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Talking Through Differences in Parenting

Writer's picture: Maha SarrafMaha Sarraf


My husband and I come up against different ways of parenting all the time. When we first had our son Kayan, now 7 years old, we would argue, give up and then shove the conversation under the carpet for another day. The differences in these days felt so vast, we weren’t ever sure of how we would tackle them. Our cultural differences and our different upbringings constantly impacted our perspectives. And we would get stuck in these differences, viewing them as walls between us, unable and unwilling to navigate them. He spoke Potato and I spoke Potaaaato.


A few weeks ago, Kingsley and I had a big argument—about TV. I believe 45 minutes to one hour per day of TV is fine. It gives our son a break. It also allows him to know about pop culture and have some connections with classmates. And it gives us an hour to prepare dinner and spend some quality time together talking.


Kingsley, on the other hand, has some pretty strong views about media culture—and how there is plenty of time in the future for Kayan to watch TV, that it’s a waste of time and brain cells, that we are allowing him to get influenced by pop culture and taking away some of his creative juices.


As we argued and held on strongly to each our views last week, I could feel my back getting higher and higher—feeling righteous in my views. He was also getting louder with each defense. “I’m done!” I said, raising my voice. “We are so different—I don’t even know how to meet you in the middle. Just do it your way. Anytime Kayan asks me about TV I’m going to say ask your dad!” And I walked away, fuming. Kingsley stood there and said quietly, “That will not solve anything, Maha. You’re just turning me into the bad guy.”


That day I realized I was in complete emotional reaction—acting out my anger—rather than calmly exploring the situation. He was right—I was making him out to be the enemy. We were not a team. How could we be a team if we couldn’t even complete a conversation about parenting together?


As I quieted myself and gave myself some time to calm down, to listen to my body and my insides, I realized that I could get through the TV impasse…that I could stay open enough to have another conversation, to talk through the disagreement between us. I didn’t have to give up, to get so defensive, get so angry and walk away before I finished what I had started. My choices in the moment didn’t have to be get my way or give up. It might take a few conversations, but we could work together to figure out the TV issue between us.


I had needed to slow down, to remember all that did work between us, to know that one argument wasn’t going to defeat us. It’s okay to not agree. And it’s okay to keep talking. And it’s very important to slow down, look around, remember that we can get through it—we can do hard things together.



While these days are not completely over and conflict over parenting differences still arise, we have also figured out how to tackle our differences, tolerating them, getting curious about them, understanding each other, rather than reacting and escalating our fights because we were unwilling to open up and listen.


Here are a few things we do regularly when our differences come up:


  1. We listen—actively listen. When he says something about his belief or perspective, I paraphrase what he says and I look for ways to provide some empathy and understanding for his perspective. This takes a lot of work from my side because I just want to present my perspective and negate his. But I know, from experience, that this gets us nowhere. So I take some deep breaths and I use my senses to get present and create a pause.

  2. We explain what is coming up for us in the moment. Why we feel the way we feel. We talk about our belief systems and share where they probably stem from. We talk about our hurts—we get vulnerable.

  3. We get curious. While actively listening, we ask questions so that we can deepen our understanding of each other’s perspective.

  4. We don’t give in. We don’t compromise. We negotiate and talk about how we can make it work out.

  5. One conversation is sometimes not enough. We agree to talk later. We say “Okay—I’m glad we understand our different perspectives. Let’s talk about it again in a couple of days.”

  6. We stay open and kind, “We see things differently and that’s okay. We can work through this.”


Using these tools regularly has allowed us to feel safe and allowed us to be different. We can do hard things—and we can have hard conversations. By looking inwards, emotionally regulating and managing our anxiety, we can have deeper and less reactive conversations about parenting.

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