Today, one of my kids made the wrong decision, and I was at work in another town and completely unable to do anything about it.
Now, before any of you who know me start emailing me with questions of "OMG!!!!! WHICH KID WAS IT AND WHAT DID THEY DO??? HOW MUCH BAIL MONEY DO YOU NEED AND HOW MANY MONTHS UNTIL YOU WANT TO HAVE THE BABY SHOWER AND WILL YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE COVER DETOX OR WON'T THEY???", let me just assure everyone that no, none of them are pregnant, all of them are home and not in jail, and they've all already finished their homework and are currently already in bed-- each one by themselves, too, just in case some of you (really, seriously?) were going to go there :-P What happened this morning was in all actuality a very minor thing, with no foreseeable long-term damage done. And I'm pretty certain that it's not an ominous harbinger of an oncoming storm of teenage rebellion either. But it DID bring me to a place of questioning whether or not we've been making the right decisions all along the way and discovering that, honestly, I'm not as great a parent as I thought I was :-/
As parenting goes, I've always been a big fan of natural consequences-- sometimes parentally engineered "natural" consequences, but more-or-less natural, logical, reason-led ones all the same. Toddler daughter refuses to pick up the pieces of her puzzle in a fit of "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO I'M ALMOST FOUR AND SO I'M ALMOST ALL GROWN UP AND YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF MEEEEEE!"; toddler daughter watches as said puzzle pieces are thrown into the trash can along with the rest of the garbage on the floor. Son #1 decides to throw wet paper towels all over the school bathroom to see how far up the wall he can get them to stick and whether or not he can actually get them to defy gravity and cling to the ceiling; son #1 gets to spend an afternoon helping the custodian clean up said bathroom. Son #2 decides to ignore the warning about coming home before curfew from his friend's house (which, incidentally, is only 100 yards down the street, so he theoretically could have just hollered to say he'd be late); son #2 finds himself grounded and disallowed to go by himself to a friend's house on his own for the rest of the week. Basically, you make your choice, you evaluate the consequences, and then you decide if it's really worth making that same choice the next time... pretty simple, no?
We Christian parents especially like to put a hedge of protection around our kids by making sure they only watch the right shows, listen to the right music, read the right books, hang out with the right friends, etc. We figure that if we only give them good role models to follow and we shield them from negative examples, then they won't know to choose the wrong and will generally make the right decisions all throughout their lives. We bet that if we raise smart, moral, good church-going kids, we can help them to avoid so many of the pitfalls of secular life... and it's actually not all that bad of a parenting plan, to be honest.
The downside is that we often end up sheltering our kids' decisions so that they only have good options to choose from and gentle consequences to remind them of the unconditional love of God. And that, as I look back on things tonight, has been the parenting road we ended up on; I'm hearby pleading "GUILTY" to trying their whole lives to protect them from the consequences of their own native stupidity :-( As kids get older, though, we as parents need to give them more responsibility for their own actions and more freedom in taking those actions. And sometimes, this means letting them step out of our sight and hoping, with fingers crossed and eyes closed, that they'll have learned enough to not choose the door labeled (in big red, dripping, invisible letters) "This Is the STUPID Option... STAY AWAY!"
It was hard this morning to drive away, knowing that, though I had given my child specific directions and a definite answer to their question of "So, Mom, can we...?", I was leaving them in a position of temptation with no way to enforce my will and preferences in the matter. And I knew that, theoretically, my child might choose to disobey and do what they wanted to do, hoping that I wouldn't find out. But because love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things, I trusted that my child, whom I love with all my heart, would resist temptation and do the right thing simply because I had asked them to. I honestly thought that, because I said "No, you can't... Sorry...", it would be enough to ensure that they actually did what I wanted them to do.
Not only did my child do what I had specifically forbidden them to do, but I had to find out about it from a sibling who couldn't keep their mouth shut. (Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's going to be some holy Christian smackdown going on as soon as they all head out the door in the morning...)
But you know what? This is a part of letting go. At least it was a little mistake, and not one that's going to shape future generations of our family. At some level, I needed to realize that my kids are not just extensions of my own self-worth, reflections of my ability to parent like a boss. Each one of my kids is their own independent human being, with their very own imperfect nature and their very own will, with just as much of a right to be wrong as I have. They're going to go off and make their own choices, and sometimes those choices are going to be "Screw that, Mom, I can make a better decision on my own, thank you very much." And when those decisions have been ripped out of my grasping, clawing hands, then sometimes the consequences are out of my hands as well, and I won't always be there to catch them when they fall broken to the ground.
This time, though, my husband and I have to-- get to-- assign the consequences. And we have to walk the fine line between realizing that no lasting harm has been done and not wanting that harm to come knocking at our kids' doors in the future. How do we assign a consequence for disobedience that's fair and proportionate to a (really pretty minor) offense but still teaches them that, hey, Mom and Dad aren't idiots and you really should listen to them sometimes? How do we make sure that we don't overreact and punish them too harshly simply because our feelings are hurt and our trust broken? Or how do we make sure that this consequence gives them something positive that they can hold on to for the rest of their lives and pass on to their own kids someday (who probably won't listen to or obey them any better than they do us right now...)
To make the situation even stickier, tonight I had to admit to myself and to my husband that I've been making parenting decisions all along that have helped to create the situation that tripped my child up this morning... How do I go now to my child and apologize for my own parenting fail and still expect them to respect my wisdom and authority as their mom? I'm really, really hoping for and counting on the fact that the Bible says that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5), because I'm really going to need His grace tomorrow as I share a big ol' slice of humble pie with my child :-/
Actually, strike what I said in my first sentence... maybe the hardest part of raising kids is the not knowing how badly you're screwing them up until it's too late to do anything about it :-/
(I seriously need to start cruising Facebook or hanging out with my daughter's genius friends again... This blog and my sanity are both looooong overdue for a funny post for a change... o.O But for now, I think I'll just head to bed with this song running through my head; I'll probably end up playing it tomorrow for my kid and pretty much every time I screw up again from now until forever...)
