December Daily: Parenthood

[resonant]

kass asks: Tell me, if you will, what you enjoy most about parenthood?

The kidlet, believe it or not, will be sixteen in three weeks.

More and more, I can see them coiling to spring away. I'm going to hate to see them go -- I would be happy if the three of us could live together indefinitely -- but on the other hand, they're looking forward to it so!

Parenthood, taken minute by minute, is sometimes a grind. Especially with small children, it's relentless -- however tired you might be, however many millions of dollars you would pay for an hour of uninterrupted solitude, you still have to be there.

You have to be there with a level of present-ness, of focused intelligence and attention, that very few jobs demand, ready to leap to stop a toddler from swallowing a cigarette butt, or to explain to a four-year-old that animals died so that we could eat meat, or to explain to a ten-year-old that you can't tell bad guys by the way they look, or to help a child understand that sometimes you get really angry at their dad, and sometimes you get really angry at them, and sometimes they get really angry at you, and that's all OK and nobody's going to get hurt, even if your own childhood experience is that that wasn't true.

But for me it's been deeply joyful, too, in a number of ways:



1. Getting to not make certain parenting mistakes.

I'm sure we're far from perfect parents, but I promise you that we've never told them that they don't feel what they say they feel, or opened their mail or read their diary, or snatched a project out of their hands when they weren't doing it "right," or told them they were a selfish child when what we meant was that they were using an impolite tone of voice, or tickled them when they didn't want to be tickled.

Sometimes I look back on all the parents I've witnessed and sort of go "Nyah!" and stick my tongue out at them.

2. The ways they're like us.

There are very few joys of parenthood like hearing one of your own sayings come out of your teenager's mouth! I overheard the kidlet once saying to a friend, "Well, you know how it is -- the reward for good work is more work," and I had to slip into another room so they wouldn't see me gloating.

3. The ways they're not like us.

This is a whole point of view that didn't exist in the world just a few years ago! They're good at disagreeing -- they don't scold or attack, but they stand their ground. Their thoughts on religion are especially interesting.

4. Seeing them exercise social courage.

They're an oddball, but they're not an anxious oddball, and most bullies aren't really determined enough to keep trying to make an insult stick when the recipient just gives them a puzzled look and goes on wearing socks that don't match. So they're in a good position to stand up for oddballs who are anxious. It does my heart good to see them do it.

5. I'm going to say again what I said on Table Talk when they were six months old: Dear God in heaven, I never knew I had it in me to love anyone this much.

Comments

[kass]

Oh, I love these answers. Thank you!! Our kidlet is five, and as he continues to grow up, I find myself sometimes remembering anecdotes about your kidlet, from lj or from chat, from back before the dawn of time (read: before he was born) when I used to hang out in irc a lot. *wry grin* Anyway. You were one of my inspirations for believing that one could be a parent and also continue to be awesome and fannish. So, you know, thanks! <3

[resonant]

I was pregnant with that kidlet when I discovered fandom, so if fandom was incompatible with parenthood, it's a good thing nobody ever told me! I love reading about people's kids.

[via_ostiense]

Reading this, I'm struck by how lucky the kidlet is to have you as her parent.

[jesse_the_k]

+1. This bit sometimes you get really angry at her dad, and sometimes you get really angry at her, and sometimes she gets really angry at you, and that's all OK and nobody's going to get hurt, even if your own childhood experience is that that wasn't true made me wish I'd had you as a parent!

[resonant]

My family was not a good model for anger; we're so WASP-y and controlled that no one will admit to feeling anything stronger than irritation. And the spouse comes from a yelling, chair-overturning Italian family. So this is something we learned and are still learning.

I just hope that what's actually coming across to the kidlet is, "People have trouble coping with anger, and they have to talk about their trouble and work out how to do it," rather than, "My mother is maybe getting a little better at pretending that it doesn't freak her out when people get mad."

[pauraque]

Me too.

[resonant]

Back when idlerat assigned Harry Potter characters to various authors, I was Molly Weasley. I guess I come across as Fandom Mom to this day.

The kidlet found a thing on Tumblr that said, "Every group of friends has a Mom Friend. If you can't figure out who's the Mom Friend, it's you," and she sighed and said, "I guess there was no escaping it."

[resonant]

Nice of you to say so! The three of us are lucky to be so much alike. (My best friend says we're like a family of cats sleeping in a big pile.) I mean, if I'd had an extroverted, social, sports-loving kid, I would have loved her, but we wouldn't have had all the easiness that comes of being on the same wavelength.

One of the things I treasure most is the Mother's Day card she made me when she was in fourth grade. The teacher told the kids to write something nice about their mother figures. So she came home with a card that said, "My mother took me to two libraries after lights-out because she knew I needed the next Harry Potter book. We understand each other."

[mergatrude]

Oh, the last one is such a gut-punch. I did not believe that about myself, either.

You sound like an awesome mum; for her to be comfortably non-conformist she must feel very secure in your affections.

[resonant]

I hope so -- that's the main thing I want, really, is for her to know that when I say I love her no matter what, I really do mean no matter what, not "No matter what, short of a pregnancy/a non-standard sexuality/a tone of voice that I take exception to."

[metaphortunate]

You have inspired me to keep going. :)

I mean, I don't actually need inspiration to keep going, obviously; the kids continue to need care so I continue to take care of them; but sometimes inspiration helps me notice them and delight in them the way they deserve to be delighted in. And also not take things out of their hands if they're not doing it right. Unless they're about to break my stuff, that is. They're allowed to break their own stuff if that's the way they wish to enjoy it; but not mine.

[resonant]

They're allowed to break their own stuff if that's the way they wish to enjoy it; but not mine.

That's a good rule, and it made me smile!

It's easy to forget, when your kid is old enough to be told to walk down to the drugstore and buy her sick parents some cold medicine, how very difficult and exhausting those early years are.

I found theatrical and improbable threats strangely cheering at the time, and the kidlet probably remembers being told that if she didn't stop making meaningless noises and setting my teeth on edge, I was going to paint her purple and put green polka dots on the bottoms of her feet.

[metaphortunate]

It...is possible that yesterday on the train when the kids were trying to pull off my hat and eat my shirt that my fellow passengers overheard me saying "Right! That's electric shocks for the both of you."

[myalexandria]

You know, when I was 16 I was *dying* to leave. (I pitched boarding school; I pitched an early college program; I got nowhere.) It's not that I didn't love my parents, I just wanted, I don't even know what I wanted. I knew that growing up meant leaving and I wanted to be grown up.* When it got right down to actually packing my suitcase and driving to college and having to say goodbye, I ended up crying for about a week. I handle the leaving and coming back a little better these days, too much practice, but what I'm saying here is that you might be surprised by how much difference another five or ten years will make. I feel like I need my parents about as much, now that I'm 35, as I did when I was more like 7 or 8.

*I sometimes wish I hadn't grown up in a culture/class where it was clear that growing up meant leaving.

[resonant]

I was like that, too. I think it's the same impulse that makes the baby grab the spoon out of your hand and try to feed herself. (I wonder what that impulse to independence looks like in the cultures/classes you're talking about, where it's not an unspoken assumption that everyone will leave home.)

[tevere]

♥

[resonant]

Back atcha!

Thank you for this.

[eotu]

I just fielded a tearful call from my 18-yr-old, 2000+ miles away for her first year at college. She's barfing and she's got a final in the morning and she wishes she were hoooooome. Breaks my heart.

But reading this all you wrote is just such a marvelous summary of not only of conscious parenting, but of why it's so wonderful to watch them grow. It reminds me of all the good stuff. We have two. The oldest is Just. Like. Us. The younger one (above) appears more "normal" to the rest of the world. But they are each their own person. I miss them like crazy now that they're spreading their wings, but I am so glad I have them and so proud of the people they've become. So thank you for saying it this way. I feel better.

Re: Thank you for this.

[resonant]

That's funny, because this comment makes me feel better about her leaving! I know I'm going to be terribly sad, and it helps to see that you still feel the bond.