Years ago, when the “tiger mom” book was making lots of media headlines, I thought that I might be a Tiger Mom Lite. I’d push my child to be the best that they could be within the bounds of what they actually enjoyed. I’d demand obedience (to a limit) and self-discipline. I’d expect them to do house chores, homework, and extracurriculars. And hopefully all that would culminate in their developing into a good citizen of society and the world — growing into an adult who would be intelligent, curious, empathetic, disciplined, globally minded, and passionate.

Fast forward years later, after a year of futilely trying to conceive, IUI, IVF, and finally the birth of Kaia Pookie, and I think I’ve softened quite a bit. I’m no where as strict as I thought I would be as a parent. I’m a lot more gentle than I ever imagined. And all I can think about is how not to continue intergenerational, “inherited” trauma in her. In my mind, I just want her to be safe, healthy, and happy.

I think about this during the recent weeks’ worth of elementary school tours, open houses, and parent outreaches and conversations. And all these parents seem to say the same thing: we want our kids to be happy and thrive in their environments. But then the big question when choosing a school is: which environment is best for my child to optimize their happiness and learning?

I recently finished reading this culinary memoir called How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plenty by Bonny Reichert. Bonny’s father survived near-starvation during the Holocaust in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and this legacy of hunger impacts the family’s relationship to food. The book, though repetitive and slightly irrelevant tangents at times, shows how trauma can continue across generations even when the older generations who directly experienced trauma try so hard to shield it from their offspring. In Bonny’s case, her father steered as clear as possible from sharing vivid details of his struggle and survival during the Holocaust, insisting that she and her sisters not worry or think about it. He constantly says over and over to the girls that there’s no need to know about all that in the past. “Just be happy. I want you to be happy.” But the anxiety from not knowing the details but being aware of their father’s Holocaust experience constantly echoes in their lives and causes Bonny an internal instability that she cannot shake. We spend most of the book navigating this journey, which leads her… right back to Poland.

I suppose the reason I thought about this book during this elementary school application process is that it’s not really enough, at the end of the day, to focus on our child’s happiness, as made evident in Bonny’s case with her dad. What does “happiness” mean to kids at each stage of development, anyway? At times, it can seem like an empty, meaningless word. Something actually needs to drive them internally for them to move forward. And all we can do, as their parents, is to be the one to help them navigate through all their options and choose what we think is best for them as individuals.

That feels very difficult (and vexing) right now.