Parenting Perplexes

 Parents can’t help having expectations for their children. Often we expect them to embrace our best qualities and to sift out our worst, like bugs from a cup of flour. This is pretty funny when you think about it. How is this magic supposed to occur?

Not infrequently, children seem to exhibit qualities the opposite of those we consider our best; they seem to absorb our negative qualities like a sponge. Some characteristics we may not even recognize as our own, or ‘fess up to as our own unless we take an honest look at our personal behavior.  (In a previous blog, I wrote how children can reflect a parent  like a mirror.) Alternatively, a child may be so different from us that we are perplexed about how to relate to them.

For example, a son procrastinates while his father lives his life as if he’ll run out of time, attempting to do yesterday what he can do today.

I recently saw the Israeli film Footnote, involving a father, a hard working scholar who prods his son, The son lies around, motivated to do nothing more than hike in the wilderness or ‘veg’ on the couch. Finally the father explodes at his son out of a sense of multiple frustrations.

How to handle this dilemma? Nagging is rarely helpful. Children, and people in general, tune out and discount a nagging voice. 

Each individual has their own sense of time. Some of us live life as if time has no end; others as if there is never enough. The truth is, most often we don’t know how much time we have in a lifetime.

(The line from Terrance McNally’s play Talley’s Folly often comes to my mind:  “However much time there is in a lifetime is a lifetime. “)

Parents may be effective when they offer helpful suggestions. For example, “I think you’ll be happier and your future brighter if you have more education. Advanced degrees give a person opportunities, choice and freedom.” (Maybe interject an example of a famous person who benefitted from following this path?)

A parent can tell stories/anecdotes/parables, fables. For example, Aesop’s tale about the ant who works hard in the field to gather for the future and the grasshopper who plays and has no food when winter comes.

Children also like to hear about how parents learned from their mistakes.  E.g. I’d squandered money on makeup but when I wanted to buy a car, I knew I had to learn to save.

Conclusion: Parenting is more positively effective when a parent:

1. Offers suggestions and encouragement

2. Refrains from criticism and nagging.

3. Saves complaints for therapists and friends and perhaps relatives (who can be trusted to keep your words to themselves).

4. Remember: Parenting is hard work and isn’t limited to a 9 to 5 schedule.  And it requires discipline.  Often a parent must think before speaking.

Dear Reader: I welcome your comments. (jsimon145@gmail.com)