Parenting

Maslow’s Hierarchy Revisited—Parenthood’s On Top!

Sometimes you just want to roll your eyes and say “Duh!”

A team of researchers at Arizona State University, led by evolutionary psychologist Douglas Kenrick, has noticed that most people really like being parents. Despite the challenges of child-rearing, Kenrick reported that the warmth, the love, the creativity, the sense of purpose and belonging—all of these factors and more make parenting the most enjoyable of all activities.

Kenrick’s team reported this breaking news, which is just a ho-hum factoid to loving parents, in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. Kenrick and his group proposed a revision to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which takes into account our deepest biological drives.

In the new Need Hierarchy, Maslow’s fifth-tier need Self-Actualization has been supplanted at the top by a motivation which Maslow hadn’t even mentioned: Parenting.

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What Is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs….and Do I Need It?

In my undergraduate days at the Universityof Michigan, the darling of the Psych Department was Abraham Maslow. A psychologist and motivational researcher, Maslow believed that humans’ most basic needs are inborn; and he developed his acclaimed Hierarchy of Needs in the 1950s to explain how these needs motivate us all. According to Maslow, our most basic needs for survival (food, water and shelter) must be satisfied before we can turn our attention to higher-level needs such as influence and personal development. If there is a threat to our lower-level needs (a house fire, for example, or job loss or nationwide famine), we will no longer be concerned about higher-level needs but will instead focus on rebuilding the base of security that we require.

Maslow’s five-tier Needs Hierarchy ranked the categories of needs, bottom to top, as follows:

Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
Belongingness and Love needs – work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.
Esteem needs – self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
Self-Actualization needs – realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

In the 1970s, behavioral scientists slipped in two additional categories after Esteem needs:

Cognitive needs (knowledge and meaning), and
Aesthetic needs (appreciation and search for beauty, form).

And in the 1990s, scientists took one more step toward a benevolent view of Need Hierarchy by topping Self-Actualization with an even higher need, the need for Transcendence. Once an individual achieved personal potential (Self-Actualization), scientists claimed, he or she would then seek Transcendence by helping another to achieve Self-Actualization—for example, through volunteer work in a disadvantaged community.

What has emerged now, though—based on research studies conducted in 2010—is a new understanding that devoted parents find the deepest satisfaction in shaping the hearts and souls of the children who have been entrusted to their care.

While non-parenting adults may expect the rigors of child-rearing to be an impediment to happiness, the opposite is true: Those who have actually experienced the joy of giving selflessly to a helpless infant achieve a level of wellbeing that is unmatched in human experience. Those who patiently teach a toddler to tie her shoes, or help a middle schooler to make friends in the classroom, report greater satisfaction than do those whose focus is personal fulfillment through career, marriage or other adult relationship.

Next in the pyramid, according to Kenrick and team, is Mate Retention– a marriage which lasts– and before that comes Mate Attraction (finding that special person). It would appear that all of our deepest longings derive from the complex biological urge to reproduce.

So the new Hierarchy of Needs, with Parenting at the tippy-top, looks like this:

But you knew that, didn’t you?

HOLLYWOOD RUMSPRINGA: Young Stars Run Amok Make Good Parents’ Job So Much Harder

In Amish society, there is a period during adolescence called Rumspringa (or Rumschpringe)—a Pennsylvania German term for “running around.” It’s the common name for a period in the late teen years when some young Amish try their wings—perhaps engaging in rebellious behavior or defying the community norms.

Oh, there are those among the Amish—as in the rest of society—who never stray far from the fold. Some young people, though, use this period to experiment with alternate lifestyles: wearing make-up or nontraditional clothing (known as dressing “English”), driving vehicles other than horse-drawn vehicles, drinking alcohol or using recreational drugs, even engaging in pre-marital sex. They may choose during rumspringa to stay away from family prayer.

With their newfound freedom, a few Amish youth redirect their lives during rumspringa and separate from the community. At the end, though, most of those who had a taste of contemporary American culture—with its emphasis on sex, drugs and rock and roll—will ultimately return to the Anabaptist Christian movement, the Amish. When they return, like the prodigal son they will be welcomed with open arms; and it is then that they make a permanent commitment to the community and are baptized as adults into the Amish church.

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I thought about rumspringa as news broke again this week about Hollywood starlets acting badly. In December, the entertainment news was filled with stories about Miley Cyrus, caught on tape with a bong. This week, troubled diva Lindsay Lohan, fresh out of jail and still on probation, was caught pilfering a $2,500 necklace from a Venice, California jewelry store. Paris Hilton captured headlines for drunk driving, a DUI arrest which resulted in jail time, possession of cannabis and cocaine. Britney Spears was treated for drug dependency. Kim Kardashian was featured in a pornographic sex tape with then-boyfriend, R&B singer Ray J.

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All of this debauchery among the glam teen crowd is one more challenge for harried parents who are striving to raise upstanding citizens for the kingdom of God. The high-profile antics of Hollywood ingénues are reported with no more than a wink by an admiring press. As style-setters for high school society, the young headliners skate through legal hassles and romantic trysts, seemingly without paying the price of a decline in popularity.

But there is a steep price for delinquency, even for the Hollywood set. During the teens and 20s, young people should be solidifying their values, emerging as adults with a sense of responsibility and a love for God and for mankind. Without the practice of virtue in the early years, it will be ever more difficult to rebound and to become the men and women God intended them to be. And despite their wealth and their notoriety, they too will stand before God to give an account for how they have used the gifts He has given. Let us pray that they will, by that day, have redirected their energies toward His service. Let us pray that our own teens and young adults, rather than being smothered by the barrage of Hollywood trivia, will find strength and love in Christ and will live their vocations with grace and wisdom.

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There are three Bible verses which encapsulate cultural attitudes in the Amish community. This verse, Romans 12:2, is the hallmark of the Amish lifestyle; and likewise, while our manner of dress may be less severe, may we all take it to heart—even as we strive to live within the confines of the larger society.

“And be ye not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2)