課外活動成了孩子們的新功課，更是我們的新功課，因為正是我們把他們拉入足球訓練場。堆積如山的作業(yè)是孩子們的新任務。也是我們的任務，因為我們得檢查作業(yè)。

About three years ago, a Texas woman told something to me that totally broke my heart. She said, almost casually, "Homework is the new dinner." The middle class now pours all of its time and energy and resources into its kids, even though the middle class has less and less of those things to give. Mothers now spend more time with their children than they did in 1965, when most women were not even in the workforce.

大約3年前，一位德州女士向我傾吐了一些事情，我聽了后心都碎了。她不經意間地說到，“家庭作業(yè)是第二頓晚餐?！爆F(xiàn)在，中產階級將所有的時間、精力和資源完全投入在小孩身上，哪怕他們能夠給予的東西越來越少。而今，母親們陪在孩子身邊的時間多于1965年，那時大多數(shù)女士還都是不用工作的。

It would probably be easier for parents to do their new roles if they knew what they were preparing their kids for. This is yet another thing that makes modern parenting so very confounding. We have no clue what portion our wisdom, if any, is of use to our kids. The world is changing so rapidly, it's impossible to say. This was true even when I was young. When I was a kid, high school specifically, I was told that I would be at sea in the new global economy if I did not know Japanese.

假如知道該為孩子準備些什么，父母們適應這個新的角色或許會容易得多。這也是現(xiàn)代育兒令人困惑的另一原因。我們不知道究竟哪一種智慧，如果有的話，適用于自己的孩子。世界變化得如此日新月異，凡事難以預料。我年輕的時候也是一樣。在我小的時候，特別是在高中時，有人告訴我要是不懂點日語的話，我將來會迷失在新的全球經濟環(huán)境中。

And with all due respect to the Japanese, it didn't turn out that way. Now there is a certain kind of middle-class parent that is obsessed with teaching their kids Mandarin, and maybe they're onto something, but we cannot know for sure. So, absent being able to anticipate the future, what we all do, as good parents, is try and prepare our kids for every possible kind of future, hoping that just one of our efforts will pay off. We teach our kids chess, thinking maybe they will need analytical skills.

但日語，恕我冒昧，并沒有顯現(xiàn)出如此重要的作用。如今，又有一些中產階級的父母，他們癡迷于讓小孩學習中文，也許，他們是預料到了什么事情，但沒人能確定。既然我們無法預知未來，想當稱職的父母的話，我們就得嘗試著為小孩準備一切，來應對將來的不時之需，希望總有一分努力會有用武之地。我們教小孩下棋，認為可以培養(yǎng)他們的問題分析能力。

We sign them up for team sports, thinking maybe they will need collaborative skills, you know, for when they go to Harvard Business School. We try and teach them to be financially savvy and science-minded and eco-friendly and gluten-free, though now is probably a good time to tell you that I was not eco-friendly and gluten-free as a child. I ate jars of pureed macaroni and beef. And you know what? I'm doing okay.

我們?yōu)樗麄儓竺麉⒓訄F體運動，認為可以培養(yǎng)他們的團隊合作能力，你懂的，當他們去哈佛商學院讀書時就用到了。我們試著將他們培養(yǎng)成一名富有金融思維、科學思維、生態(tài)友好而且無麩質的小孩，那么，借此機會告訴大家，小時候，我不是生態(tài)友好或無麩質的孩子。我吃了一罐又一罐的通心面和牛肉。結果呢？一切正常。

I pay my taxes. I hold down a steady job. I was even invited to speak at TED. But the presumption now is that what was good enough for me, or for my folks for that matter, isn't good enough anymore. So we all make a mad dash to that bookshelf, because we feel like if we aren't trying everything, it's as if we're doing nothing and we're defaulting on our obligations to our kids.

我納稅，有穩(wěn)定的工作。還被邀請來做TED演講。但現(xiàn)在的前提是，對我和我那個時代的人而言足夠好的東西，如今已不再足夠了。所以，我們才一窩蜂地涌向那個書架，因為我們覺得，凡事不嘗試一番，就相當于什么都沒做，就是沒有履行對孩子應盡的義務。

So it's hard enough to navigate our new roles as mothers and fathers. Now add to this problem something else: we are also navigating new roles as husbands and wives because most women today are in the workforce. This is another reason, I think, that parenthood feels like a crisis. We have no rules, no scripts, no norms for what to do when a child comes along now that both mom and dad are breadwinners.

所以我們就很難扮演好今天的父母的角色。讓問題更為復雜的是，我們還扮演著丈夫和妻子的新角色，因為現(xiàn)在大多數(shù)女士們已進入職場。我想，這可能是另一個人們把做父母視如危機的原因。爸爸、媽媽忙于養(yǎng)家糊口，又沒有標準、劇本、或指引，小孩降生后可該怎么辦。

The writer Michael Lewis once put this very, very well. He said that the surest way for a couple to start fighting is for them to go out to dinner with another couple whose division of labor is ever so slightly different from theirs, because the conversation in the car on the way home goes something like this: "So, did you catch that Dave is the one who walks them to school every morning?" Without scripts telling us who does what in this brave new world, couples fight, and both mothers and fathers each have their legitimate gripes.

作家邁克爾·劉易斯曾經一語中的。他說最能引起夫妻爭吵的方法，是與另一對夫婦共進晚餐，而且他們的職業(yè)行業(yè)還與自己的略有不同。晚餐過后，驅車回家途中的對話一般會是：“喂，難道你沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)是大衛(wèi)每天早晨送小孩上學嗎？” 在這樣一個嶄新的社會，沒有成文規(guī)定誰該做什么，夫婦便爭吵起來了，而且雙方各自的抱怨都合乎情理。

Mothers are much more likely to be multi-tasking when they are at home, and fathers, when they are at home, are much more likely to be mono-tasking. Find a guy at home, and odds are he is doing just one thing at a time. In fact, UCLA recently did a study looking at the most common configuration of family members in middle-class homes. Guess what it was? Dad in a room by himself. According to the American Time Use Survey, mothers still do twice as much childcare as fathers, which is better than it was in Erma Bombeck's day, but I still think that something she wrote is highly relevant: "I have not been alone in the bathroom since October."

母親在家時，往往承擔多項家務，而父親在家時，同一時間做的事情通常是一件。隨便看看哪戶人家，有意思的是爸爸通常每次只做一件事情。事實上，加州大學洛杉磯分校最近就中產階級家庭里最常見的景象做了一項調查。猜猜結果如何？父親獨自一人在一個房間里?！睹绹说臅r間安排調查》表明，母親在照顧小孩上花費的時間是父親的兩倍，這一比例雖然低于艾爾瑪?邦貝克的描述，但我認為這跟她寫的一些東西還是很相關的：“10月份以來，衛(wèi)生間里就不再只有我一個人了?！?/p>

But here is the thing: Men are doing plenty. They spend more time with their kids than their fathers ever spent with them. They work more paid hours, on average, than their wives, and they genuinely want to be good, involved dads. Today, it is fathers, not mothers, who report the most work-life conflict.

但事實是：男士們的付出也不少。他們陪伴孩子度過的時間多于父親陪伴自己的時光。他們的平均工作時間要多于妻子，而且他們不僅想要把工作做好，在家也想做一個好父親。如今，是父親，而不是母親，更多地抱怨工作生活失衡問題。

Either way, by the way, if you think it's hard for traditional families to sort out these new roles, just imagine what it's like now for non-traditional families: families with two dads, families with two moms, single-parent households. They are truly improvising as they go.

不管怎樣，順便說一下，如果傳統(tǒng)家庭適應這些新角色都較難的話，試想一下，非傳統(tǒng)家庭將會怎樣？兩個父親的家庭，兩個母親的家庭，單親家庭。他們真的是走一步，看一步。

Now, in a more progressive country, and forgive me here for capitulating to cliché and invoking, yes, Sweden, parents could rely on the state for support. There are countries that acknowledge the anxieties and the changing roles of mothers and fathers. Unfortunately, the United States is not one of them, so in case you were wondering what the U.S. has in common with Papua New Guinea and Liberia, it's this: We too have no paid maternity leave policy. We are one of eight known countries that does not.

如今，在一個制度更先進的國度，不好意思，又提到老生常談的問題了，是的，要說到瑞典，在那里，父母可以依靠國家的福利。很多國家已經認識到了父母的擔憂，以及他們不斷變化的角色。不幸的是，美國不在其中，因此，如果要問美國與巴布亞新幾內亞和利比里亞有何共性的話，答案是：我們都沒有帶薪產假政策。已知的奉行無薪產假的國家有8個，我們赫然在列。

In this age of intense confusion, there is just one goal upon which all parents can agree, and that is whether they are tiger moms or hippie moms, helicopters or drones, our kids' happiness is paramount. That is what it means to raise kids in an age when they are economically worthless but emotionally priceless. We are all the custodians of their self-esteem. The one mantra no parent ever questions is, "All I want is for my children to be happy."

在這樣一個困惑叢生的年代，只有一個目標是所有父母一致同意的，無論母親是虎媽還是嬉皮媽媽，是直升機父母的還是無人機父母，孩子們的幸福是首要的。這也就是在一個把孩子看作“經濟上一文不值，感情上珍貴無比”的時代里，養(yǎng)育孩子的意義所在。我們是孩子的自尊的守護者，有這樣一句父母都不會質疑的祈禱，“保佑我的子女們幸福快樂?！?/p>

And don't get me wrong: I think happiness is a wonderful goal for a child. But it is a very elusive one. Happiness and self-confidence, teaching children that is not like teaching them how to plow a field. It's not like teaching them how to ride a bike. There's no curriculum for it. Happiness and self-confidence can be the byproducts of other things, but they cannot really be goals unto themselves. A child's happiness is a very unfair burden to place on a parent. And happiness is an even more unfair burden to place on a kid.

不要誤會我的意思：我認為幸福對孩子們是一個再好不過的目標。但事情沒這么簡單。讓孩子幸福與自信，不同于教他們如何犁地。也不同于教他們如何去騎車。沒有教程告訴我們如何實現(xiàn)它。幸福與自信是隨著其他事物而生的，而不是作為一種目標，強加到他們身上。孩子的幸福，讓父母來承擔是不公平。但如果讓孩子來承擔的話，更不公平。

And I have to tell you, I think it leads to some very strange excesses. We are now so anxious to protect our kids from the world's ugliness that we now shield them from "Sesame Street." I wish I could say I was kidding about this, but if you go out and you buy the first few episodes of "Sesame Street" on DVD, as I did out of nostalgia, you will find a warning at the beginning saying that the content is not suitable for children. (Laughter) Can I just repeat that? The content of the original "Sesame Street" is not suitable for children.

我必須要告訴你們，為了讓孩子幸福，我們有時會反應過度。我們現(xiàn)在總是急于讓小孩遠離社會上的是非之物，甚至不讓他們觀看《芝麻街》。我希望我是在開玩笑，但是，如果你去買幾張 《芝麻街》最初幾集的DVD光盤，我之前是出于懷舊目的而買的。你會發(fā)現(xiàn)片頭的的警告語，提示說本片少兒不宜。是真的，昔日的《芝麻街》居然是少兒不宜的節(jié)目。

When asked about this by The New York Times, a producer for the show gave a variety of explanations. One was that Cookie Monster smoked a pipe in one skit and then swallowed it. Bad modeling. I don't know. But the thing that stuck with me is she said that she didn't know whether Oscar the Grouch could be invented today because he was too depressive. I cannot tell you how much this distresses me. (Laughter) You are looking at a woman who has a periodic table of the Muppets hanging from her cubicle wall. The offending muppet, right there.

《紐約時報》就此事進行采訪時，該節(jié)目的制片人給出了種種解釋。原因之一是餅干怪獸在劇中抽過煙斗，然后把煙斗吃掉了。這是個負面形象。我不太明白。但是讓我印象深刻的是，她說她不知道Oscar the Grouch（《芝麻街》中的角色）放到今天是否能被創(chuàng)作，因為它性格太悲觀了。我簡直無法形容這句話讓我多傷心。你現(xiàn)在看到的是一位將經典布偶主題的元素周期表掛在墻上的女士。這個心情不愉快的布偶，就在這兒。

That's my son the day he was born. I was high as a kite on morphine. I had had an unexpected C-section. But even in my opiate haze, I managed to have one very clear thought the first time I held him. I whispered it into his ear. I said, "I will try so hard not to hurt you." It was the Hippocratic Oath, and I didn't even know I was saying it. But it occurs to me now that the Hippocratic Oath is a much more realistic aim than happiness. In fact, as any parent will tell you, it's awfully hard.

這是我兒子出生那天拍的照片。當注射嗎啡后，我感覺就像高高飛翔的風箏一樣。我做了個意料之外的剖腹產手術。在還沒有醒麻的時候，我第一次抱著他，就有了個清晰的想法。我靠近他耳邊，輕輕說，“我會非常努力地去做到不傷害你?！边@是希波克拉底的誓言，我渾然不覺地說了這句話，但是現(xiàn)在，在我看來這句誓言是比幸福更容易實現(xiàn)的一個目標。事實上，每位父母們都知道，這是相當難的。

All of us have said or done hurtful things that we wish to God we could take back. I think in another era we did not expect quite so much from ourselves, and it is important that we all remember that the next time we are staring with our hearts racing at those bookshelves. I'm not really sure how to create new norms for this world, but I do think that in our desperate quest to create happy kids, we may be assuming the wrong moral burden.

我們都說過或做過一些讓人傷心的事情，我們懇請上帝讓我們將其收回。我想，未來有一天，我們不再對自己的期望那么高，更重要是，我們都要提醒自己，當我們看著那些滿滿的書架時我們內心的焦慮。雖然我確實不知道該如何去為世界制定新的標準，但我確實認為，當我們竭力追求培養(yǎng)幸?？鞓返男『r，我們或許承擔著錯誤的思想負擔。

It strikes me as a better goal, and, dare I say, a more virtuous one, to focus on making productive kids and moral kids, and to simply hope that happiness will come to them by virtue of the good that they do and their accomplishments and the love that they feel from us. That, anyway, is one response to having no script. Absent having new scripts, we just follow the oldest ones in the book -- decency, a work ethic, love — and let happiness and self-esteem take care of themselves. I think if we all did that, the kids would still be all right, and so would their parents, possibly in both cases even better.Thank you.

我覺得更好的目標，容我說，也是更有效的目標，那就是注重培養(yǎng)富有創(chuàng)造力和品德高尚的孩子，然后只要祝福他們幸福，通過他們的德行善舉、他們的才能成就以及感受到我們對他們的愛?？傊?，這也是一種對現(xiàn)實的答復。沒有新的劇本，那么就沿用書中最古老的箴言吧——保持禮貌，職業(yè)道德，愛——幸福與自尊將自然成長。我想如果我們都做到了這一點，孩子們就會幸福成長，父母也不用說了，可能對雙方都更好。謝謝大家。