I had dinner with my son recently and, as is often the case with us, we started talking about Quentin Tarantino's two-part masterpiece, “Kill Bill.” We fell in love with the movies when they came out over 20 years ago, when my son was in elementary school, and we've seen them countless times. My son had bought tickets to see the recently released “The Whole Bloody Affair,” which features a version of both parts in a single screening, and was wondering if I already had mine. All I could do was smile. Maybe she had taken him to see those movies when he was “too young.” But remember and love the story to this day. And apparently early exposure to Tarantino didn't ruin it.
Mistakes, am I right? Sometimes they end up being the best part of being a parent.
Of course, you don't know that when your children are little. So in that way, I don't blame OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in the least for turning to AI for answers about parenting. He and his partner welcomed a new baby in February.
“Yeah, I mean, I feel a little bad about that,” Altman said on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” “I can't imagine ever thinking about how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT.”
Days after his late-night appearance, Disney announced a three-year, billion-dollar partnership with OpenAI that allows the company's Sora system to use Disney characters, so perhaps Altman's parenting part was just a soft launch. Or maybe the executive who runs one of the most powerful tech companies in the world is really worried about “mistakes,” like, I don't know… letting a 9-year-old watch Uma Thurman kill everything in front of her for five hours. Being a parent is a winding road. There are no guardrails, but there are many potholes.
If ChatGPT can smooth the way for Altman and others, I say great. Consider it another tool in the arsenal for the battle ahead, like how-to books, YouTube videos, and unsolicited advice from strangers. Like me.
Wanting to avoid mistakes is natural, but in my experience, true growth comes from the things you did “wrong.” No one dares to do it and often the “mistakes” become bonding matter decades later. Over time, you will gain a new appreciation for the depth of humility and grace necessary to raise a human being.
It's through watching yourself and your child overcome a difficult time, especially when you let them down, especially when you learn to forgive early on, that you become aware of a universal truth about parenting: there are no mistakes. There are only options.
It's not as cryptic as it seems. In fact, it's quite liberating. The fear of making a mistake makes perfection the goal, when in reality there is no perfect way to parent.
ChatGPT and similar tools can give you collaborative answers to your questions, and you'll have plenty of them, whether it's “How much tummy time should my 3-month-old baby spend each day?” or “How can I get my child to sleep before 11 pm?” But even the best answers can't offer perfection. Nothing can.
Once I accepted that fragility, that vulnerability, is inherent in the process of raising a child, parenting became a meditation on forgiveness, primarily on forgiving myself. This is true whether you use AI or not. Even on the OpenAI site there is a header that says: “ChatGPT can be useful, but it is not always correct.”
I'm sure Altman has seen it.
“I've trusted it a lot,” he told Fallon. “I mean, it's obviously the most important thing that's ever happened to me in my life, so it's the most important thing on my mind and I use it all the time.”
I have to admit, it's amazing to see someone of Altman's wealth and intellect feel humiliated by something parents have been doing since the beginning of time: making “mistakes.”
YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow
