The Paradox of Parenting

I’ve been pondering parenting lately. I am aparent so it is a topic with which I’ve wrestled and loved for 40 years thismonth, the age of my oldest child.  And,without a doubt, being a parent is the most meaningful experience of mylife.  I’ve realized, however, the rolecomes with no retirement package or pension rewarding us for work that hasconsumed us since that first ultrasound revealed barely detectible facialfeatures and hands. (Don’t you remember the early ultrasounds when you wererequired to drink a gallon of water and not pee so the image could be clearer? Oneof the perils of pregnancy right up there with morning sickness and labor pains-sansepidural.)

I’m recently returned from a visit to my Evanston, Illinois children and grandchildren. 

I really believe grandchildren are our reward for all the emotional, physical, and financial efforts we have invested in our children. But I watched with wonder and no shortage of amusement when my almost three year old grandson climbed into his mother’s lap, index finger outstretched, saying “Here is my nose booger, Mom.”

It’s an understatement to say parenting is excruciatingly intimate. 

We literally gave these little humans a part of ourselves.  Nourishing them, wiping poopy bottoms and snotty noses gave us the impression we owned these emerging people and had the right to control them. 

Fast forward to their adulthood (and fast isthe operative word.  In a blink of an eyethese toddling two year olds age into argumentative adults.)  But my $100 question is, how do you regardyour children without using your own lenses? The ones through which you haveviewed the world and evaluated your life for the past 60+ years.   What isimportant to me must be important to you, is our rhetorical refrain.  “You would be happy if....” “Why are youhanging out with that guy?  “If Iwere you I would…”  Baby boomer parents havehovered our whole parental careers, prodding and pleading, nudging andjudging.  (Although I think millennialparents are giving us a run for our money”.) Just because they have our fine, thin hair and dogged determinationdoesn’t mean they will use these traits as we do.

I lost control of my foot this summer. Nomatter how much I demanded, pleaded, or cajoled my foot it refused to dorsiflexmore than -55 degrees. The one thing I could control, however, was my rehab efforts,faithfully wearing my AFO brace and undergoing acupuncture to stimulate mydamaged nerve. And the work is paying off, so far by an increase of 40 degrees. 

I wish, I hope, and I want to slap thisrealization squarely on those (s)mothering urges seeking to exert control invarious areas of my children’s lives.  Childpsychologists routinely preach this message to parents of adult children (Ihappen to even have a child psychologist daughter in law who also realizes itis easier to preach the message than act on it herself). 

Why don’t I just try focusing on what I cancontrol?  Like my reactions to panickednews flashes from my progenies? Maybe listening rather than solving is astrategy.  Trying to control thedecisions and actions of others even those with whom we share DNA, only leadsto agitation and anguish or worse, getting lied to.

Are you a family fixer too?  As Sheryl Crow sings, “I have a feeling I’m not the only one…”