Parenting is weird at my house these
days.
Really weird. Mostly because I don’t find myself doing a
lot of it any more.
Don’t get me wrong. Better Half and I still live here. We still foot the bill, ask the questions,
drive the carpools, “inspire” by nagging, impose the curfews, listen to the
stories, play out the worst-case scenarios in our heads, drive ourselves crazy,
and try to steer Pozo de Dinero in the general direction of The Good Ship
Lollipop.
But now that our youngest child is fourteen
and our oldest is a month shy of twenty-one, our responsibilities have shifted.
We used to be responsible for our children.
We were responsible for their safety. For their basic needs. For their health. For their welfare. For their behavior. For their grades. For their friendships. For their spiritual/moral upbringing. And
being responsible for all of that stuff takes an awful lot of doing. From sun-up to sun-down kind of doing. Sometimes with very little sleep.
But now I’ve discovered that we’re moving
out of that phase of parenting. We are becoming
less and less responsible for our
children.
We are knee-deep in experiencing our teens
as unique individuals completely separate from Better Half and me. They have their own thoughts, ideas, paths,
and stories.
This is both freeing and terrifying.
Sometimes—many times—they do or say or think
unbelievably amazing things that leave me in awe of the humans that they
are. The mother part of me who has spent
all of her adult life being responsible for these people wants to take credit
for them.
It’s also terrifying.
Because sometimes, they do or say or think unbelievably
bone-headed and crazy things that leave me in fear of how on earth they are
going to survive until their brains are completely developed. The mother part of me who is 62% martyr and 38%
narcissist feels obligated to take responsibility for these things as well.
But the thing is, they are reaching a point
where they are responsible for their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. And I
firmly believe that for me to take either the credit or the responsibility for
their choices or ideas or actions is to diminish their individuality and squelch an important part
of their process of becoming an adult.
As we enter this new stage with our kids, I’ve
noticed something. The responsibility
hasn’t diminished. But instead of being
responsible for them, I find that we
are now responsible to them.
I am responsible to love them
unconditionally.
I am responsible to be an example—both by
being transparent with my mistakes and forthright with my successes—of the kind
of person I hope they will be.
I am responsible to listen.
I am responsible to ask questions.
I am responsible to forgive and to offer
grace and to allow them to experience natural consequences of their decisions—no
matter how hard it might be for them, or for me.
I am responsible to stand beside them if
they need an ally.
I am responsible to be truthful with them.
I am responsible to be the voice of reason
(when I can—when they’ll listen) that bridges the gap between their frontal lobe
and the rest of their brain until that connection is made.
I’m responsible to stock the fridge, keep
the laundry detergent full, show them how to manage their finances and then get
out of the way and let them make their own lunches, turn all their white socks
red, and have their debit card denied because they added instead of subtracted,
or misjudged the day their paycheck was deposited.
Most importantly, I believe I am responsible
to pray for them. For their safety,
their basic needs, their friends, their choices, their health, their
lives. But mostly for their parents. J
