parenting as signal processing

• Good parenting is about signal filtering: Let the moderate, regular stressors pass through for the purpose of developing your kid's stress response muscles and absorb the high level, irregular stressors yourself.
• Having a kid is a traumatic experience for every young couple. Amplitude, frequency and irregularity of the sinusoidal rhythms of life dramatically increase. You get subject to previously inaccessible levels of happiness and despair via emotional swings that are much faster than the speeds you are accustomed to.

These two points are intimately related. Absorbing the high level, irregular stressors will bring upon you previously unimaginable levels of misery. In return for this favor, your kid will shower you with gratefulness-inducing moments and take you to emotional heights that you will be completely at a loss for words to describe.