Accepting the people we love and embracing every facet of who they are is tough
It’s not uncommon for spouses to complain about their partners and voice that they wish they would do more housework or be less controlling. Most people complain about their parents wishing that they were less stubborn or watched less Fox News.
These thoughts don’t come from ugly or derogative feelings. When you spend so much of your life with someone, there is bound to be things that you don’t like about the people that you love. Because love isn’t about enjoying every facet of someone’s personality, it’s about accepting things you don’t like about someone and loving despite these minor annoyances.
This acceptance is a process that takes time and patience. Sometimes we can voice what we dislike and our partners can change but most of the time we keep these thoughts inside. Because it’s the person who is being annoyed who is responsible for accepting their partner. It’s not the partner’s job to change themselves to fit their partner’s expectations.
We are okay with talking about how we wish our partners, friends and parents could be different, but most of us would never voice wishes that our children were different.
When you bring a child into this world, you are supposed to accept them and love them unconditionally. Like developing the love of our partners, this is really difficult. Many, many, many parents struggle at this (check out this blog post if you want to understand the challenge of unconditional love). There’s the dad who wishes that his newborn who refuses to sleep, slept as well as his niece. There’s the mom who struggles to manage a reckless toddler at a playground yearning to have a child who will play more calmly. And then there are the parents who sit watching other kids walk, while their child of the same age struggles to crawl.
It’s this horrible, unspeakable thing to voice these feelings, to say that you wish you could change something about your child. But this is a feeling that most parents feel at some point in time, because parenting is so goddamn hard and there always seems to be some other parent with a kid out there who’s is not dealing with the same frustrations and struggles you and your child are facing.
There’s a fear that if we voice and validate these feelings than somehow our child will pick up on them and they we feel that we love them less. However, like any feelings, if we don’t voice and validate them, we will never learn to deal with these feelings. If we never let ourselves feel these doubts about our children, we will never accept them and learn to move past them. By not dealing with these feelings and processing them, they will come out to our kids in ways that we don't expect.
In the same way that you should be mindful of who you complain about your husband to, you need to be very careful to whom and how you voice your frustrations about your child and how you wish he or she was different.
One reason people laugh when Louie C.K. or Jim Gaffigan make jokes about how much of a pain it is to be a parent is because voicing these complaints so publicly is shocking. Parenting is supposed to be this wonderful, blissful experience and if it sucks at times, then you are doing something wrong. I can’t stand parents who do nothing but complain about their kids but I think we can reach a better balance.
It’s hard to love an infant who keeps you up all night. It’s hard to love a toddler who seems to be having melt downs every five minutes and it’s hard to love a teenager who won’t give you anything but attitude.
Loving your child is an active process that is most difficult when it is most necessary.
Now if your wish came true and your kid was different. If she was better at sports and was easier to manage, you wouldn't love her as much. It's the work during the worse of times that builds the bonds of love that we enjoy in the best of times. Learn to embrace the frustrations, and tribulations of parenthood, because it's theses moments that help us learn to love the child that we have.
Monday, August 17, 2015
Friday, August 14, 2015
Dear First Year Teachers
Congratulations,
You’ve gotten through your degree; you’ve managed to navigate the impersonal (and sometimes dehumanizing) process of finding a teaching job and now, finally, after all of that you are starting this school year as a first year teacher.
You will likely be underpaid. You will be expected to provide a meaningful educational experience for your students without an adequate budget or resources. So you will continue the tradition of teachers in America of reaching into their own pocket to purchase white board markers, books, pencils and paper for your students.
Your friends who are not teachers will not understand your job. They will probably have a more comfortable workplace. They will have access to stocked supply closets, free facial tissue, company cell phones, up to date computers, water coolers, flexible break times, bonuses, free snacks, complimentary lunches and dinners and you probably will not have any of these things. And in their minds, these little daily annoyances aren’t a big deal because you have a “summer break,” which you will likely spend working because the work of the school year is not done or because that teacher salary isn’t high enough to pay the bills.
Most of the people in your life will respect you (to your face) about your decision to be a teacher, but some will not. And far too many with much less knowledge about your job will talk about the downfall of American education (unions, liberal-biased textbooks, overpaid teachers) and will offer no realistic solutions.
Don’t expect anyone but other teachers to understand your life as an educator.
You will meet master teachers who seem to effortlessly teach with grace and insight. Don’t forget that this is a result of hard work and study and once upon a time, they had no idea what they were doing. The best teachers still feel this way after decades in the field.
You will meet teachers who are lazy, indifferent and incompetent. Don’t judge them too harshly because we all have that potential to in ourselves. While it’s easy to look down on these teachers, don’t. Your insecurities are your own and should not manifest in negative judgments. Give all of your fellow teachers your highest level of professionalism because you never know what led them to their current situation.
Administrators will sometimes put up roadblocks and other times they will take them away. While they care about your students, they have a different set of priorities. It’s their job to create a necessary tension that keeps a school running. For example, if teachers got all the money they wanted out of administration, the school would run out of money, but if the teachers didn’t push for more resources, the students would suffer. Embrace this tension, and lean into it.
Most parents will love you and a few will misunderstand you. But the ones who dislike you will be louder, so it’s easy to forget how many parents believe in you. No matter the age of a student, that parent will always see in their child that helpless baby that they rocked in their arms. In parents conversations, let parents say their say, express objective observations, be careful to not make conclusions that you are not trained to make, don’t assume anything about a students’ family life and always express your belief in their child with optimism and hope.
Your students will love you if you are present and work for them. Most of them will not express this love to you but it’s there. And you will love your students because of how much work you put into their experience in school and because of the fact that kids are amazing. There will be some students that will be difficult to like. Focus on these kids early in the year; spend a lot of time with them. Trust me. That kid is worth the effort.
Don’t let a lesson plan be a cage, let it be a framework to build from. The quality of a lesson is not based on how close you stick to the lesson plan but rather how well you helped your students make connections.
You will have bad days. But chances are something worked for at least one of your students; so don’t let your self-pity blind you from that. There’s always the next day and you can always repeat a less (some students actually enjoy it when teachers do this). There aren’t any problems, challenges or situations that you will encounter that have not been tackled by some other teacher. You will feel alone when things get tough, but you will never be alone.
You are part of a fraternity, a group of professionals who see the world differently than most people in our society. We see the meaning in human connections over the motivation of a financial bottom line. We believe that it is more important to help people learn how to think rather than what to think. We devote ourselves to serving the most important resource in our world not because it is glamorous or prestigious, but because it is right.
You have my respect and the respect of the over three million teachers in our country who are rooting for you.
Celebrate the small moments. Laugh with your students and laugh at yourself. If you ever feel like things are falling apart, reach out.
You will always have this teacher to lean on.
-Kingsley
You’ve gotten through your degree; you’ve managed to navigate the impersonal (and sometimes dehumanizing) process of finding a teaching job and now, finally, after all of that you are starting this school year as a first year teacher.
You will likely be underpaid. You will be expected to provide a meaningful educational experience for your students without an adequate budget or resources. So you will continue the tradition of teachers in America of reaching into their own pocket to purchase white board markers, books, pencils and paper for your students.
Your friends who are not teachers will not understand your job. They will probably have a more comfortable workplace. They will have access to stocked supply closets, free facial tissue, company cell phones, up to date computers, water coolers, flexible break times, bonuses, free snacks, complimentary lunches and dinners and you probably will not have any of these things. And in their minds, these little daily annoyances aren’t a big deal because you have a “summer break,” which you will likely spend working because the work of the school year is not done or because that teacher salary isn’t high enough to pay the bills.
Most of the people in your life will respect you (to your face) about your decision to be a teacher, but some will not. And far too many with much less knowledge about your job will talk about the downfall of American education (unions, liberal-biased textbooks, overpaid teachers) and will offer no realistic solutions.
Don’t expect anyone but other teachers to understand your life as an educator.
You will meet master teachers who seem to effortlessly teach with grace and insight. Don’t forget that this is a result of hard work and study and once upon a time, they had no idea what they were doing. The best teachers still feel this way after decades in the field.
You will meet teachers who are lazy, indifferent and incompetent. Don’t judge them too harshly because we all have that potential to in ourselves. While it’s easy to look down on these teachers, don’t. Your insecurities are your own and should not manifest in negative judgments. Give all of your fellow teachers your highest level of professionalism because you never know what led them to their current situation.
Administrators will sometimes put up roadblocks and other times they will take them away. While they care about your students, they have a different set of priorities. It’s their job to create a necessary tension that keeps a school running. For example, if teachers got all the money they wanted out of administration, the school would run out of money, but if the teachers didn’t push for more resources, the students would suffer. Embrace this tension, and lean into it.
Most parents will love you and a few will misunderstand you. But the ones who dislike you will be louder, so it’s easy to forget how many parents believe in you. No matter the age of a student, that parent will always see in their child that helpless baby that they rocked in their arms. In parents conversations, let parents say their say, express objective observations, be careful to not make conclusions that you are not trained to make, don’t assume anything about a students’ family life and always express your belief in their child with optimism and hope.
Your students will love you if you are present and work for them. Most of them will not express this love to you but it’s there. And you will love your students because of how much work you put into their experience in school and because of the fact that kids are amazing. There will be some students that will be difficult to like. Focus on these kids early in the year; spend a lot of time with them. Trust me. That kid is worth the effort.
Don’t let a lesson plan be a cage, let it be a framework to build from. The quality of a lesson is not based on how close you stick to the lesson plan but rather how well you helped your students make connections.
You will have bad days. But chances are something worked for at least one of your students; so don’t let your self-pity blind you from that. There’s always the next day and you can always repeat a less (some students actually enjoy it when teachers do this). There aren’t any problems, challenges or situations that you will encounter that have not been tackled by some other teacher. You will feel alone when things get tough, but you will never be alone.
You are part of a fraternity, a group of professionals who see the world differently than most people in our society. We see the meaning in human connections over the motivation of a financial bottom line. We believe that it is more important to help people learn how to think rather than what to think. We devote ourselves to serving the most important resource in our world not because it is glamorous or prestigious, but because it is right.
You have my respect and the respect of the over three million teachers in our country who are rooting for you.
Celebrate the small moments. Laugh with your students and laugh at yourself. If you ever feel like things are falling apart, reach out.
You will always have this teacher to lean on.
-Kingsley
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Monday, August 10, 2015
Parenthood: Week 113 - Hanging With The Dads
We move through different stages in our lives. When people we know are not in the same stage
that we are in, it is often difficult to understand what these people are going
through. When my brother was in high school and I was in middle school, we didn't connect
very well; however, when we were both in college things really clicked.
These stages in our lives often define our focus and our perspective. A parent of a newborn often isn't thinking about much else, and a high school senior is often focused on end of the year rituals like graduation and prom. These events in these stages are all these people talk about, because it is all that's on their mind. With care and an open mind we reach outside of our own concerns but it's difficult. While the support of someone outside of your life stage in helpful, that person doesn't completely understand what you are going through.
There are things about my experiences as a parent that only Diana understands. Our mutual empathy and support has really helped us through these first two years of parenting. But there are things about being a mom, that I cannot fully relate to and things about being a dad, that Diana doesn't completely understand and that is why we are so grateful to have our group of mom and dad friends.
I've had female friends in my social group my entire life and I believe that gender roles should not define our friendships. However there are biological differences between men and woman that go beyond the social construct of gender roles. It is because of this that the support from other parents who have kids around Ollie's age has been so important in our lives.
Diana helped foster an amazing group of moms through a breastfeeding support group and various other connections. Through those moms, I've been blessed to get to know a great group of dads. We hang out with both moms and dads often but we've also made an effort to have times that we socialize separately.
There are things that I cannot not fully empathize about being a mom with Diana like breastfeeding, pregnancy, societal pressures and sexist comments people make to her about woman and motherhood. I was so happy when this group of moms started coming together. I could see how these people made Diana feel supported and understood in a way that I couldn't. So I did everything I could to make sure she had time with these great women.
When we got together with the moms, dads and our kids, I started befriending these other dads and finding a unique camaraderie I wasn't getting anywhere else. At first it was just guys talking about guy stuff like sports but also mentioning other topics like how our kids were sleeping, paternity leave and work life balance started creeping in. Yes, I knew parents of older kids who had been through these things but it was different with these guys.
We made an effort and got together as a group of guys like the woman had and we had some good times. As our wives had similar parenting philosophies, so did we. And like with the woman, there was a healthy amount of venting but also reassurances that as difficult as some things were, we all had awesome kids and wives.
It's really hard to find the time. It seems like I'm rushing home from work. I don't have enough time with Ollie, Buffy or Diana, let alone hobbies and simply taking care of the many challenges of life and adulthood. It seems crazy sometimes to try to squeeze in the time to go out for an hour in the evening to just hang out with some other dads. It's difficult sometimes to make this happen. However as I've encouraged Diana to get out there and have some time for herself she has done the same for me.
Time spent with great people who really understand what you are going through as a parent helps make the time you spend with your family quality time. Even though being out late, may make me physically tired the next morning, I always wake up the morning after hanging out with the dads looking forward to being with my family with a renewed sense of purpose and positivity.
Gentlemen, thanks for all the support, looking forward to more good times with y'all.
These stages in our lives often define our focus and our perspective. A parent of a newborn often isn't thinking about much else, and a high school senior is often focused on end of the year rituals like graduation and prom. These events in these stages are all these people talk about, because it is all that's on their mind. With care and an open mind we reach outside of our own concerns but it's difficult. While the support of someone outside of your life stage in helpful, that person doesn't completely understand what you are going through.
There are things about my experiences as a parent that only Diana understands. Our mutual empathy and support has really helped us through these first two years of parenting. But there are things about being a mom, that I cannot fully relate to and things about being a dad, that Diana doesn't completely understand and that is why we are so grateful to have our group of mom and dad friends.
I've had female friends in my social group my entire life and I believe that gender roles should not define our friendships. However there are biological differences between men and woman that go beyond the social construct of gender roles. It is because of this that the support from other parents who have kids around Ollie's age has been so important in our lives.
Diana helped foster an amazing group of moms through a breastfeeding support group and various other connections. Through those moms, I've been blessed to get to know a great group of dads. We hang out with both moms and dads often but we've also made an effort to have times that we socialize separately.
There are things that I cannot not fully empathize about being a mom with Diana like breastfeeding, pregnancy, societal pressures and sexist comments people make to her about woman and motherhood. I was so happy when this group of moms started coming together. I could see how these people made Diana feel supported and understood in a way that I couldn't. So I did everything I could to make sure she had time with these great women.
When we got together with the moms, dads and our kids, I started befriending these other dads and finding a unique camaraderie I wasn't getting anywhere else. At first it was just guys talking about guy stuff like sports but also mentioning other topics like how our kids were sleeping, paternity leave and work life balance started creeping in. Yes, I knew parents of older kids who had been through these things but it was different with these guys.
We made an effort and got together as a group of guys like the woman had and we had some good times. As our wives had similar parenting philosophies, so did we. And like with the woman, there was a healthy amount of venting but also reassurances that as difficult as some things were, we all had awesome kids and wives.
It's really hard to find the time. It seems like I'm rushing home from work. I don't have enough time with Ollie, Buffy or Diana, let alone hobbies and simply taking care of the many challenges of life and adulthood. It seems crazy sometimes to try to squeeze in the time to go out for an hour in the evening to just hang out with some other dads. It's difficult sometimes to make this happen. However as I've encouraged Diana to get out there and have some time for herself she has done the same for me.
Time spent with great people who really understand what you are going through as a parent helps make the time you spend with your family quality time. Even though being out late, may make me physically tired the next morning, I always wake up the morning after hanging out with the dads looking forward to being with my family with a renewed sense of purpose and positivity.
Gentlemen, thanks for all the support, looking forward to more good times with y'all.
Friday, August 7, 2015
Frat Boy: Gracie - The Gala Part 2
“Where is Gracie?”
I stormed through the ballroom looking for Gracie, yelling as I asked for her whereabouts. Jessica rushed up behind me as Diana and other friends came up to explain what happened. Diana and Gracie had gotten into an argument. Things got heated and Diana didn’t take Gracie’s lecturing and stood her ground. People stepped in and got the problem settled. Diana was a little annoyed but she knew Gracie’s deal from what I had told her so she let Gracie’s condescension roll off her back.
I was relieved that so many people had Diana’s back. Not only undergraduates but also alumni who had the perspective that Gracie lacked. I was proud of Diana that she stood up and that she didn’t let Gracie win this round. But I was still furious at Gracie. After I heard the whole story, I finally got the answer I was looking for: Gracie went down to the bar.
I ran out of that ballroom, down the hallway and down the stairs into the bar and angrily screamed “GRACIE! You do not get to mess with Diana!” Gracie was sitting at the bar with some alumni and calmly turned around to face me. She had a look of satisfaction in her eyes as she held a martini glass. I again yelled at her as I came into the bar and before I knew it two security guards immediately were at my shoulders, “Sir, I need to ask you to leave.” “Fine, no problem here,” I replied breathlessly as I turned around and walked back to the ballroom.
As I walked back into the hallway, I saw Diana and Jessica coming up to me having tried to follow me out of ballroom and hearing all the commotion in the bar. “Let’s calm down,” Diana stated calmly. She looked at Jessica confidently and Jessica left us knowing that while she was once the person who knew me best in this world, it was now Diana.
I was still fuming. “Gracie can mess with me and she has for years, but she doesn’t get to mess with you! For years she’s gotten away with stuff because everyone just explains her crap as ‘Gracie being Gracie,’ but that’s not fair. We can’t get away with her behavior. This needs to end.” I exclaimed.
Then there was Diana’s hand on my shoulder. Then there were her calm words. She put her hands on my shoulder and looked straight into me eyes and promised, “Gracie gets away with being ‘Gracie’ and you don’t, because you are better than that and all of us here believe in you.”
The anger passed and we walked back into the ballroom holding hands. Jessica came up to me and gave me a hug and whispered, “it’s okay, little man. We still love you.” She led Diana and me to the dance floor and we enjoyed the rest of night dancing with our friends, past and present.
To this day, I have never gotten that angry and I have never let someone get to me in that way. I still don’t fully understand why Gracie made me so angry and I hoped by writing this post that I would figure it out, but I still am not sure what happened inside of my head that night.
I do know that I lost control and in that way Gracie won. The thing is that whatever happened between us that night wasn’t what has really lasted. The reason that I’ve never lost my temper like that ever since that night is because Diana is has never stopped believing in me. She talks about how angry I got that night and reminds me how much she didn’t like what she saw. I take this reminder knowing that she stuck with me despite of what happened because she knew that this moment wasn’t all I was about.
I think about Gracie sometimes and I still bristle at the thought of her, but then I refocus on the present. Part of me feels hate for her and it’s really sad to hold negative feelings about someone else. I know that the only person I’m holding back is myself. Gracie let me down in a big way. Once upon a time she seemed like a rock in my life and then she revealed herself as a flawed human being, just like anybody else.
We learn from the past and I have and maybe someday I’ll see Gracie and hash this out. That might be nice but it might only make things worse. Like the colors in a photograph, my feelings towards Gracie are fading. They are not given more depth like the feelings I have for the people I love in my life.
It’s getting harder and harder to remember how I felt when I stormed in that bar, but I still remember like it was yesterday the feeling of her fingers squeezing my arm when she said goodbye after taking me out to ice cream.
I stormed through the ballroom looking for Gracie, yelling as I asked for her whereabouts. Jessica rushed up behind me as Diana and other friends came up to explain what happened. Diana and Gracie had gotten into an argument. Things got heated and Diana didn’t take Gracie’s lecturing and stood her ground. People stepped in and got the problem settled. Diana was a little annoyed but she knew Gracie’s deal from what I had told her so she let Gracie’s condescension roll off her back.
I was relieved that so many people had Diana’s back. Not only undergraduates but also alumni who had the perspective that Gracie lacked. I was proud of Diana that she stood up and that she didn’t let Gracie win this round. But I was still furious at Gracie. After I heard the whole story, I finally got the answer I was looking for: Gracie went down to the bar.
I ran out of that ballroom, down the hallway and down the stairs into the bar and angrily screamed “GRACIE! You do not get to mess with Diana!” Gracie was sitting at the bar with some alumni and calmly turned around to face me. She had a look of satisfaction in her eyes as she held a martini glass. I again yelled at her as I came into the bar and before I knew it two security guards immediately were at my shoulders, “Sir, I need to ask you to leave.” “Fine, no problem here,” I replied breathlessly as I turned around and walked back to the ballroom.
As I walked back into the hallway, I saw Diana and Jessica coming up to me having tried to follow me out of ballroom and hearing all the commotion in the bar. “Let’s calm down,” Diana stated calmly. She looked at Jessica confidently and Jessica left us knowing that while she was once the person who knew me best in this world, it was now Diana.
I was still fuming. “Gracie can mess with me and she has for years, but she doesn’t get to mess with you! For years she’s gotten away with stuff because everyone just explains her crap as ‘Gracie being Gracie,’ but that’s not fair. We can’t get away with her behavior. This needs to end.” I exclaimed.
Then there was Diana’s hand on my shoulder. Then there were her calm words. She put her hands on my shoulder and looked straight into me eyes and promised, “Gracie gets away with being ‘Gracie’ and you don’t, because you are better than that and all of us here believe in you.”
The anger passed and we walked back into the ballroom holding hands. Jessica came up to me and gave me a hug and whispered, “it’s okay, little man. We still love you.” She led Diana and me to the dance floor and we enjoyed the rest of night dancing with our friends, past and present.
To this day, I have never gotten that angry and I have never let someone get to me in that way. I still don’t fully understand why Gracie made me so angry and I hoped by writing this post that I would figure it out, but I still am not sure what happened inside of my head that night.
I do know that I lost control and in that way Gracie won. The thing is that whatever happened between us that night wasn’t what has really lasted. The reason that I’ve never lost my temper like that ever since that night is because Diana is has never stopped believing in me. She talks about how angry I got that night and reminds me how much she didn’t like what she saw. I take this reminder knowing that she stuck with me despite of what happened because she knew that this moment wasn’t all I was about.
I think about Gracie sometimes and I still bristle at the thought of her, but then I refocus on the present. Part of me feels hate for her and it’s really sad to hold negative feelings about someone else. I know that the only person I’m holding back is myself. Gracie let me down in a big way. Once upon a time she seemed like a rock in my life and then she revealed herself as a flawed human being, just like anybody else.
We learn from the past and I have and maybe someday I’ll see Gracie and hash this out. That might be nice but it might only make things worse. Like the colors in a photograph, my feelings towards Gracie are fading. They are not given more depth like the feelings I have for the people I love in my life.
It’s getting harder and harder to remember how I felt when I stormed in that bar, but I still remember like it was yesterday the feeling of her fingers squeezing my arm when she said goodbye after taking me out to ice cream.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Monday, August 3, 2015
Parenthood: Week 112 – Easier With Age?
“Parenting gets easier as kids get older, right?”
Hope is important in parenting. It’s what gets us through the tough moments, the sleepless nights and the feeling of “I have no idea what I’m doing.” In the past two years I have found myself seeking reassurance from parents of older children that things do in fact get easier. The crazy thing now is that I’m finding parents of kids younger than Ollie looking to me for this affirmation. For so long, Ollie seemed like one of the younger souls on this planet and now there are all these babies younger than him. This is something my mind still has trouble grasping.
When you have an infant, you get this reassurance all of the time. People tell you how your baby will learn to sleep, will be easier to understand and will in general, be easier to parent. Than as toddlerhood appears over the horizon, the portrayal of the your future as a parent becomes ominous with sayings like “the terrible 2’s.”
First off I completely reject the notion that an age or stage of life, infant, two years olds or teenage years should be generalized as being a “good” or “bad” age. This sets our expectations in an negative way and closes us off to the full potential of children of these ages. Teenagers know how much people talk down kids their age and it can’t possibly have a positive effect when people in our culture associate the age of two years old with the word “terrible.”
Back to the main point . . .
While I understand and appreciate the idea of parenting becoming easier, the notion itself is flawed. All parents have different ages that they really click with. Some parents really love the teenage years, while others flourish in the toddler times. It’s not that these parents aren’t great parents in these other years; it’s just that something about that age really clicks with a parent’s style.
Including the factor of “life itself” parenting isn’t a direct trajectory. It goes in waves. With each new stage, there are new things to learn. While the day to day care of Ollie hasn’t necessarily gotten easier, it’s easier to deal with each new stage because you know in the back of my mind that I handled these changes in the past and mastered the new challenges.
The act of parenting doesn’t become easier with time but taking on role of being a parent does. It never stops being a roller coaster but eventually, you learn how to brace yourself for the turns and the loops, and enjoy the ride.
Hope is important in parenting. It’s what gets us through the tough moments, the sleepless nights and the feeling of “I have no idea what I’m doing.” In the past two years I have found myself seeking reassurance from parents of older children that things do in fact get easier. The crazy thing now is that I’m finding parents of kids younger than Ollie looking to me for this affirmation. For so long, Ollie seemed like one of the younger souls on this planet and now there are all these babies younger than him. This is something my mind still has trouble grasping.
When you have an infant, you get this reassurance all of the time. People tell you how your baby will learn to sleep, will be easier to understand and will in general, be easier to parent. Than as toddlerhood appears over the horizon, the portrayal of the your future as a parent becomes ominous with sayings like “the terrible 2’s.”
First off I completely reject the notion that an age or stage of life, infant, two years olds or teenage years should be generalized as being a “good” or “bad” age. This sets our expectations in an negative way and closes us off to the full potential of children of these ages. Teenagers know how much people talk down kids their age and it can’t possibly have a positive effect when people in our culture associate the age of two years old with the word “terrible.”
Back to the main point . . .
While I understand and appreciate the idea of parenting becoming easier, the notion itself is flawed. All parents have different ages that they really click with. Some parents really love the teenage years, while others flourish in the toddler times. It’s not that these parents aren’t great parents in these other years; it’s just that something about that age really clicks with a parent’s style.
Including the factor of “life itself” parenting isn’t a direct trajectory. It goes in waves. With each new stage, there are new things to learn. While the day to day care of Ollie hasn’t necessarily gotten easier, it’s easier to deal with each new stage because you know in the back of my mind that I handled these changes in the past and mastered the new challenges.
The act of parenting doesn’t become easier with time but taking on role of being a parent does. It never stops being a roller coaster but eventually, you learn how to brace yourself for the turns and the loops, and enjoy the ride.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)