Last night my husband and I went out to dinner. We had run a yard sale for two days, so we were hot and tired and wanted someone to pamper us and we had a little extra cash. We went to a nice casual place and decided to sit outside on the patio.
At one table was a couple with a baby about 11 months old. He had dark curly hair and chubby legs that were almost, kind of walking, but still mostly in that "pillar to post" cruising mode. Mostly he was intent on cruising to the table that formed a triangle with ours, where a 9 year old girl and an 8 year old boy were sitting waiting for their parents to finish their dinner. Like all small children, he was fascinated by other children and was not willing to sit quietly with his own parents or grandparents (who were also taking turns trying to wrestle him away from the ground).
The mom of the older children started asking the new mom questions about the baby,(name - Nathan, age, etc.) and kept reassuring her that neither she nor her children were bothered by the baby coming over by them. "Oh, no," she said, "Don't worry, I've been there, I know...and I know how hard it is when they want to be mobile, but it gets better." "Really?" asked the younger mom. "Oh, yes, they're such a joy, it's so good, it just gets better and better...Three was hard..."
"Oh, you have three children?"
"No, age three was hard; you know, it's not the terrible twos, it's really the terrible threes, they get really fresh, but they get better, it just keeps getting better..."
"Twelve was no picnic" mumbled my husband under his breath.
"Sixteen nearly killed us" I answered sotto voce out of the corner of my mouth. "Then there was last week."
He turned as if to enter the conversation. I grabbed his shoulder to stop him. "No. No. Do not spread despair. Never spread despair."
Let me say, first and foremost, absolutely and unequivocally, we love our children, who are now in their mid twenties. Let me also say that parenting them has been a challenge. And just because they become legal adults it doesn't get any easier. Just last week we were wondering if it were too late to change our minds about having children. It did not get better and better. It started out great and complicated and just kept getting different.
Parenting is not a quid pro quo activity. What you offer a child does not return a predictable, guaranteed response. The most helpful thing any therapist ever told me (and parenting has required me to meet a few of them) was, "With bad parenting you can pretty much guarantee a bad result. With good parenting...you've got a 50/50 chance for a good result."
Now I don't know if I was a great parent, but I suspect I was not. I know my Mom thinks I was too lenient. I think I was probably too inconsistent, lenient sometimes, overly strict others. I didn't want my kids to be afraid of me, and was horrified at times when I was reacting to something and saw fear in their eyes: on the other hand, I did want them to respect me, and in conversation with my friends it seems like the only kids who respect parents of our generation are the ones who were kept in mini-military camp homes. Half the times when I look at my kids I hear that song from the 60's running through my head, "Did he need a stronger hand? Did she need a lighter touch? Was I strong or was I tough? Did I give enough? Did I give too much?" I'm pretty sure I wasn't a horrible parent and probably put myself on the adequate side of the scale.
Current information I get from kvetching sessions with my girlfriends tells me that adolescence currently lasts until age 30 or 35. I did NOT expect that! That means that for roughly the last half of their "growing up" phase you have absolutely NO authority but all kinds of responsibility with them.
I never wanted to live through my kids. But I want them to live well. I don't want them to be living on the edge of disaster, socially, financially or emotionally. I want them to have contentment and joy even if they can't always be happy. I want them to have a loving, supportive life-partner. I want them to call their grandparents, to send their father a birthday card without being reminded, to pay their bills on time and to refrain from language that would make my mother wash MY mouth out with soap if she heard them. I do not want them to pierce or tattoo their faces or other body parts that will make possible employers wince when they see them. I don't want them to hate me.
And maybe that's where experience brings you in the end. It didn't get "better and better" for us. Of course, her kids are not my kids and neither is little Nathan. Maybe by the time her kids are 23 they will have created a peaceful world economy and cured cancer and the common cold. They'll accept the Noble Prize by saying, "I have no one to thank for this honor but my wonderful mother." But I think that, like most of us, she will find that there are days where she wishes they were three again.
It certainly didn't get easier and easier, which was what I heard underneath her assurances to that new mom. But if they really lucky, they will know in their heart of hearts, without any anxiety or self-accusation, that our children are not our accomplishment -- they are created by themselves and by their environments, by their genes and their classmates, by their neighborhoods and the world they inherit. They are a gift and a wonder in the truest sense of those words and they are ours to protect for a short time, to mentor a little longer and to treasure forever, bad choices and all.
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