As you may recall, I completed about 90% of the requirements for an art history degree in addition to my B.S. in Psychology. (Yes, I’ve heard all of the jokes about my “B.S.” in conjunction with “psychology”. Believe me, I had to take calculus, among many other hardcore classes to get that degree. It was no B.S.) One of my professors often referenced Robert Hughes’ book on modern art, The Shock of the New.

Modern art didn’t come from nowhere but it was still a shocking departure from the familiar. Art had been representative, rather than abstract for a long long time. It was often idealized but always recognized.

The shock of newness does not just apply to our external world but also to feeling new. A fellow healthcare provider and dear friend shared a blog post about being a novice in healthcare, in other words being a trainee and new professional. The post made me think about being a psychology trainee in grad school as well as when I was a post-doctoral fellow.

In most measures, I am much better at my job as a clinician than I was when I was less experienced. But there were advantages of being a novice that were therapeutically advantageous.

For one, I was supervised so this made me extra conscientious to do things “by the book”. Supervision, by the way, meant doing my work with a supervisor either in the room with me or in a separate room, observing me on video monitors, all of the while commenting to other students or interns, also in the room, about the rightness or wrongness of my actions. So, I stayed sharp and kept on top of what I was supposed to be doing.

The largest advantage, however, was that my lack of experience as a parent made it much easier to deliver recommendations and teach parenting strategies, with a straight face. During my post-doc, I was a mother of an infant, but I still did not know how hard it would be to rear a child who could walk and talk. And disobey. And not perpetually vote me to be her favorite person in the world in a tie with her father. I didn’t know how parenting touches us in tender places, at our identity, and at the hurts we’ve held with us our own lives. I just said, “Do this!” I had a wonderful optimism. And most parents did what I recommended.

Once I got to understand what I was asking parents to do, I had to make adjustments. Every parenting situation is different. But as a parent, I can empathize with the fact that parenting is never easy and for some, it is incredibly hard.

Even so, I still ask parents to do a lot. I now understand the magnitude of my recommendations, in my gut. But now, because I am no longer a new parent, I have learned that just because something is really hard to do, doesn’t mean that it is not necessary to do.