Today’s parent guest blogger is Kim Barron, owner of New Leaf Design
Well, okay, I’ve put this off long enough. I volunteered to write this blog post and shortly thereafter thought “What the hell was I thinking!?!” I am certainly no authority on parenthood and who am I to tell my story when I have spent most of the last 26 years scratching my head and wondering how much mental damage I was actually doing to my kids. I do readily admit to having daydreamed about the conversations they will surely have in their therapist’s offices, detailing every awful thing I have ever done or said that has likely caused long-term, irreversible damage.
A little background: I am the 46-year-old mother of three. My son Denis is 26 years old and in grad school, my older daughter, Briana, is 20 and a junior in college and my youngest daughter, Emma is 10 years old and a fifth grader. I had my son only two months after I turned 20 and didn’t realize at the time how young and naive I really was and what parenting a child really meant. And as any parent will attest, none of us really know what in the world we are doing the majority of the time.
Truthfully, I have always doubted my parenting skills. When my older daughter would come to me as a teenager to ask my advice about the latest angst-ridden scenario that had taken place with any one of her friends, I would secretly think “Oh my God, what IS the right thing to tell her? I am clueless!” Around our house I am known as the one who usually answers any given question with “I don’t know.” And admittedly, when my son was in high school and I found his secret stash of pot, my first thought was “I could just throw it away and keep my mouth shut and pretend this never happened. No one needs to know.” Fortunately, my second thought was that the first thought was a bad one and it did become an issue we dealt with as a family (a story for another blog). My husband, on the other hand, has always been, without a doubt, the greatest father I have ever known. And he always seems to know just what to do or the right advice to give seemingly without thinking. I guess I’ve always felt that with him around, my three at least had a fighting chance.
Despite my insecurities, my kids have become really awesome people and what I have found is the older they get, the better friends we become. I truly enjoy their company, miss them when they’re not around, and I think that goes both ways. There were many years, while they were teenagers, when we really disliked each other for one reason or another and I now know that’s to be expected. Although, it definitely caused many sleepless nights at the time. Denis (my son) swears he spent days on end in his bedroom for one punishment or another (not true – hours maybe, but not days). And Briana will never truly forgive me for snooping in her room and reading her diary (hey, I was honestly worried about her well-being!).
But the one thing that has always been important to me was that my kids were good people. That they care about others, and show it, means more to me than anything else. The older two regularly call, email and write letters to their little sister, who adores them (and who is now somewhat of an only child here at home).
Denis is a supervisor in a therapeutic program for adolescents who have attempted suicide while he attends grad school with the plans of becoming a therapist. Briana is a psychology major, babysits for a young child with autism, and volunteers for a variety of causes. I can’t wait to see what Emma grows up to become. She is creative, full of life and unafraid to try new things.
I once figured out that if Emma leaves the nest when she is 18 years old we will have been parenting for a total of 34 years! You’d think in all that time we would have become experts, but not so. If I had it to do all over again, I wish that I had understood and imparted the following ideas to my kids from day one:
1) It is not your responsibility to please me.
2) You are not here to satisfy my intentions.
3) You are perfect exactly as you are.
But then again, it’s never too late to say what you need to say.
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