Michelle Woo and "Horizontal Parenting"
An interview with writer Michelle Woo about the hardest part of her day, how her son makes her laugh 35 times a day, and why parents sometimes need to get horizontal with their kids
Back after a bit of an unplanned hiatus (thanks, anxiety!!) to share an interview with Michelle Woo, author of “Horizontal Parenting,” with you today. Michelle and her husband have two kids, ages 8 and 2. Her lovely book (illustrated beautifully by Dasha Tolstikova) features 50 creative activities you can do with your kid while lying down. You can listen to my chat with Michelle here.
Tell me the story of how your book came to be:
When my daughter (who is 8 now) was a toddler, I think I just wasn’t prepared for how much of parenting is, like, getting up, getting back down, getting up, getting back down. She was just a very curious toddler with a very short attention span. I definitely wanted to be in her world, but her world was very exhausting. I was the parenting editor at Lifehacker at the time, and for a story, I just decided to write about how to entertain your kid while lying down, and it was a roundup of activities you could do. I crowdsourced a lot of the activities from friends on Facebook and Twitter, and some of the ideas that parents have come up with are just really elaborate and I was so amazed by the creativity. I guess when you’re desperate, that’s when creativity is abundant. So fast-forward several years, and a book editor was googling how to entertain your kid while lying down, because she herself was the mom of a toddler and she had the flu and was looking for how to get some relief. She came across my article and asked me if I’d be interested in expanding on it into a book, and the rest is history.
The activities in the book are much more in-depth than the original activities that I wrote about in the article, but I think they’re all very doable with limited supplies. I don’t know if our own parents would have gotten so elaborate and creative with such activities. We had a playroom, and we always just stayed in the playroom while my parents did their own thing. So I don’t know — maybe it’s something about this generation with social media, feeling this pressure to play with our kids all the time that is just really unsustainable and exhausting. But at the same time, there are many moments when we want to do it.
We want to be more present; we want to be in their world; we don’t necessarily love to play but we love to see the world through our kids’ eyes, and I think this sort of concept of being able to do that while lying still is really compelling. And of course the pandemic has just exacerbated this need for rest and just ways that we could even get an extra 10 minutes of quiet time.
Maybe it’s something about this generation with social media, feeling this pressure to play with our kids all the time that is just really unsustainable and exhausting.
When you’re working, where are your kids?
For most of the pandemic, we had an au pair. She was from Brazil and she lived with us for a year and a half and. It was interesting, because she arrived a little bit before the pandemic started, and basically the moment she got here, we had to learn how to not only live together, but to quarantine together. It was hard for all of us, but especially for her, because she was in a new country and didn’t really get to have the American experience.
I wanted to have an au pair because I had put my youngest in day care and he was just getting sick constantly. I couldn’t work, we couldn’t keep taking days off constantly, so I decided to look into other child care situations and I heard that having an au pair was more affordable than a nanny. So we went that route and it was great. She was home with the kids, I was able to work and maintain my job (as an editor at Medium), but she left a few months ago and we now have our son in preschool and my daughter’s in third grade, so she goes to school and then to an after-school program.
There are times that I work a little bit after they go to bed, but I’ve been trying not to. Pre-pandemic, that was kind of the norm, working late into the night, but something switched in me and I was like, I don’t want to anymore. I don’t think we’re more productive when we’re tired.
What’s challenging about parenting for you at this time in your life?
Mornings. When we had our au pair, the best things about that was that she handled mornings with our kids, got my daughter to Zoom school, got my son ready — it was so nice. I think just getting back into the groove of school has been a fight. My daughter needs a ton of sleep and she’s just always very groggy in the morning and just getting out the door has been really really tough. I’ve tried hacks and things — I posted something on my Instagram stories, I made a shoe rack with all the little pockets and labeled it with the days of the week, and each compartment is like shirt, pants, socks, underwear. She fills it up on Sundays, and it just helps her get up and put on her clothes without needing anything from us. I try all these things, they sometimes stick, they sometimes don’t. But this one has been going great.
Compared to the household you grew up in, what’s one thing you’re doing differently as a parent?
I was very overscheduled as a kid — I had many classes. My grandparents kind of took care of us while my parents worked, and it was always like dance class, singing class, piano, this and that. I get kind of obsessed with that, like I need to find the perfect class to help, especially with my daughter — I wanted her to find a thing. I have this fear of middle school, of all the bad things that happen in middle school, and for some reason I feel like her finding her passion is going to shield her from getting into trouble or whatnot. I have the privilege to be able to have opportunities to try out, you know, ceramics if we wanted to, or whatever. But I realized how much white space can do for kids. I feel like when my kids are bored, we experience the lowest lows and the highest highs, the worst and the best. They come up with the funniest games, and they fight, and they start building things, and they cry — so much happens. Stuff that they need to figure out. So I’ve really made an effort to have a lot of white space on our calendar. We don’t do anything on weekdays, just come home and try to chill out. We have stuff on Saturdays, and then Sundays we also keep clear.
When my kids are bored, we experience the lowest lows and the highest highs, the worst and the best.
What’s something you swore you would never do as a parent that you have absolutely done?
I didn’t know what to expect going into parenting, but I would say I would have judged a type of parent who bribes their kid, and I totally do it. My youngest is very bribable, and it’s a bad habit because it’s just so easy. He can be crying and tantruming and I can whisper “Do you want a candy?” and he instantly stops and is like “Yes please, Mama!” and snaps out of whatever.
Did you choose your kid’s school or day care?
My daughter goes to the local neighborhood school, and my son’s preschool is the one that’s closest to our house because we didn’t want to be driving so long to get him there.
Tell me something you love about your kids’ school or day care:
With my daughter’s public school, it’s very small, there’s only two classes per grade, so it’s relatively small, everyone knows everyone. I went to my first PTA meeting ever, and it was really eye opening, because I was just like, Oh my gosh, the parents run the school. If there weren’t volunteers, the kids wouldn’t have anything! It just showed me how much of a communal experience this is, and I like that. I don't know if I’m exactly the PTA type, but I would like to have the experience of being part of this group and I’m contributing as a parent. It was motivating to me to want to do more. And everyone’s so passionate and they do so much.
Where would you look to find out if a school or day care was good — and what would you look for?
A lot of thought went into when my daughter was in preschool — I did so much research on, like, Reggio vs. Montessori vs. Waldorf, all these different philosophies. But then they go to their preschool and they’re all just migrated into regular public school, so it doesn’t really keep up with that philosophy. But I did like my daughter’s preschool because I liked the way the director talked to the kids. Instead of saying Be careful, she would say things like Watch where your hands are, or Watch your feet. She would use the affirmative — instead of focusing on the no, she would focus on what you can do. That’s just one example. There were many different ways she would speak to the kids, I wrote about her a bunch while I was at Lifehacker, especially when there was a big debate over whether it’s OK for kids to pretend to shoot a gun. Her philosophy was that you could pretend anything is a gun, kids are going to do that, because it’s developmentally appropriate, but you have to ask consent of the person you’re about to shoot. So you’d be like, Hey, Billy, can I shoot you? And if you hear a yes, you can shoot them. It’s just very thoughtful, the way that she approached kids, and so I thought that was a good place.
If you could change anything about what goes on at your kids’ school or day care, what would it be?
With my son’s preschool, I feel like it’s just a big experiment. It’s very academic. It’s interesting. He’s 2 and he’s reciting all this information, and I don't know what the research says is best, if this is appropriate for them to be learning math and how to read and this sort of stuff. So it does feel sort of like “We’ll see how it goes!” It gives me slight hesitation. At my daughter’s school, it was, kids learn by play, touching things, figuring it out, playing with natural sort of toys, playing in nature. I really enjoyed that, and my son’s school is quite different, but I don't see it as being necessarily not good — it’s just very different.
Tell me something your kids do that really pushes your buttons.
My daughter, her whining — it makes the both of us go from 0 to 100 in an instant. There’s no talking it down! I’ve heard that instead of yelling you could, like, sing or something to re-channel some of that energy, but it really does feel so overwhelming. That’s definitely something I’ve been struggling with a lot. What helps is just setting an expectation right away, early and often, that This is what we’re going to do, I expect you to speak respectfully without a whining voice, and usually you set that expectation when everyone’s calm, it’s there. So that helps. But once we get past the point of no return, it’s really hard to calm down from that. My husband’s trigger is seeing me flustered, and his instinct is to get loud, and then we get in a whole cycle of “Don't yell!”
Tell me something wonderful about your kid(s):
Max is very happy-go-lucky and makes us laugh at least 35 times a day. He’s definitely just a happy, curious, funny kid. What makes us laugh so much is, we’ll tell him something like Oh, today I got a paper cut, and he’ll instantly tell the person sitting right next to me, Dad, today Mom got a paper cut! It’s very cute how he explains things to someone who’s right in the room.
Maggie is definitely unique, her own person. She kind of tears up the house but she builds these amazing little tiny sculptures. She made this dollhouse that has nine rooms and every room has a theme and it’s all just out of random scraps around the house. She just constantly has to be making something. I kind of see myself in that — can’t sit still, has to be doing something at all times — and I’m just excited to see where that creativity takes her.
Thanks again to Michelle for speaking with me! “Horizontal Parenting” is available wherever books are sold, and you can find Michelle at michellewoo.com.