Raising Children Parentless

03.02.2011

A friend sent this article to me and it’s about a topic I would’ve never thought about and it gave me pause. As far as I know, my father is alive somewhere but he’s pretty much dead to me because I met him a total of 4 times my entire life. This reality dictated the course of my relationships throughout my life, especially romantic ones, but I never considered that the loss of having a parent could dictate a parenting style. (I am consciously considering growing up without a father similar, if not the same, as losing a parent because I’m taking into account that both shape how you view the world.)

For anyone who has lost a parent or both, I encourage you to read the entire article but I offer highlights:

• Grandparents provide an opportunity for babysitting laying a foundation for grandparents and grandchildren to get-to-know each other. It also allows for family traditions to be passed down and information about family and ancestors to be shared.
• Grandparents offer another place for children to turn to should they need. They can pass down their love of art and music and/or teach skills that maybe the parents don’t have.
• Death is considered to be one of the top three reasons couples separate. Where children are involved, jealousies could arise that one parents’ parents can be a part of the kids’ lives and the other can’t. This can strain a marriage and feelings of loss often dictates the parenting style. Someone who’s lost a mother or father (or both) may be prone to approach parenting from a “worst case scenario” mentality.
• Those who have lost a parent at a young age live with the fear that they themselves will die young. (This I know to be true because both my best friend and her brother who lost both parents within 6 years of each other are convinced they’re going to follow their parents and die young.) The fear of dying young also easily feeds into how someone may approach parenting. If the loss of a parent contributes to the mentality of “the worst case scenario” and all decisions come from that part of the heart, then the fear of dying young would underscore everything.

Exactly Whose Child Are You Friends With?

04.06.2010

Friendships. I think they can be almost as complicated as or as complicated as families.

About a month or so ago, I was listening to KBIG who had a caller write in with the issue that her daughter is friends with another little girl whose mother she did not like at all. This mother was writing in for advice in how to handle the situation. Most people were calling in and recommending that she just had to “suck it up”.

I’m not sure I really agree with this but what’s the alternative? Forbidding your child from being friends with someone? Is it fair to choose your kids’ friends? No parent wants his/her kid hanging out with someone whom you know is headed in the wrong direction. I mean, let’s face it. As adults, you can spot the problem kids. You sure don’t when you’re young. So when is it ok to give your input about whom your kid can hang out with and whom your kid can’t?

And is it wrong to not want your kid to hang out with a kid whose parent you don’t like? I think we can agree that because kids spend so much time with their mothers that sooner than later, whatever qualities one may not like about the mother, the child is going to adopt. Then your child may be influenced by these qualities. We raise our kids with our beliefs and each parent has a different style and I’m not sure it’s necessarily wrong to guide your children to be friends with people who are more in-line with who you are.

Now having said that, I realize the danger that brings to associating yourself with only like-minded people and that’s not necessarily good either. Diversity is good. But I can think of a few people with whom I wouldn’t necessarily want to have a connection with and I’d actually be devastated if our kids became friends. Yes, devastated and I don’t think I’d have the stamina to just “suck it up.” My tolerance level for BS is so low and having to deal with certain people would make me lose my mind and that isn’t good for anyone in my household. So, any thoughts?

This Thing We Call "Family"

04.05.2010

I spent more time thinking about my mom and grandmother. See, I don’t get to talk to my mom on Skype that often and even less with my grandmother. Plus I over think everything, so it’s just natural for me to obsess about something.

Right before we were going to say our good-byes I asked my sister to take a photo of my mom and grandmother on Skype. They were so cute together, cuddling up, mother and daughter, making faces and/or my grandmother not really knowing where to look cause Skype still weirds her out. I was looking at the photo of the two of them today and I thought, “If I continue the route I’m going, I will never experience that.” What I was referring to was the fact that my mom and her mom were able to cuddle up with each other and regardless of their ages, they were still, and will always be, mother and daughter. “Mother and daughter…”

My mother-in-law asked me a few months ago if I would like to have a daughter first or a son. I started to chuckle and then ended in a sigh and replied, “I don’t know. Mother-daughter relationships are so volatile so I don’t know if I want to go through that. But then I don’t think I could ever relate to a teenaged boy, so I don’t know if I want to go through that.” She, of course, laughed at the comical way I delivered my line with such dramatic “my life is hard” flair, but underneath the comedy, I was actually quite serious.

Babies are all cute and cuddly but then they become these [fill in the blank] for about ten years and then you just hope that they forgive your parenting style and want to talk to you for the rest of their lives. Some families never overcome the schisms that may happen, others do. Or, at least, for the most part they do.

Why are families so complicated? It seems like it should all work out so perfectly. Girl meets boy, they fall in love, have the perfect wedding and start a family. But what you’re not told about is all of the little cracks in the façade that entail people’s personalities, dreams or failed dreams, hopes or broken hopes, desires, plans and changes in plans, changes in moods, etc. On paper it all makes sense. In practicality, it doesn’t. I’m not saying this because I’m not happy being married; God no! I’m just talking about how the steps to becoming a family and starting a family, etc. seem like it should all be so easy but no one tells you about how truly difficult it is. I always thought adults had it all figured out and now that I’ve officially been an adult for almost 20 years now, I’m still waiting for the light to turn on. I’m still waiting for that “a-ha” moment where I can say, “Oh, yes, so NOW I’m an adult because I have it all figured out.” I sometimes see the light flickering…but it never stays on long enough for me to definitively know.