Unsolicited Advice to Fellow Parents
As some of you know, I am a parent.
My children are 3 years old and 6 months old, so
I am just starting out. I do, however, have more than a decade of experience
dealing with special needs kids, students, disabled adults, and management, so
that helps round out my expertise and makes room from growth as my own kids
move through life’s stages.
In short, I am not an expert.
That being said, a friend of mine
recently initiated a conversation about his own life path and it seems he is on
the way to fatherhood, once he finishes his stint overseas. I think that is
awesome. I love being a Dad. Of course, once that came up I did what all
parents do: offer unsolicited advice. In my defense, everyone does it because
it is a way to share wisdom, reassure ourselves that we are doing things right,
and compare notes with people who have differing opinions.
So the topic drifted to ‘things to
know before you procreate’ and it got me thinking. I have made a lot of
mistakes, I think it’s part of the process. Telling people to make sure they
cover the little’s boy’s cannon when changing him is mostly just funny when
people learn for the first time.
Mentioning that Mom will poop in the delivery room might be a good heads
up, but really, if you fail, it happens and the moment will pass and everyone
moves on.
What I think about are the things
with long term effects. Things that impact my attitude positively and I see
impact other negatively. Things about perspectives, interpretation, and
reactions to the various situations kids bring. Some things, like the fact that
you children WILL destroy something valuable to you at some point can be
mitigated by not loving ‘stuff’ so much. Good luck with that, Consumer America.
Other ‘truths’, like the fact that a daughter will always break your heart,
aren’t really helpful and kind of put a damper on things if you dwell on it. I
am not sure that’s what a new Dad needs to hear.
So it got me thinking: What does a
new Dad ‘need’ to hear? What advice could I offer that helps in the long run,
that keeps the weight of being a Dad from eating away at your patience and will
to live? What do I think will help me five, ten, twenty, or twenty-five years
from now when I am dealing with the progressively stupider problems kids bring?
What virtues do I hope to maintain so I can pass them on and maybe my kids will
emulate?
And that is really what it boils
down to, for me. Virtues. So, in talking to my friend, it occurs to me that the
three things parents always need but often let slip away are Patience, Humor,
and Willpower. These are things I hope Eve and Van develop, and I know I lack
them in many ways, so I have to consciously develop them alongside my children.
Willpower.
So the first piece of advice I gave
my friend is that he and his wife should embrace gross before they have a kid.
Kids are gross. And I don’t just mean the good chance they will have a Baby
Vomit Volcano or find themselves talking about poop for at least a good hour
each day, often to anyone who will listen I mean kids are gross
quintessentially. They will lick the grime off of gymnastics mats to make cool
handprints (Hi Emily!). They will hide frogs in their pockets and then forget
when they sit down. They will get infected, sick, broken, and scarred. They
will try to cook you breakfast and end up exploding eggs in the microwave and
smearing bacon grease all over the kitchen, themselves, every door between the
stove and your bedroom door, the sheets, and any pet unlucky enough to get too
close (which they will - bacon is good).
So I suggested to him to get used
to gross. If there is something that particularly pops their gag reflex,
overexpose to it now. Explore gross. Play with tapioca without a bowl. Eat head
cheese. Huff their gym bag. Clean a high school toilet. Whatever it takes. Someday
they will be thankful when the doctor tells them to bring in a sample of their
delightful child’s stool because they fear there may be a worm infection. Just
saying.
Patience
That got me thinking about how kids
think. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking kids are either entirely
faultless because they are precious and cute and really just pets with opinions
that will someday magically manifest only the good parts of their parents.
Others make the exact opposite mistake. They see a tiny human and assume they
are like any other adult. Breaking a camera makes them quintessentially stupid.
Putting together a Lego set means they are smart. Most of all, they do things
because, like adults, they think things through and should be responsible for
their actions (I am still looking for an adult like this - let me know if you
find one).
Children are neither.
Imagine a scale, where at one end
you have these faultless primates and the other you have The Good Son. Children
absolutely start at the former end. They might get close to the latter end when
they are forty, but I wouldn’t bet on it. As children grow, the amount of
agency (ability to make decisions and act on them) increases slowly. Most
children don’t think very far ahead. They want to eat all their Halloween candy
now, and don’t even consider that they will be heaving jujubes in an hour or
that doing so may create a permanent candy aversion that will ruin every
Halloween forever. An adult who puts a grilled cheese sandwich into your Xbox
is a jerk. There is a reasonable expectation that they knew the consequences,
did so for social reasons, and probably could have figured out what would
happen with actually going through with it. Your five year old, however,
doesn’t have the experiences or mental acuity to work through all the
complexities of what they are doing. They are, for all intents and purposes,
about 10% agency and 90% impulse/curiosity/confusion at that point.
People run into the problem a lot
with teenagers. At fifteen, a person should know a bit more about what they are
doing and take some damn responsibility for themselves, right? Well, yes.
Definitely push for that. But understand that to a child, each year is like a
whole new life time. It is a major segment of their existence and they see
things through new eyes, process things with a new brain, and move things with
a new body that changes daily. Add on top of that hormones, newfound social
pressures, and about six years of constantly being uncomfortable physically,
and you tell me how well you can think straight.
Now, don’t get me wrong. This isn’t
about rolling over, or being a paragon of forgiveness, or not putting out
structure, discipline, or consequences. You HAVE to do those things. I am
talking about what is going inside your head as a parent. Cut the kids some
slack, and when you have to get tough, remember that you were once there too.
Provide boundaries, help them balance risk and reward, and be the bad guy a
lot. But in your heart, where you store all of these emotions, remember to be
compassionate to them and you.
Humor.
This brings us to the third piece
of advice I gave (which by the way weren’t nearly this long winded). Have a
sense of humor with your kids. I don’t mean make jokes, or play, or have fun.
You should do those too. What I mean is that it helps to realize that
parenthood is a game. We provide structure, discipline and guidance; our kids
try to work around them. That’s their job. It isn’t about being in control, or
being the most powerful one, or being obeyed. You look at it that way, and you
will end up with kids who either integrate those values and become jerks as
adults or they will succumb to your behavior and become obedient little drones
(or somewhere on that scale).
A successful adult is
compassionate, clever, flexible, and disciplined. They can solve problems, work
around obstacles without hurting themselves or others. And guess what, you, the
parent, are an obstacle. They can be respectful. That is important. But when
you tell your kid that they can’t have candy before dinner so they wake up
early and eat it all before breakfast, maybe you should have been a bit clearer
with your instructions.
It’s a game. A game where you have
more power, but using that power is dangerous. If you make it a power struggle,
you will lose. They will grow up, they will take that frustration of being
powerless out on someone else, and most of all they will not learn how to make
the right choices until after they have screwed up tremendously.
So I recommended to my buddy to keep a sense of humor about
it. When your kid outsmarts you, have there be consequences but in your heart
remember that a smart kid who learned to respect their adversaries will go far.
Be an adversary worth respecting (and not fearing).
We often feel like we have less
power in our lives than we would like;don’t take
that out on your kids, or they will feel exactly the same way. Over the course
of the thirty years it takes a kid to be independent-ish (on average), you will
play the “rules/weasel” game a lot. If you are a sore loser, you will have a
long road ahead
So, that was the thought process
that came up during my conversation with my friend. I reiterate: I am no
expert. I am wrong more than I am right, and I am not very good at practicing
what I preach. These are ideals to be striven towards, not pass/fail absolutes.
In case you were wondering, or having trouble following my meandering thought
process, here is what I told him:
TL;DR:
Get
used to gross. Fall in love with gross. Inure yourself to gross. Gross can be
funny or it can be upsetting. You choose.
Encourage
responsibility but remember kids are not adults. They are not responsible for
everything they do in the same way adults are. Give them boundaries and
consequences, but in your mind remember that you were once there too.
Structure
and Power is a game between you and your child. Like above, provide discipline,
but in the end you want a kid who can think around problems, and you, as a
parent, are their first consistent problem.
It all
boils down to having a good attitude, letting go of the authority a little in
your own mind, and remembering that kids will love you unless trained to do
otherwise. It’s all about the long game, and how you process and store your
experiences as a parent will count more than any individual problem. You may
not ever explain how you feel to you children, but they will see how you react
emotionally to the inevitable issues that will arise between them and you and
will do the same when they grow up.
There
are a lot of virtues out there, but today I was thinking about Patience, Humor,
and Willpower. Wish me luck.
