AMATEUR PARENTING 101

         Until I was 35, I knew everything there was to know about childrearing.  I knew that whiny children should not be allowed to “act like that.”  I knew that my future children would not have tantrums or talk back.  I was a font of opinions about how children should behave and about what their benighted parents were doing wrong.   

         And then, a few months after my 35^th birthday, I discovered to my horror that I knew nothing about raising children.  I, who had known so much, discovered that everything that I thought I had known was crap.  It was humbling.  It was terrifying.  It was too late to turn back.

         Yes, dear reader, I gave birth to my first child when I was 35.     

         There I was and there she was – all wide-eyed helplessness.  And there was her father, as stupefied with love and ignorance as I, and – you’re not going to believe this – they (the nurses and doctors) were letting us take her home from the hospital.  And not just letting us, they were sending us home from the hospital.  After only two days.  There was no licensing process.  No quiz.  No instruction manual.  Just here’s your baby; enjoy your new family.     

         Did they know with whom they were sending her home?  Did they not realize that we were rank amateurs?  (They perhaps got their first hint when Anne’s father ran back into the hospital to find someone who could show us how to work the car seat.) 

         They, hopeless optimists that they were, sent this precious newborn home with a man who would spend the next several weeks periodically holding a mirror under the nose of his backward-facing-in-the-back-seat daughter WHILE HE WAS DRIVING to make sure that she was breathing, and a mother who cut her tiny daughter’s tiny finger the first time that she attempted to trim her nails.

         They sent us home without a nurse or a coach.  And, with the help of a couple of books and a lot of love, we faked it, more or less successfully, without benefit of nearby family. 

         We did better two-and-a-half years later with our second daughter.  We were calmer.  We had some idea of what we were doing.  And yet. . . And yet I still managed to close the car door on Mara’s little foot while balancing her on one arm and a bag of groceries on the other.  In short, the learning curve was steep.  

         I have been thinking about those early years recently as I contemplate the fabulously complex and competent adults my daughters have grown to be, and wondering how much, if anything, their father and I had to do with this.  After watching my daughters and the children of friends grow up, I conclude that parenting is some combination of instinct, trial and error, love, skill, and circumstantial and genetic dumb luck.  The dumb luck part should not be underestimated, nor should the skill part be over-estimated.  I have known people whom I consider to be exemplary parents, whose children nonetheless suffered from illness or trauma or drug addiction.  Love and skill are not guarantees.  There is still that luck piece. 

         I knew, for instance, a woman who had several children.  She told me that the first three were well-behaved and a pleasure to be around.  She, of course, prided herself on her parenting skills, and felt a bit smug when in the presence of less-well-behaved children. 

         Then, she had her fourth child.

         This child was, shall we say, a teensy bit more challenging.  After this, the woman figuratively smacked herself on the forehead as she realized that the behavior of her children had as much to do with the inherent temperament of each of these little beings as it did with her parenting skills. 

         This should be a reason for parents everywhere to breathe a little easier, and for those of us whose kids are grown to let go of the retrospective self-criticism.  It is not, after all, entirely about us and what we do/did or don’t/didn‘t do.  It’s also about who these creatures we have brought into the world are at the core of their being.  I think of those little novelty sponges that they used to sell at the Five and Dime – you know the ones – you add water and they expand before your eyes into a seahorse or a dog or whatever was contained in that sponge.  Sometimes parenting feels a bit like that – you add love and mental and physical nourishment and they grow into who they were meant to be -- right before your eyes.  And despite your missteps. 

          Sure, with hindsight there are things I wish I had done differently, but not too many, really.  I tried not to make the mistakes that I perceived my parents to have made, and, in the process, I expect that I came up with new ways to drive my kids crazy.  They will do the same for their children.  And so it goes.          

         The good news is, I think, that there is not one way to parent “correctly.”  Parents can, of course, do terrible things to their children, things that do lasting, even irrevocable, damage.  Cruelty, abuse, and neglect come readily to mind.  But, for those who come to parenting with an open heart, there are few mistakes that cannot be forgiven.  Children are, after all, resilient.  They know who they are, and if we give them food, shelter, love, guidance, and acceptance, if we read to them and listen to them, they will grow into exactly who they were meant to be.    

         So, if you are, as I was, an amateur parent, I hope you will be able to relax and enjoy the unfolding.  It is a humbling and amazing journey, especially for those of us who discover that we knew nothing when we began.