Not Throwing in the Towel

I admit it. There are several times during my 20+ years of parenthood when I have felt like maybe I’m not cut out for the job. When my kids were infants, a casual lunch with a friend might push me over the edge. She would glow and brag about how motherhood was just the best and how there weren’t enough hours in the day to spend with her golden child. It’s not that I didn’t love my children, but there were multiple times when, frankly, I had no clue what I was doing and it seemed like maybe the kids had caught on to that fact. This parenting thing, in case you haven’t noticed, is a rather inexact science.

When we brought my second son home from the hospital, I distinctly remember putting him in his crib, standing over him, staring and thinking: “OK. Now what?” It was one of the most important moments of my life and I felt completely alien to it all.

While some of my friends lamented leaving their children with a babysitter, I had one foot halfway out the door at the mere suggestion of giving us a night out. I wasn’t crazy about arranging for a babysitter, but if somebody offered, I’d be all over it!

I had a secret deal with myself: I would try not to criticize other parents out loud because I had no clue what kind of parenting genes I had. When the day care director told me that my son had hit a girl in his class, I dragged him to the car, drove him over to the girl’s house and made him apologize to the parents. Then I stood on their doorstep and sobbed. To me, it was evidence of my complete and utter failure as a parent. But it was not. Although my parenting skills were mediocre, I had once again gone overboard with disastrous results.

When my daughter’s impatience and frustration bubbled over into intense fits of rage, I assumed that I was soft and that any other more qualified parent could have prevented it from happening. Maybe that’s true, but then again, maybe it’s not.

Throughout the years, as I indulged my children because it was easier than arguing with them, catered to their culinary preferences and pretty much molded our life around them (often at our expense), I worried that I had fallen asleep at the wheel of the parenting minivan. Rarely a day goes by when I don’t wish that I would have done something differently.

Still, I look at my kids today and think: Somehow it all worked out. Despite my half-baked ideas and less than stellar efforts, my kids are pretty great. How the heck did that happen?