What I want our kids to know that they might not know

As you’re all but gone and you are starting your own lives, I wondered if you would like to hear the back story on why we did the things we did as parents. We hope you picked up on some of this along the way, but we’re not ones to over-talk things in our family, and so maybe some of this is new to you.

1. We were absolutely teenagers once upon a time too. We know what it feels like to be talked about, left out, embarrassed, confused, unsure, in love, broken hearted, regretful, excited, overwhelmed, discouraged, let down, overworked, worn out, lonely, bored, ashamed, scared, worried, and stressed. We remember our first kiss like it just happened. Music was our whole world too. We cared about our clothes, we had to get up early, we had too much to do, we felt dumb when school was hard, we were overlooked, and we had to miss important things too. Our parents said no. We thought they didn’t understand. We cared about the environment and worried about what the world would look like for us. The news made us anxious, and we worried about wars and natural disasters and violence. We stressed about grades and college and if we’d be smart enough. We wondered if we’d ever get married and have kids even though we wanted to so much. While the details are different, know that the world has always had equal amounts of good and bad; and in so many ways it’s so much better now than it used to be. And while you’re a completely unique individual, we’ve all been there. We really do get it.

2. You can’t shock us. We’re not dumb. We’re old. We have friends. Combined, we’ve seen and heard it all. And there is absolutely nothing you could tell us or that we could find out that would change the love we have for you. Nothing. We probably won’t respond the right way. But trust our love. Help us understand as we talk through things. Help us know how to help. We will do anything in our power to be there for you no matter how old you get.

3. We walk a very fine line between wanting you to be independent and wanting to offer guidance. It is very, very tricky and wobbly and we fall off all the time. We seem hands-off not at all because we don’t care. Actually, it’s the complete opposite. We care so much that we choose to trust you to live your life. We will never micro-manage you because we want you to figure out things on your own. And yet we want you to know that we are always, always here for you. I feel like we’re the spotters on the gym floor, nearly invisible but constantly on guard and watching. I don’t know if we’re getting any of this right.

4. We are grieving the loss of our children and the family we’ve always known. You can’t understand right now how sad this is for us. Ever since you were born we’ve been preparing you for your adult life, helping you to be confident and self-sufficient. We couldn’t be more proud of your independence and your abilities to live on your own, but we’re mourning the changes in our family constantly. We have to keep focusing on the good in it all. But sometimes it’s so overwhelmingly sad to see you all moving on and I have to consciously make myself do my own life so I don’t just think of my little kids all the time.

5. We want to be your friend, of course. More than anything. But not your buddy. We’re here to teach you, mentor you, guide you, help you, support you. But we’re not going to abdicate our responsibilities as parents so that you and your friends will think we’re cool. We’re ok being old-fashioned and a little out of touch with trends, but we love to have you explain things to us! As you get older it feels like we have become more like friends. And we’d love to be your advisors just to bounce ideas off. We like to do that with you too.

6. We respect you and your privacy probably to a fault. We’re not the type to read your texts or journals. We know that’s probably not wise and definitely not along the lines of current thinking. We want to trust you. And yet we know you’re hiding stuff from us. We know you’re not telling us the whole truth. We wish you felt you could. But we believe so much in agency, we’re willing to take the risk that you’ll make mistakes and have regrets. We’ve all been there. We are willing to let you hurt and fail so that you will learn. We have always tried to teach you a better way, but we have to be ok with letting you choose for yourselves. We know it will back-fire. And yet we still believe it’s the better way because we would rather have a trusting relationship than one in which you feel unsafe with us.

7. We’re not taking the easy way out by having you do chores. Not at all. It would be a million times easier to clean your bathrooms and do the dishes ourselves. In fact, I love housework, including dishes, bathrooms and laundry. I’d rather do it all myself. We are trying to not only teach you the skills involved in mowing, ironing, and cleaning a toilet, we’re trying to get you to notice your surroundings. We want you to see that trashes need to be taken out, floors need to be swept, living rooms get dusty, the counters need to get wiped off, the big dishes that don’t fit in the dishwasher need to be washed by hand. Ask anyone who’s had roommates or an employee how valuable the ability to see that kind of stuff is.

8. We don’t hold back because we’re cheap. We do it because we’re trying to create artificial scarcity and not give you everything you want. We give you limits and have you pay for things not because we can’t afford them or we don’t love you, but to help you understand what it takes to work for your life and the things you need and want. The last thing we want is spoiled kids. We don’t want you to take your comfortable life for granted. We want you to appreciate things. We paid for experiences we wanted to make sure you would do, opportunities that would strengthen you in long-lasting ways.  We didn't feel that way about sports so much, so we left that up to you for the most part.  But we never wanted you to miss out on something we felt would change your life because of money; we considered those things literally as investments.

9. We encourage you to write thank you notes not because we need your praise or because your aunt will be disappointed if you don’t send her a note. No. We simply want you to grow up to be grateful, humble people. We want you to recognize and acknowledge those who help you out, those who are generous or helpful, the ones who do things for you. We want you to thank your waitress for refilling your Sprite and your nana for doing your dishes for you or for the money she sends you. We want you to thank dad for helping you pick up your jeep or for buying you new shoes. Occasionally we’ll do something out of the ordinary for you like change your sheets or leave a little treat on your bed. We don’t need the thank you; it’s fun for us to do a little something for you. But we want you to say thank you because we want you to notice the people around you who are helping you make your life a little better.

10. We did it both ways. We tried putting you in soccer and karate and piano and swim and art. We ran around after school and into the evenings and weekends for years and years. But then we made the hard decision to quit most of it because we saw it was turning our life upside down. We wanted more time as a family. We wanted less craziness. We wanted dinner together. We’re sorry that you aren’t top athletes or dancers, but we’ll never apologize for choosing our time together. We encouraged you to do more as you got older and became more independent, yet we recognize maybe you’ve been at a disadvantage because you didn’t have as much as exposure to things as other kids. But we didn’t want to spend our weekends driving to far-off cities sitting at a soccer field; we wanted to camp and hike and be in the mountains and go for ice cream. We weighed things out and didn’t see you wanting to be olympians or playing for college, so we took that into account. We also listened to you when you said you wanted to quit piano and band and art and scouts and your yw program. We knew you’d most likely regret your decisions, and we tried so hard to talk you out of it, but we chose to respect your agency rather than force our ideas on you.

11. We would choose kind over smart, successful, popular, beautiful, talented, or athletic ANY day of the week. Of course we want you to develop your gifts, to try new things, to engage with people, to do your best in school. But we would rather have mediocre students and average athletes who are kind to everyone than anything else in the world. We don’t want your identity to be wrapped up in what you do; we celebrate the type of person you are. The greatest compliment we hear is how genuinely kind you are and that you are true friends. I can’t think of better qualities in a person. I’d take that over a gold medal any day.

12. We are prouder of you than you can even imagine even though we could do a much better job at showing it. You are our truly our greatest joy, and we brag about you every chance we get. We honestly think the world of you, but maybe we hide it a little because we don’t want you to get an ego. But I think we need to tell you more.

13. We absolutely believe in you. We’ve always tried to let you do your own things whether it was pulling apart electronics, sewing, painting, knives, building a forge, belt grinder, or computer, doing lights for plays, pole vault, or cooking. We completely enthralled with your talents, skills, gifts, and interests; and we hope we’ve encouraged you to try anything you feel drawn to. We have loads of confidence in you, and you delight us to no end.

14. I know you don’t agree with all our decisions, but we really are coming from a place of love, and we’re trying to live in congruence with what we believe. We’ve talked about all the reasons we say no to things, and to be honest, I really don’t know if we’ve made the right decisions. If there even is a right. But here’s the take-away. Know that your parents stood their ground for what they believed when it came to things like sleepovers and keeping Sundays different from other days. That’s something you can hang on to. We truly want to follow through with what we say we believe. We want you to know you can count on us to have integrity and to walk the talk. And yet, we loved hearing your thoughts and opinions, which is why we let you choose some things we didn’t agree with.

15. I know it sounds wrong and mean, but we’re not all about wanting you to be happy. At least not at any cost and not all the time. We’ve been willing to let you experience disappointment, discouragement, loneliness, boredom, and failure so that you will become stronger and a more empathetic, sensitive, kind, resourceful, resilient, and wise problem solver and friend. And sometimes learning all that that doesn’t feel exactly happy. I’m sorry it hasn’t always seemed like we’re on your side and that we haven’t protected you from the hard things. We let you struggle as little as you had to in order to learn, but we still believe there is value in experiencing life aside from happy.

16. We have a million regrets. Maybe a trillion. Things we’ve done wrong, things we’ve said or didn’t say, the affection we withheld or didn’t think to give—maybe honestly because we were so depleted ourselves. The ways we embarrassed you. Our inexperience and ignorance and naivety. When we chose ourselves over you. Our lack of knowledge and skills. Things we didn’t think through. When we parented from fear instead of love. When we didn’t see what was right in front of us. When we just didn’t know what we didn’t know. When we neglected to talk about the important things because we didn’t know how. And then it got too late and we still didn’t know how. When we butted into your lives. And when we failed to get involved. When we said too much and listened too little. When we insisted on doing things our way instead of asking for your input. When we parented by the book instead of from our hearts. When we tried to do it like others instead of listening to what we knew to be right for our family. For when we cared what people thought. For when we were so tired, so hurt, so distracted, so harried, so torn, so perplexed that we ended up letting you down. When we didn’t have anything to give. When we got angry and yelled or withdrew instead of holding you and hearing you. When we missed the cues that you needed us. When we thought you didn’t need us and so we didn’t try to connect.

I say it all the time to anyone who will listen, to myself, and especially to your dad. I would do it all over in a heartbeat if I could do it with all that I’ve learned. I know it could be better. But we were only young 20s when we started. We barely knew anything. Our heads weren’t even all the way done. We have learned soooooo much over the years and wish we could’ve done better. But despite it all, you’ve all turned out to be truly remarkable people, and we honor your resilience. As you become parents yourselves someday, take the good and leave the bad. Learn from our mistakes, but remember our love. You will all have your own lists someday. :) But hopefully as you eventually all become parents you will realize the depth of love we have always had for you, because you will feel that same love for your own children. You will likely want the same things for them as we did for you. You will have better resources, a stronger start, the benefit of all our mistakes; we always say and know you will do a better job, most generations continue to improve. But in spite of all we didn’t know and didn’t do, raising you kids has been the ultimate privilege and joy of our entire lives. You are our everything and there is no greater love than a parent’s love. xoxo