The Parent You Are

Or how to stop feeling guilty about all the things you don't do

Photo by Sue Zeng on Unsplash

I wrote this about a year ago, last summer, when waiting in the car supplied me with a lot of time to sit, think, and write. It’s even more true now than it was then.

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Recently, a friend — okay, someone I occasionally exchange comments with on the internet — became a parent for the first time. He wrote about how caring for a baby had derailed the predictability of his life. Suddenly, getting in a workout or a bit of writing is entirely dependent on the whimsical sleep/eat schedule of a newborn. We seasoned parents nod solemnly. Many of the comments on his piece were of the “Don’t be too hard on yourself for not getting anything done” variety.

Right now, I’m sitting in the high school parking lot at 7:25 in the morning.

My eighth grader participates in strength and conditioning camp — it’s only an hour long, so going home seems like a waste of gas. I am not a morning person, but I have to admit, in Texas in mid-June this is a nice time to be outside, while the sun is still low in the sky and the breeze is (sort of) cool. I understand why people get up to run at 6am in the summer. I’m not going to DO it, but I understand it.

As I sit here, waking up with my coffee, all the doors and windows on the van open to admit the gorgeous air, I am all set to write about parenthood, inspired by the aforementioned friend and how…

You can learn and become better at parenting to a degree, you can also only be who you are.

Sometimes I wonder if Jason or I were the kind of parent who took charge of their kids’ athletic training, ran drills with them, and was already schmoozing college recruiters, that would be useful for them and their goals. I can go back and forth about whether that’s a good idea or not, whether it constitutes “good parenting.” I can decide I’m deficient, or I can judge those parents who are that involved as overbearing.

But I realized recently, it doesn’t matter if that’s the right approach or not. It would be hard to know with any given kid until you look at it in hindsight, when they’re 40. The bottom line is, that isn’t the parent Jason or I are; we simply don’t have it in us to be that managerial of our kids’ sports careers.

Parenting is huge chunk of my life, and I like it that way.

But it is not ALL of my life. I would not be happy spending all my free time with a stop watch in my hand, timing my kid’s sprint speed. I am supportive. I drive them to practice, I go to the games, I take an interest in their interests and have learned more about soccer over the past decade than any other sport I’ve been casually exposed to over my lifetime.

You can tell me that my particular level of involvement is a good thing for my kids — that, as they grow through teenagehood, it’s positive that we step back as parents and let them navigate things more on their own. That’s a valid point, and I believe that it’s true.

But you could also say that our oldest would have a better chance at achieving his goal of playing collegiate soccer if we were more assertive about it. Or that we would bond as parent and child more over that kind of experience. That’s also a valid and potentially true point.

Instead, though, of wringing my hands over what we ought to do as parents or judging myself or others for their approach, I’ve found calm in simply saying, that’s just not who I am — as a parent or as a person.

This carries over to all kinds of stuff. Would my first novel sell better if I did more advertising? If I called and harassed book stores to carry it? If I dedicated myself to figuring out how to get it published on IngramSpark and didn’t allow myself to be stymied by tech issues? Almost definitely. But it’s not who I am. It’s not what I want to spend my time doing. I accept that. I choose to spend my time working my paying gig, parenting, and writing in my undisciplined fashion.

It’s easy to judge other parents for their choices.

We do it because we want to believe we are making the right parenting decisions. If we see others doing it differently, we question ourselves, worry that we’re doing it wrong. And, with the human tendency to polarize everything, that seems to be the only choice — either we’re doing it wrong or they are. But I can dispense with a lot of mental gymnastics by letting go of judgment and admitting that none of us are sure we doing parenting “right.” We are doing our best, we are going with our gut, and we are being true to who we are.

Side Note: It’s hard not to judge people. I mostly don’t judge other parents anymore, but sometimes I can’t help it. Right now, I am judging the parent in her Jeep Cherokee several spots down from me whose engine has been running this entire hour, polluting the atmosphere on a morning when the temp outside is a pleasant 74 degrees. But you know, maybe she has a good reason.

As my kids have grown into teenagers, parenting has become both easier and more complicated.

Gone are the days of following them around the backyard making sure they don’t eat dirt. It’s been a long time since I heard, “Mommy, play with me.” They are largely self sufficient now and more amenable to the discomforts of life. I took them both to the pediatrician for their annual checkup yesterday and marveled at the oldest’s blasé approach to the vaccine needle. When he was two, shots were a dramatically emotional ordeal requiring several days of prep time.

But as they’ve grown, parenting decisions have become murkier, less obvious. No, you can’t have cookies for dinner has become the question of how hard to push them and when to back off — Is that hamstring injury really not healed yet or is it that you are afraid to go back to training because you now fear injuring it? These questions are hard to answer when you are not the one feeling the pain — physical or emotional. But as the parent, you have more insight into them than your children who’ve been on the planet less than two decades, so you want to offer your wisdom. You want to help them not struggle as much as you did, but you also don’t want to lecture and pontificate to the point they stop listening. It’s a hard balance, and I never know if I’m getting it right.

I guess what I’m rambling about is that, assuming you are a mindful parent doing the basic good things of feeding, clothing, loving, and supporting your children, of being there for them and truly having their best interest at heart, try not to judge yourself or other parents so harshly. Try not to get too hung up on what the RIGHT decision is. When your children are grown, you WILL look back on their childhoods and regret some stuff — see that you, at times, couldn’t see the forest for the trees. It’s okay. Kids are resilient, and part of what they learn from your mistakes is that it’s okay for them to make mistakes too.