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Moonfrye Family: Parenting Updates? Click Here by Sherri Kuhn
Source: weheartit.com
I ran an update on my computer software today. It made me wish we could run updates on our parenting skills, too. With a simple click of the mouse, free updates for life! Or at least until they are paying their own bills.
I say this because the parenting I did even just six months ago no longer applies. The rules keep changing. Actually, the kids keep changing and the rules have to adapt. But there's no book, no podcast, no flowchart to make these decisions any easier or more obvious. Each kid and each situation is different. One size doesn't fit all. Even in the same family.
No sooner have we decided that it's OK for the kid to play out front ALONE (without parents hovering nearby or peeking through the blinds) than the kid wants to ride her bike over to visit a friend. A few months of bike rides and they are asking to go to THE PARK. Is that OK? Don't the Scary People sometimes go to parks? We think, think some more, set ground rules, and let her go. After visiting said park with friends for a period of time, they up the ante and ask to go to the convenience store on bikes.
A request to hitchhike cross country to attend Mardi Gras can't be far behind.
When the kids were little, most decisions seemed easy and obvious.
"Can I eat the Hershey bar for breakfast?" No (but I can).
"Can we get a horse?" No. Horses eat and poop more than I am willing to deal with.
"Can I take these empty beer bottles for show and tell?" No, we need to recycle them or the beer fairy won't bring more. And it's not appropriate for kindergarten.
"Can we get a horse?" No. Horses eat and poop more than I am willing to deal with.
"Can I take these empty beer bottles for show and tell?" No, we need to recycle them or the beer fairy won't bring more. And it's not appropriate for kindergarten.
Easy stuff.
So by the time they have moved through elementary school, we parents start to feel smug. Experienced. We haven't lost them yet and they haven't gone to join the circus, so we MUST be doing something right! Middle school? Bring it on!
And they do.
I really DO feel like a good-enough parent most of the time. I listen and try not to immediately tell them what they are doing wrong and why. I try to be loving and caring, even when doling out punishments or delivering lectures. We are flexible but firm.
But lately I have realized that the parenting phase of our lives seems to begin with pregnancy and never really ends. I used to think that just getting them out of high school would require most of the parenting. Then friends warned me about the college years, when they are using your money to "find themselves" and want to change majors as often as they upgrade their cell phones. OK, get them through college and they are on their own! Adults! No, friends with young adult "kids" have told me this isn't true either.
Plenty of my own forty-something friends are still being parented quite regularly by their parents.
Apparently, it never ends.
Parenting updates? Maybe I should check to see if there an app for that.
Sherri Kuhn is a wife and mother, writer, lover of wine and cheese, coffee fanatic, and sometimes exerciser. She writes at Old Tweener, a place that’s sometimes funny, often sarcastic, and requires tissues once in a while. She writes about raising teenagers, the craziness of being a middle-aged woman, the perils of a clean home, wistfulness over babies, and anything else that makes her laugh (or cry) in the years between changing diapers and wearing them. Find her on Twitter and Facebook.
Comment
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Comment by Gina Cahill on February 22, 2012 at 4:47pm -
There is an app on how to survive a zombie attack, but not one for how to survive the teenage years. Seems like there would be cross-over there!
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Comment by Katie Hurley on February 22, 2012 at 1:37pm -
You know...I thought about creating an app for that :) You are far more than a good enough mom, my friend. You make it look easy. Isn't that half the battle? xo
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Comment by Elizabeth Flora Ross on February 22, 2012 at 7:19am -
Oh, I wish it was that easy. Motherhood never lets you get comfortable. Just when you think you've figured things out, your kid moves on to a different, even more challenging stage, and you are floundering again. OK, I'm always floundering. ;)
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