My daughter turned 16 years old this year, and I was faced with the worst part of parenting so far, teaching your child to drive. I was blindsided by how much I would hate it. At first, I thought of the new found freedom we would have from not having to drive her to all her events. But the second she got in the driver’s seat, the freedom of carpooling was the last thing on my mind. It’s terrifying. Then all I could think about was that I have to do this six more times.
This got me thinking about all the parts of parenting we don’t think about when choosing to start a family. The baby stuff is usually on our mind: sleepless nights, vaccination choices, illnesses, messes, and loss of freedom. You make your peace with those things. But rarely do you think about putting your most valued treasure behind the wheel of a car.
Parenting exposes my emotions more than anything else I have encountered, except maybe teenage romance. Anyone who knows me, knows I love being a mom, but that does not mean it’s all sunshine and roses. It’s hard. It’s work. And maybe, we are not putting in the hard work necessary to produce the kinds of human beings we envisioned.
If the children of this generation are a reflection of their parents, what does that say about us? They appear to be entitled, selfish, spoiled, disrespectful, lazy, aggressive and defiant. These qualities lead to far more destructive behavior in young adults than in the toddler years. If we don’t address it while they are young, we will not just be rolling our eyes at their behavior in high school and college. When did children shooting other children become a thing? It starts somewhere. It starts at home.
Though we may not be stellar at controlling our kids, we are excelling at one thing for sure, pointing fingers and shifting the blame. Surely my ill-behaved child can’t be ill-behaved because of me and it goes without saying that it can’t be my sweet little angel’s fault either. So whose fault is it then? It could be a medical problem. I personally have blamed many a melt down on teething; Ken will attest to that. The problem is the teeth are all in now and yet that behavior still creeps in. Hmmm? What else could be the problem? Perhaps it is the influence of my child’s friend. It could be the influence of the media or maybe they have too many complex carbohydrates in their diet? We could blame gluten. Everyone’s down on gluten these days. You know what? It’s Trump’s fault . . . or Obama, either one.
It seems to me that we have confused our role with that of a cool aunt, hip grandparent or fun camp counselor, instead of the pleasant task of parent. Guess what parenting involves: saying no, handing out consequences, sticking to our decisions in the face of melt downs, forcing our children to eat green things even when they pretend to vomit, enforcing bedtimes, requiring showering, brushing of both hair and teeth, and addressing topics that no one else has to discuss. It’s a lovely job.
So what am I suggesting? Surely it can’t be to discipline our children. Uh, yea, I think that’s it. I’m not advocating how to do this, that is your job. You have to figure out your kids. Study them like you are trying to ace a test. There are no Cliff notes and each child is completely different than the next. So if someone gives you a “How to Parent Your Child” book, it’s pretty much useless. You can’t read a book and know your child. You have to put in the work to figure them out. And sorry to spoil it for you newbie moms and dads, it’s hard work. They are not easy to figure out. But they are so worth it.
There has been a lot of talk of kindness lately, stemming from the movie Wonder. It’s all fabulous. At the very least we need to teach our children to be kind, to everyone. I would also like mine to be respectful, honest, hardworking and humble.
I’m sure we all have our lists of attributes that we hope our children embody. These qualities will not just show up in them.
At times the qualities that parents work really hard for are attributed to shear good luck.
“You are so lucky that you have good eaters.” Uh, no, I worked my butt off to get them to eat, and it’s a daily struggle with two of them. Sometimes they choose to go to bed hungry rather than eat what is offered to them.
“You are lucky to have such nice kids.” Uh, they are not always nice. Sometimes they have to be disciplined because they are fresh and mean and selfish and out of control – just like every other kid.
These qualities will also not show up in our children just because we talk about them. Every day I send my children out the door with two words: humble and kind. Hearing these words will not make my children humble and kind. I have to BE humble and kind. I have to show them how it’s done. That’s my job. I need to be kind to the people I am driving with on the roads, and I live in New Jersey. This is not an easy task. I have to be kind to the insurance people that I am chatting with about why it cost $500 for a lifesaving drug that my son needs. It’s not easy. I fail. And when I fail, I need to be humble and admit it. When I fail my kids I need to ask for forgiveness. I need to model all the behavior I expect from them, because words are not enough.
We think bullying is a problem for our youth, and it is. But have you ever read the responses posted on a blog, written by adults? They are awful, mean, vulgar, degrading, and ignorant! We would never want our children to respond that way, yet we are. If we want our kids to respect others, we need to do it too.
If our children don’t respect us, why would they respect their teachers? Their bosses? Their friends? If our children learn from us that they are the most important person in the universe and that everything should cater to them and their happiness, how does that prepare them for the cruel reality of the world, where let’s be honest, that’s not true. Our children should receive from us, unconditional love and support, but not a free pass to act however they want without consequences. I know it’s hard to see our kids unhappy with us, but if we truly love them, we will let their temporary unhappiness be the catalyst to change their behavior and transform them into the amazing people God made them to be.
If we are truly doing our job, our children are not always going to be happy with us. They are going to want things that we know are not in their best interest: candy for breakfast, a phone before they are ready, going to school only on gym days, an app without parental controls, flexible bedtimes, unlimited time on the devices, dessert without dinner . . . the list goes on. When they think we are ruining their lives because they can’t play Fortnite until they get their grades up (hypothetical issue of course) we have to keep the end goal in mind. We want to release into the world responsible, respectful, hardworking, compassionate, humble and kind adults. That will not happen if we give them everything they want and never force them to accept responsibility for the things that are theirs.
This is a bigger problem for me, than my husband. I admit it; I don’t like it when anyone is unhappy with me. But my kiddos pull on my heart strings the most, and in doing so, they wear me down to their whims. One time, I was in the doctor’s office with my oldest and youngest. The toddler was not listening to anything I was saying, but I was concerned about an issue with the older one so I allowed him to misbehave by ignoring the behavior. As we left the office, the children selected lollipops, as we normally did for good behavior in the doctor’s office. My oldest said, “If I had acted that way when I was his age, I would have been disciplined and not given a lollipop.” Totally schooled by my kid. She was right. It was lazy parenting. I didn’t want to deal with the melt down, but in ignoring the behavior, I only made it worse. When we put in the hard work of parenting, we reap the benefits. When we are lazy in our parenting, we reap the consequences.
Being a mom is hands down the best job I have ever had, and it is also the hardest. The stakes are the highest, the hours the longest, the stress the most intense, the pay the worst. But there is nothing that brings me more joy, than to see a child of mine treat someone with kindness or act with unprompted generosity. We want to give our children every good gift that we can. We want to say yes to all their hopes and aspirations. And we should say yes as much as possible, as long as we still know how to say no to the things that are not good for them. Someday we will be the grandparents and we can just say yes.