Joy – Not nearly as quid pro quo as Happiness

The Paradox of Parenting and the Practice of Joy

The best part of parenting is watching them grow.
The worst part of parenting… is watching them grow!

That paradox sat with me last night as I watched other parents navigate their own challenges—each doing their best, each improvising with whatever wisdom, patience, or sheer hope they had available. Something about witnessing their efforts pulled me into a familiar space of gratitude and reflection.

So the other night, instead of offering analysis or solutions, I kept things light. I leaned into the joyful moments rather than the friction points. Parents don’t always need another strategy; sometimes they just need someone to remind them that joy still exists in the chaos.

Learning to Sit in Joy

One of my internal drivers is quite often gratitude paired with a healthy dose of self-scrutiny. Over time, that combination has led me somewhere unexpected: I’ve learned to sit in Joy—not the transactional pursuit of happy, but the deeper, quieter, more sustaining posture of Joy.

Happy is almost always quid pro quo. It demands conditions. It wants more.
Joy, though, is restful.

It reminds me of the difference between kindness and niceness. Joy and kindness are virtues—they offer rest, gratitude, and reflection. Happiness and niceness often come with scaffolding: performance, compulsories, cultural expectations. They can slip into dogma, into judgment, into systems where the least among us lose while the privileged bask comfortably in the sun, unaware of the cost.

Joy does not demand compulsaries it only requires my presence – my understanding and realization of being and interacting with it – Joy. And in presence, I’m learning, is enough.

Blanket Burritos and Other Small Miracles

At the end of the day, Joy often shows up in the simplest places. Like blanket burritos—those warm, silly, swaddled moments that make connection effortless and laughter unavoidable.

Parenting is full of paradoxes, but it’s also full of these tiny miracles. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that Joy lives in the folds and sometimes a bit deeper along the seams of those moments, waiting patiently for us to notice. Other times Joy gobsmacks me in plain and simple circumstance – and it is up to me to be present – and to embrace it and sit with it!

Kindness is not Empathy

Kindness and Niceness - into the nuance

A child's observation - sparks of Joy!

Juniper mentioned the other night – dad why do you listen to this song so much?

https://youtu.be/eRVpgI4mJvc

Seek Up!

Song by Dave Matthews Band ‧ 1993

Sometimes I feel like I’m fallingFall back again, fall back againFall back again, fall back again

Oh, life it seems a struggle betweenWhat we see and what we doI’m not going to change my waysJust to please you or appease youLook at this crowd, six billion proudWilling to punch it outRight, wrong, weak, strongAshes to ashes, all fall downOh, look around about this roundAbout this merry-go-round and aroundIf at all God’s gaze upon us fallsIt’s with a mischievous grin, look at him

Forget about the reasonsAnd the treasons we are seekingForget about the notion that show emotionsCan be kept at bayForget about being guilty‘Cause we are innocent insteadAnd soon we will all find our lives swept away

Oh, late at night with TV’s hungry childHis belly swellsWell for the price of a Coke or a smokeI could keep alive those hungry eyesMan, take a look againTake a look again, take a look againAnd every day things changeAnd every day things stay the same

Forget about the reasonsAnd the treasons we are seekingForget about the notionThat our emotions can be kept at bayForget about being guilty, we are innocent insteadFor soon, we will all find our lives swept awayYou know how it is

You seek up an emotionAnd your cup is overflowingYou seek up an emotionSometimes, your well is dryYou seek up a big monsterFor him to fight your wars for youBut when he finds his way to you, the devil’s not goingHa, ha, ha, ha

Say, oh sayNow look at me in my fancy carAnd my great bank accountOh, how I wish I could take it all down to my graveAnd you know I’d save and saveMan, take a look againTake a look again at all the things I have collectedWell, in the end they’ll all pile up so tall to one, big nothingOne big nothing at all

Forget about the reasonsAnd the treasons we are seekingForget about the notionThat our emotion can be kept at bayForget about being guiltyWe are innocent insteadAnd soon we will all find our lives swept away

You seek up an emotionAnd your cup is overflowingYou seek up an emotionSometimes your well is dryYou seek up a big monsterFor him to fight your wars for youBut when he finds his way to youThe devil’s not goingHa, ha, ha, ha

Fall back again, fall back againFall back againAshes to ashesFall back againAshes to ashesDust to dustStumble, stumble downThe bottom of the bottle came too fastAgain

I shared with growing Juniper that this song reminds me how a journey of reasonable self scrutiny holds a value far deeper than any single epic event. I once heard the phrase, “I am grateful, but not yet satisfied,” and it captures the truth that mortality doesn’t offer a final destination. Effort is required until my last breath, always reaching for those small, steady improvements.

For a moment, she was completely tuned in before her attention shifted again — and that brief spark of connection was its own quiet joy.

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