An acquaintance who is pregnant asked me recently, "What's the secret of happy parenting? If you had one piece of advice for new parents, what would it be?"

I hesitated.  I am rarely at a loss for words, especially about parenting.  But the one most important piece of advice?  The secret of happy parenting?

I thought of saying "The secret of happy parenting is an easy baby who sleeps through the night, a good marriage, and enough money to stay home with your baby for the first year."  But that seemed too flip, too short-sighted, and the truth is, many great moms who are happy parents didn't start with these advantages.

So here's what I told her:  "The secret of happy parenting is that everything depends on the quality of the relationship you build with your child.  For some, it's a good match and it's easy.  For others, it's a lot harder, and you have to work harder and be more creative.  But committing yourself to spending the necessary time connecting with your baby to build a very close relationship is what matters most." 

The secret of happy parents is that their children are generally not that hard to parent, because the relationship does most of the work.  It's like rolling a boulder downhill instead of uphill:  It still takes a lot of guidance, but at least the momentum is with you!

What I hesitated to say to my young acquaintance is that it's pretty hard to offer your baby, even at three or six months, the close relationship she needs, if she's spending most of her waking hours with a caregiver.

The relationship between young humans and their parents, what psychologists call an “attachment relationship,” developed evolutionarily to increase children’s chances of surviving to adulthood and procreating.   In an attachment relationship, the child seeks proximity to, depends on, emulates, asks the guidance of, and takes direction from, the parent. 

Think about how easy parenting would be if your child sought and followed your guidance and advice.  Of course, he would also be seeking your proximity, and expressing dependence toward you – which some parents find hard to tolerate.  

For most of us, juggling kids’ attachment needs in the context of professional and other pressures can be a challenge.  But ultimately, meeting kids’ attachment needs makes parenting easier and more rewarding.  Kids whose attachment needs are met are easier to manage and more fun -- research shows they have fewer tantrums and fewer nightmares, more friends and better grades. And their parents are happier.

This isn't just my opinion, it’s the view of many researchers.  This understanding should dominate our discussions about parenting.

So why doesn’t anyone tell new parents this?  That there are early choices -- about how much time the baby and toddler spends with his parents -- that determine the trajectory of our family lives?  That successful parenting depends on the relationship you build? 

We don't tell new parents all this because we have a bigger secret: 

It’s almost impossible, in the culture of the 21st century USA, to raise children the way they deserve to be raised. We've told our young women they can "have it all," but that's a silly marketing phrase, not a reflection of what our lives are really like. Giving kids what they need will almost always have career implications for mothers, unless fathers are willing and able to make the difficult transition to part-time work themselves while their kids are small.

This is the secret dilemma of being a parent today -- we know what kids need, but providing it can run headlong into both our own desires and the demands of a very child-unfriendly working world. Fortunately, love is powerful, and an honest commitment to our children might just be enough to force a hard look at the way we live our lives and what we are doing,  unintentionally, to our kids. Not to mention their moms.