A postcard for a sister-mom

Yesterday a poster here shared some frustration over her children. The response was extremely supportive, except for one person who said something that must surely have felt to the original poster like, “It’s all your fault; you’re inadequate as a mother.”

That, of course, is exactly what the mother was already thinking. That’s what good mothers think when their children take wrong turns. Despite the myth of the “good-enough mother,” I don’t know of any woman who is able to say to herself, “I’ve done a good-enough job.”  We’re supposed to worry about our kids. They’re supposed to give us heartburn.

And BG, those moms who tell you they never get that heartburn? They’re not like us. They may not be better or worse — I’m not going there — but something about them is fundamentally different, because parents like you and me can’t avoid feeling every stab of pain, every sliver of fear, ever shard of hurt that our children experience.

When we dropped our first child off at his college dorm, he hugged us goodbye and dove headfirst into his new life. I sat in the parking lot for half an hour crying about all the words I should have said, all the lessons I should have given, all the wisdom I should have imparted — everything I should have done differently. I rushed home to the rest of the children, determined to do better.

When we dropped off the second child, same scene. And the third, and the fourth … I never got it right. I’ll always believe I should have done more.

Even though I’ve been blessed with children who have, for the most part, been relatively easy to parent, they’re not perfect. Nobody is. In fact, when I was a teen, I was a “good girl,” mainly because I was too shy to be anything else, but I can still look back and wonder how I survived. My parents never knew about half the stunts I pulled. It's a good thing, too, or they would have died young of a heart attack I caused.

And I won’t know about all the stunts my own kids pull. Part of the process of growing into a responsible adult is cleaning up your own messes. That responsibility goes hand in hand with having the good judgment to know when to call Mom or Dad. That we haven’t received too many heart-stopping phone calls may mean that our kids don’t get into much trouble they can’t handle. On the other hand, as my husband pointed out in the middle of night, it may just mean they’re sneaky. He was. 

But it sure doesn’t mean they’re perfect. It sure doesn’t mean we’ve done a perfect job of parenting, or that we can take all the credit for our children’s successes. I absolutely don’t believe that kids are only as good as their parents. Mine are better than I am, in some remarkable ways. Yours will be too.

They’ll also make mistakes that aren’t yours to own. We all do. They’ll learn from them. Maybe they’ll let you help them; maybe they’ll care so much about your good opinion of them that they’ll be reluctant to confess. I also don’t believe that a kid who has a healthy relationship with her/his parents will tell them everything. I sure didn’t; it never occurred to me that I should. They were my parents, but there was more to me than being my parents’ child.

We can all spin tales. I could tell you that I have a bunch of great kids, and that would be true. I could tell you that I have a bunch of gray hair and a few deep wrinkles courtesy of those great kids, and that would be true too. I could tell you a thousand funny stories, but I could also tell you wrenching stories about countless tears. I could tell you about their triumphs, but that wouldn’t be the whole truth unless I also told you about the times they wandered into the weeds. I don’t tell many of those stories, because now that those children are grown, their stories aren’t really mine to tell. My children aren’t Play-Doh characters that I’ve molded into the shape I want, as hard as I might have tried. (I once said that to a grown daughter, and she said, quite gleefully, “I was born with sharp little bones of my own, Mom.”)

The stories that are mine are the ones about how I’ve felt when all that was going on. Sometimes I’ve wondered where I went wrong. Don’t we all? (Well, most of us, anyway.) When I read a post from a mother who doesn’t know how to steer her child back onto the right track, I know exactly how that feels. It rings true. I understand the fear, because I know how much failure costs in those situations.

Parents don’t always talk about that feeling much; we don’t want to name our fears, because that makes them seem more real. It also leaves us open to criticism at a time when we really need support, because some people have a different agenda.

Everybody has an opinion. Some are informed by their own experiences, which aren’t exactly (or, in most cases, even remotely) like yours or mine. Some seem to be informed by fantasy, and some by nothing at all, but that’s not my issue. Don’t claim it for yours, either.

Just remember this: Parenting is not a competition, even though some people try to turn it into one. Your kids don’t need to fail for mine to be happy and healthy. They all get lives of their own; there’s enough good to go around, and more than enough opportunity to stumble. We don’t need to pretend our families and our lives are perfect. Not being able to admit to problems cuts off all our sources of support. Let's not box ourselves in that way. 

And I sure don’t need to tell you that it’s your fault when things go wrong, neener neener neener.  I don’t need to tell you anything. You have it all inside, don’t you?  Me too. Nobody’s harder on us than we are on ourselves. 

Take good care of yourself. Remember what matters; ignore what doesn’t. We all have our own blessings, but those who will tell you that they handled parenting so much better weren’t blessed with our particular kids.

And that’s their loss.