Reflections on Parenting
I was raised in the 60s and 70s, the youngest child of parents who meant well but always seemed a bit out of touch with modern times. My sister, a self-proclaimed hippie, had to marry her college boyfriend because my parents didn’t believe in premarital sex, although we later found out our mother was pregnant when our parents married. When my then teenage brother summoned enough courage to announce he was gay, our parents told him to go see a therapist - and then ignored the topic for the next 20 years. As for me, as much as I adored my mother, she never got it right when I would come home from school saying I’d been bullied and called names like, “Chink” and “Chinadoll.” “Oh, that happened to your brother, too,” she’d say while pressing a shirt on the ironing board. “Why don’t you go outside and play?” she suggested.
Raising kids as an older parent (I was 5 days short of 41 when my first daughter was born) has had its ups and downs. On the one hand, I lived an active life - clubbing, going on long-distance bike rides and eating Ben & Jerry’s whenever I felt like it. I loved being single. On the other hand, I’m still paying for college while many of my friends are retiring and moving closer to their grandchildren.
Financial freedom? Not yet. Full heart? Absolutely. So, for what it’s worth, I offer three practices that helped me maintain perspective throughout the rollercoaster of child-rearing.
# 1- Write down the funny things your kid says.
In answer to the question, “What did you learn at school today?” my 5-year-old replied, “I learned that Columbus sailed from the green side to the purple side across the yellow section.”
When our 2nd trampoline was impaled by a large tree during a nasty storm, a new one miraculously appeared on Easter Sunday. One daughter proclaimed, “How wonderful that the Easter Bunny brought this, and we didn’t have to buy one ourselves!”
After hearing what Easter is all about - that Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the dead three days later - our 2nd daughter stated in total deadpan, “Oh, so he was a zombie.”
# 2- Keep one eye on the light at the end of the tunnel.
My kids did eventually sleep through the night - though not until age 6 or 7. . . or 8.
My daughter’s paralyzing night terrors did eventually morph into violent tantrums before fading into occasional moodiness.
On car trips, my kids did one day announce they had to “go poddy” BEFORE we got to the rest area, not right after we left it.
#3- Bite your tongue and take deep, cleansing breaths as often as needed. This may or may not be accompanied by a glass of wine.
When my kid jumped out of an airplane for her 18th birthday, I reminded myself that, statistically, this is still safer than driving a car.
When my kid announced she wanted a piercing (or two or three), I remember how my parents rejected my brother for being who he was, and I said “yes, of course.”
When my kid asked for birth control, I remembered what it was like to be her age and thought, “yes” was the only possible answer.
I may not always understand every decision my daughters make. But neither did my parents appreciate mine. So, given the choice between resistance or acceptance, I choose to Be the parent I wish I had.