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Saturday, January 1, 2011

ONLY MY FAILURES

I'm going to be really honest here about a painful subject...my kids mostly just remember my parenting failures. The moments when I screwed up.

This sucks the big one, but they remember the time when I went all crazy yelling at them--never mind that the yelling moments haven't been all that frequent. They remember the moments their father and I were "over-protective" and didn't send them off happily to concerts with a bunch of other teens when they were still in high school. They remember us going all nutso at a really rough moment in the teen years, when some scary stuff was happening. One of my daughters has talked with some bitterness about having had to work to earn half the money for her first car and having to earn a scholarship to pay her way through a private college.

Yes, the nutso part was regrettable...even though the kid in question was making big, bad choices.

There's no doubt that I screw up sometimes. I say too much and comment on their relationships when I shouldn't, get annoyed when they don't change the empty toilet paper roll (never!) or forget to put away the mayonaise after making a sandwich and I make snide, "joking" comments about these things (which never helps them change, BTW).

I sometimes harbor bitter feelings that 1.) Even though their father and I have been coupled (not in a perfect marriage, but enjoying one that's mostly functional and happy) for over thirty years...and 2.) We're in the relationship business, they don't want to talk with us about their relationships. Not until these relationships are over and they need comfort, do they talk about their partnerships. And even then, we're not supposed to talk about the actual relationship, just make supportive I believe in you statements.

When I'm dwelling on this, though, I have to remind myself that parenting isn't about getting them to like me. It's not even about the outcome--whether they choose to be Mother Teresa or a drug dealer--which is a big misconception. We tend to measure parental success by whether our kids win awards or have big careers or have marriages that seem happy, which is a huge mistake.

We want to preen ourselves over our kids achievements and kick ourselves when our kids make bad decisions, but this isn't actually our call. They have brain cells and they get to choose how they live their lives. Whether I've been a good or a bad parent is actually about my choices, my actions and behavior, not about how my kids live. I get no credit for their successes or their failures. Instead, I need to measure my success as a parent by the kind of parent I've been. If I've cared for them, been supportive and helped them grow...loved them in the truest sense of the word...then I can claim success in being a parent. I've done my part, given my heart and placed them consistently at the top of my list.

Parenting has involved years of trying to figure out how to best respond to a wide variety of challenges, from their not sleeping as infants to their middle school social issues to their teenage angsts.

Still, I need to maintain perspective. When I'm annoyed with their questionable relationship choices or their general clutter, I remind myself that they're doing pretty good, overall. I'd definitely rather they stay in school, than have clean closets. Much, much rather this, although I really like clean closets.

Never let yourself think that having children is just a fluffy, cuddly Mother's-Day/Father's-Day card kind of thing. Yes, it's nice when you get those kinds of cards. Nice when you get a shout-out, an "I love you, Mom" from a televised child of yours. But that's not what this job is about.

The painful truth is that if your kid likes you all the time, you're not doing your job.

Like love, parenting is about doing what's best for the other person.... Sometimes, this is really, really hard.