I found myself wanting to be outraged. Often, when a clip or quote goes viral, it’s meant to engage us and sometimes enrage us. The headlines are almost always triggering by themselves and this time was no different. If you do a quick Google search for Chappell Roan and parenthood, you’re faced with a litany of titles.
I get upset when someone says they hate Vatican II and have never read a document from the council, when someone says they heard Mass is “weird” but have never been, or when my kids won’t try a new food because they don’t like the color. So I knew that before I could engage with this viral clip, I needed to listen to the entire episode.
The podcast is called Call Her Daddy, and on the info page you’ll find the following description: “The most-listened to podcast by women. Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy has been creating conversation since 2018. Cooper cuts through the BS with topics and guests—asking the burning questions you want the answers to. There will be laughter, there will be tears. There will be everything in between.”
The entire episode is filled with superficial banter, but sprinkled throughout are moments that touch on vulnerability. The host and guest chat about clothes, cars, and memorable nights out, while also discussing sexual orientation, parenthood, and the price of fame.
The clip about parenthood lasts a solid minute, and I have an unexpected response to it: Chappell Roan isn’t wrong, but she isn’t right either.
When asked about kids, Chappell said, “All of my friends who have kids are in hell. . . . I actually don’t know anyone who’s, like, happy and has children at this age.”
Parenting is altogether heavenly and altogether hellish at times too: both/and.
Parenting is hard. I have never met a parent who claims every stage of raising kids is daisies and sunshine. There are moments when you may even feel like it’s hell. I don’t think Roan was making a blanket statement about all parenting but instead what her own experience, her own view, has shown her.
However, it’s not the full view.
Parenting calls you out of yourself—literally and figuratively. You have to surrender your home, your calendar, your to-do list, and sometimes your body. There’s no room for selfishness as you are put in charge of the safety, care, and flourishing of another person. All you do is largely—if not totally—for these tiny people now running around at your feet. It’s a big ask, and it’s not one everyone gets to answer. Children are tiny mirrors that reveal our deepest fears and sometimes our worst habits. Ask the parent who cursed under his or her breath whose two-year-old now won’t stop repeating the word loudly in supermarkets or during Mass.
And on the other side of the coin, parenting expands your understanding of love, shows you who you are (the good and the bad), and allows a very quick course in virtue ethics. You’ve never explored the depths of philosophy and theology quite like the parent with a kid avoiding bedtime. Furthermore, the adoration of a child is one of the most uplifting gifts you can receive, whether he or she is your kid or not. Having a child look up to you, respect you, and want to learn from you makes you feel like you could leap buildings in a single bound or run through brick walls. Parenting sharpens your understanding of what’s important and what’s not. It shows you the goodness of boundaries, togetherness, tradition, and responsibility. It gives you a front-row seat to the innocence of the human heart and its capacity for faith and wonder.
Chappell says her friends with kids no longer have “light in their eyes.” The ironic part is she used this same idiom when talking about herself and the cost of fame, particularly the need to blend into crowds and no longer dress up or stand out for fear of unwanted attention or paparazzi. She says prior to the parenting clip, “I used to dress f****** crazy, though, before all of this happened, and I had energy and, like, light in my eyes.”
It’s all very sad when you think about it. When our relationships with others and with objects become disordered, it does dim the light in our eyes. Children are not meant to be entertainment or burdens or objects. They are, in fact, people. This is not news to many of us, but when children are no longer given and received but instead taken or banished, we don’t just risk our understanding of parenthood but our understanding of everything else. The contingency of the person requires appropriate relationship with nature, persons, and even objects. When that order is corrupted, we become a little less human.
When I listened to the entire episode, I heard two people wrestling with identity, love, and who God is and whom he created them to be. (Chappell says during the episode, “When I used to believe in God,” which leads me to believe she no longer does.) If we are honest with ourselves, we revisit the same primordial amnesia now and again. It’s the same forgetfulness Adam and Eve had in the garden that resulted in the fall of man.
Do I think that Roan should advise anyone on parenting? Currently, no. It’s not because of her lack of understanding regarding parenthood. It’s due to her lack of understanding of herself. One can never truly know herself without God.
The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly—and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being—he must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. (Redemptor Hominis 10)
I’ve been tired from sleepless nights with babies trying to figure out their sleep schedule, but I’ve also been up all night with some of those babies who are now teenagers showing them my favorite old-school sitcoms and laughing into the wee hours of the morning. I’ve wept with them when they’ve discovered the woes of this world, and I’ve rejoiced with them when they have overcome them. We’ve fought one another, and we’ve fought together. Parenting is altogether heavenly and altogether hellish at times too: both/and. We must afford the world the full picture of our humanity in our vocations of marriage, religious life, parenting, consecrated virginity, and the priesthood. When that primordial amnesia comes, as it often does, surround yourself with people who can help you remember who God is and that you are made in his image and likeness too. One cannot truly know himself or herself without knowing God. And reality without him? That truly is hell.