Stepping back!

Do you consider yourself a strict parent or are you more relaxed or flexible on rules?  Are you following the example of your own parents or determined to be nothing like them? Whatever good parenting looks like to you, you can bet that someone else is doing the exact opposite because, like with cooking, there’s more than one way to raise children.  It’s all a matter of personal taste.

I used to be a perfectionist, believing that even in parenting there was a ‘right way’, and when my son was born I tried to do everything by the book. I continued breast-feeding until he was 6 months old, despite 3 uncomfortable months of expressing in toilet cubicles several times a day at work. After child number 2, because I didn’t always have the time or energy to cook but wanted my children to have the next best thing, I started a frozen baby food business! And even now, a ‘mummy-look’ is how lost things are found in my house because everything has a place, like in our cabinet of many drawers - one drawer for pencils, one for colouring pens, one for highlighters, one for…. you get the point.

While being organised has helped me contain the mess that comes with children, I have now realised that striving for perfection is a wasted effort. Each of my children’s personalities, and needs, is surprisingly different from their siblings (who knew?!), and from one day to the next. Every time I think I’ve finally got this parenting thing figured out the children go and change the rules!

The one thing I have always felt sure of though is the importance of being there and making children feel loved and supported.

Honestly, if there was an award for available and involved parenting, I think I’d have it in the bag. No matter what else is going on in my life, I always

• listen and show interest in everything they’re interested in, unless it’s tiktok

• attend every sports match (because who doesn’t love a 2-hour drive to watch their child sub in for 5 minutes), music performance (the bonus is that after listening to eleventy million hours of practice I can also predict every wrong note) and every everlasting school assembly

• cheer every success (from the participation certificate to the gold medal)

• commiserate every stumble, trip and struggle

• ferry them to every activity

• drop everything and deliver or collect every forgotten or left-behind item

If this sounds like low-key bragging, it’s not.  Any smugness I might have felt about being a good parent evaporated when my son accused me of setting him up for failure.  He told me I’d made his life hard …

… by making his childhood too comfortable!

And, rubbing salt in that wound, I let him grow up believing it always would be. Apparently, I forgot to warn him that finding work, or sticking at it, might be hard.  Neither did I properly prepare him for the inevitable struggles of life as an adult.

It’s clear to me now that parents being there when they’re called on may be what children want, but it isn’t what they need. Although mum, dad or someone else doing all the cooking, cleaning, tidying, etc may prevent arguments over mess and chores, it can lead to teens and adults who are unprepared for the reality of having to fend for themselves. 

So my lesson, and my tip for other parents still running around after their children, is to step back.  Embrace imperfection and allow things to go wrong.  Children need to struggle, be frustrated and experience disappointment.  If a dish is too sweet you add a little salt.  If life is too good, add a dash of neglect!

Taking onboard my son’s constructive feedback, I’m making a few small changes. His two youngest sisters will probably be delighted when they hear that they will now be

·      making their own packed lunches, or going hungry

·      remembering all the items they need for school, or coping without them and/or explaining to their teachers why they weren’t prepared for their lessons

·      walking to school if they’re not up and ready to leave when I am

·      asking their friends to return left-behind items, because I won’t be doing a second pick-up or replacing what they’ve lost

I’m pretty sure my adult children will also be fine when I tell them to manage their money better rather than asking for help from the bank of mum’n’dad.  

Definition: IMPERFECTIONIST

noun  - ‘a person who embraces imperfection in their life as a source of joy, humour or learning’

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