Until just a few minutes ago, I was sitting with one of my best friends. She came to visit on her way home from church this morning. We talked about how work was going, about the holidays, and about our children. I have four. She has one. We’ve been friends and there for each other through the raising of them all.
She is an incredible mother. As I sat with her, I recounted the ways I was impressed with how she raised her son, who is now in college.
As mothers, its so easy to fall into the typical traps of making our sons our “little princes”, coddling them, giving them everything we can as opposed to everything we should, and enabling the shit out of them. It’s hard for moms to raise boys, because we do it alone a majority of the time.
That is not to say there are not traps for raising girls, as a mother. There are the “I want to give her everything I could never have”, “I want to be the mom who always listens”, and the worse trap of all, the “I am living my life vicariously through my daughter” trap.
Raising children, consciously and filled with intention, is the hardest thing in the world, I am convinced. It is selfless, exhausting, and feels like all expectations and no rewards…until there are.
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These past few years, I’ve become more and more aware of how other people view their children. Sometimes, I am really happy to see what is going on. There is a parent who actually wants to parent. They are paying attention to the actual needs of the child they are raising, not listening to all of the distractions that pop up all day, every day.
But then…there are those, as well. Those who don’t want to actually parent their children. They think that they will turn out fine if they can just get them to school every day. Then that turns into:
They would be fine if the teachers at school taught better, if the administrators got their heads out of their butts, if they offered better lunches for the kids, if they didn’t give them so much goddamn homework…
Those parents.
I always knew they existed. I knew there were people out there who wanted the school (or anyone else) to raise their kids for them. They also are the first to blame any person or organization for the failure of said child as well.
Because they don’t even consider if they have done their “job” properly.
They often have no idea what they are doing with their children. Children are just trophies for them…something to make them look like respectable citizens of society, something to make them look like they are doing their part. If the child doesn’t “perform” well, it’s certainly not their (the parent’s) problem.
The way these parents interact with their children, as if they are peers, is offensive and just. plain. wrong. The way these parents protect their children from natural consequences of their own actions is detrimental to society as a whole.
If kids don’t learn it while they are young, where are they going to learn it?
I’ll tell you where. They will either learn it in jail or they will put their significant others through hell as they attempt to learn it…and often fail. Over and over and over.
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Why do we have children? Do we have children in order to fit “the part”? Do we have children so we can have the perfect Christmas card picture? Do we do all of it without really wanting THEM?
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My first child came after 5 years of not wanting children. I cannot express the difficulty I experienced processing my grief around having children. But my cultural upbringing did not allow for me NOT to have children, and it took me that long to convince myself that I would be okay, that somehow things would be better if I had children.
They were different, but they were not better. However, once I had him, my son and I were inseparable. There was no way I was going to do this mothering thing half-assed. He deserved me…all of me. And he got it.
Maybe that’s why I get so angry when I hear stories of women and men who expect their teenagers not to act like teenagers. They have no concept of what kinds of foods and activities a small child really needs, how to set realistic boundaries within the different stages of growth and development, and so much more.
How I would love to see us do better. I’d love to see parents read the books that speak truth, engage in the difficulty and inconvenience of child-rearing, and learn to love the learning it requires.
That all being said, I do see a lot of other parents doing a great job, being conscious about their decisions, feeding their children good food, monitoring their technology, and teaching them real-life skills all along the way. We just need more of those.
The perfect Christmas card is a fun thing. Let’s make it an honest representation of who we are, as families. Let’s be worthy of our children’s trust and love. Let’s be a safe and dependable source of love. They deserve it.
They are not meant to be trophies, placed on the hutch, to be admired.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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 Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box |
 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
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Photo credit: Ann Danilina on Unsplash
