It must be hard being a parent.
Here’s a recent theory I’m developing. The imperative word being “developing.” The impression I’m getting is that parents observe their children and try and fit them into certain ideas that they have in their minds.
For example, if their kid is a good student and the parents weren’t, they imagine a path where the kid goes to a good school, gets good grades, graduates and then moves on to a successful job, gets married and you know the rest. Now, if the said kid decides to take a year off midway through college to travel (or something similar) the parent’s idealized world has just fallen into pieces. This was not in the plan. What is this kid doing? The parent gets worried and decides the kid’s screwing up the future.
If the kid is significantly different than the parents, then it’s even harder to figure out what’s best for the child so I think the parents struggle even harder. It’s hard to give advice when you can’t relate. You want to be helpful and you want to guide but how can you advise on something you don’t understand?
When the plan goes awry, the parent panics. What if the kid’s ruining his life? What if this is a mistake that’s going to cost a lot? What if it’s the wrong choice?
The fact is, the kid is also an individual and as soon as he thinks he’s ready to make some decisions, he wants to make them. The idea, or illusion, of having control of your life and your path is really important to a young adult. It’s also crucial to learn to make mistakes as part of making decisions. If the kid never makes a mistake until he’s much older, the mistake will have bigger consequences and often a harder impact.
I have a friend whose parents sheltered her for a long time and such she never realized how mean people can be until she came to college. Trust me when I say that it’s much harder to swallow the truth at twenty. I learned the same fact at like six or seven when my classmates were mean and it hurt but I had years to get over it and build a shield for future protection.
I imagine it must be hard to let your kids do what they want to. The urge to protect must be overwhelming. The even more annoying fact is you have no idea what’s right and what’s wrong for the kid. Every person is an individual with his or her mind, luck, wishes and hopes. It’s nearly impossible to tell someone what the right move for that person is. The best thing to do is try and teach the right morals and a solid thought process to the child and hope that he uses it well. And also to trust.
The rest is up to them.
Previously? Savages.
Great food for thought!
I definitely have my own style of parenting..
On the ‘sheltering’ concept; I suppose most parents do this to varying degrees. I tend to be on the “Let the kid figure it out” side of the fence. I am a hard headed opinionated person. I was a terrible child when I was younger. Y’know the kid who uses the Magnifying Glasses to fry ants? Yeah, that was me. Every one of my relatives will testify to the fact that I was a stone cold brat. Being the first of a new generation gave me a lot of privileges with the grand parents and as such I took full advantage.
My Eldest daughter (Sarah) is like that. If you watch her very closely she is immensely intelligent and very calculating. While she is still quite young I watch her all the time when she interacts with her sisters and her friends. She does not realize it herself but she has one of two very distinct paths that she could go. Aside from being very smart she is also VERY cute (and she knows it!). She uses this to full advantage at all times. In combination with her intelligence she can either go far in the tele-journalism field or on the political front.
Now, you may think that this is MY vision of where I WANT her to go… Not so. Just one of several possiblities that seem likely given her personality. Do I steer her in that direction? No, also not true. I belive in letting her try everything (within reason for her age) and to allow her to discover on her own. I also do not shield her from consequences.
Instead I tell all my girls the rules and the consequences. If they choose to break the rules and are caught, then I enforce the promised outcome. I do not particularly enjoy that. Actually I feel pretty damned hypocritical. Mainly because I harbor the very same thoughts but by virtue of age and experience know enough not to act on them (as in the frying ants thing). I often reinforce the point of appearance vs. content to Sarah. I know that since she is pretty and popular she will always be part of the In crowd. She will be part of the group that moves about her surrounding like royalty while in school. As such I try to impress upon her that not all pretty/handsome things are good. I am trying to prepare her for the inevitable fall.
No idols ever withstand the test of time. I hope to allow her the latitude to see things in more than one way and therefore perhaps spare her a harder lesson.
She is an individual though. Very true. Se is so much like me and yet so different all at once. She captures the essence of her mother and myself in sometimes frightening accuracy. I do strive to let her form her own opinions though and I respect them as much as possible. Yet there is the universal truth that while in my house under my roof, you may have your opinions but you will abide by my rules.
Trust? That’s transitive. It came come and go depending on the subject. I know that by understanding who Sarah is and not who I would like her to be I can better understand the boundaries of ‘trust’.