“Daddy,” my 3-year-old son said at the dinner table. “I want you to go to jail, and then you wouldn’t get mad at me.”
This actually happened. He truly said this right after I scolded him for something. I can’t remember what, but I’m sure it involved projectile chicken nuggets or telling him for the umpteenth time to just sit for five whole minutes.
Had this been me as a 3-year-old, I’m almost certain my father would have left the table, driven to a store, bought a prison jumpsuit costume, and then arranged for a cop friend of his to stage a mock arrest in the front yard, all in the name of teaching me a lesson in the most emotionally searing way possible. I can’t deny considering it.
I let his mother deal with his Daddy-in-jail fantasy while I spent a few moments contemplating how, on that day as a parent, I failed.
I know, the kid is only three years old. But what parent doesn’t want to speak, even in a tough teachable moment like this, then watch as their children have a positive revelation? Like the concluding scene of Dead Poets Society, where the students stand on their desks in recognition of their instructor’s greatness. Instead, we’re all-too-often left to ponder mistakes or how we could do better.
We parents live in an amazing time. We have more expert information at our quick disposal than did our parents, who might’ve possessed just one paperback book with the spine worn out. There’s almost no excuse for not knowing anything. Kids not going to bed on time? Search YouTube for a solution. Kids fighting in the backseat during long trips? Crowdsource that in a Facebook group. Struggling to get a Kindergartner to stop sucking her thumb? Google it, will ya?
And yet I wonder if this isn’t one of the most difficult eras to be a parent. As a stay-at-home dad, I have all day to look up potential solutions, and I can tell you, there’s no one answer to any one problem. Should you be a libertarian and let ‘em figure it out or a “Tiger Mom” in a helicopter? Should you adjust your parenting to each kid’s personality or prepare them for a world that won’t bend to their individual needs?
Then there’s comparisonitis. You just finished Trick-Or-Treat and go to post an image of your kids’ faces covered in chocolate, surrounded by empty candy wrappers, until you see something posted by that one friend, and we all have them. They’re showing off the organic, artisan, 90-percent cocoa they made in a stone pot from some unpronounceable place and handed out to kids for more antioxidants and better nutrition. We’ve all felt inadequate as parents looking through our Facebook feeds from time to time.
One of the difficulties with parenting seems to be that we’re not really going to know how we’re doing until the kids grow up and become functioning adults contributing to the greater good or lost souls in some virtual reality detached from society. There’s no instant feedback. We have no supervisor, no yearly review, no way of knowing whether we’ve done right or wrong.
I’m confident some of my catchphrases and antics used to motivate, nudge, cajole, or discipline my two children will someday be described in the notebook of a future therapist, who then looks at my adult child and asks, “Tell me how this affected you.”
If I don’t expect perfection from my children, my own parents, or my spouse, then why would I expect it from myself? Parenting is a human endeavor, a journey of learning about what we’re capable of as leaders of tiny human beings, shepherding them through childhood and preparing them for adulthood.
If you find yourself hiding in the bathroom, rubbing your temples, wondering whether or not you have control of this parenthood thing, remember—you don’t have to be mistake-free to be the best parent for your child.
You have strengths and you have weaknesses, which is true about anything we try. Self-awareness is key here. Just because you can’t be perfect doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it your all. So get back in that living room and give it your best.