Alien Parenting

(From 2018)

I have two boys born nearly 10 years apart.  I am grateful for that gap more often than I regret it.  Like most people I was (and continue to be) bewildered by the task of raising decent human beings.

I have an odd, paradoxical reaction to parenting advice, whether it comes in a clever Facebook post or a well-researched, 300-page book.  I desperately want someone to tell me how to raise a child “successfully” and yet I cannot believe that anyone can tell another person how to raise his or her own child.  I come with a physical, mental, and spiritual history which is like no other and it moves me to do things in certain ways, and it moves me to react in certain ways and, more often, to refrain from reacting in certain ways.  Some of these ways work well for my individual children.  Some of them work for one child and not the other, both because they are different from each other but also because I am a different person from the one I was 10 years ago and, in some respects, in different circumstances.  Some of them don’t work at all, which leads me to the desperate desire for someone else to give me directions. 

After reading one book which essentially told me all of the things I had done wrong so far and why I should be doing things, not only completely differently, but in a manner completely alien to my nature, I found myself fairly seriously depressed. Post-parental depression, perhaps.  At any rate, in a rare moment of self-validation, it occurred to me that, in fact, my children were pretty wonderful both despite and because of me.  Which brought me to wonder – what is, in fact, the desired goal?  What do we hope to achieve through good “parenting?”  I came to this realisation about myself (and let me be clear, here – this is merely what I think and feel, unsupported by science or philosophy or religion):  If my son reaches adulthood knowing that he is loved and knowing how to love others, I will be happy – I will have done my job.  No doubt, he’ll have packed a few bags or had some packed for him but whatever baggage he carries into any relationship will be lighter than if I’d approached raising him from outside myself and outside my knowledge of him.

I still read, well, maybe not the books, but the posts and the articles that offer advice, or tips or hacks.  Some of them seem quite brilliant, some clever, some funny.  And, if it’s age-appropriate and helpful, I might even try some out.  But mostly I muddle through, just loving and being loved by my lovely boys.

I worry that he’ll repeat my mistakes – not for his sake, I realise but for mine.  I’ve been wishing I could fix my past by living his future.  The past is unchangeable and the only growth that can come out of it is my own.