A Few Thoughts on Being a Parent

Let’s face it friends. Being a parent and having the responsibility of raising kids is no easy job.

Just think for a moment: First there are the babies. They wail, shout and cry and unquestionably let you know when they are unhappy little campers. And it’s the parent’s job to figure out what ails the little tyke. What in blue blazes does this wailing, raging infant for whom I am responsible for its health, safety, and well being want?? Do you want to be fed? Or changed? Or held? Or put down? Sleep? Burp????? Don’t you wish that they could tell you what is wrong?

Well! Wait until they are two or three years old and they do start telling you what is wrong and what they want. And three year olds know what they want and how to get it!!! The word “NO!” from the mouth of a determined three-year-old has stopped many a grown adult in his/her tracks.

A few years later when things start settling down a bit for the parent, the child trots off to school, and after a day or two of traumatic separation, the situation changes. The school age child seems to be more concerned about what their schoolmates think and do than they are influenced by the wishes and concerns of their “old” parents.

And by the time they get to the teens they are flying off at the speed of light doing their own things and thinking their own thoughts—and woe to the adult person/parent who gets in the way and tries to stop the raging torrents of hormones and independently minded teenage wills.

Raising kids is no easy job. But I’ve learned a lot about being a parent in the last thirty-seven years. I did get some help from college professors, counselors, caseworkers, and consultants and by reading “how-to” books (I must admit that Dr. Spock was a great help in the early days).

My real teachers, however, were my three sons. Yes, my children taught me most of what I know about being a parent. I only wish that I would have known the lessons they were trying to teach me when they (and I) were younger. So, in the next page or so, I will share with you some of the important lessons I learned from my teacher/sons.

Lesson One: Punishment is Very Popular With Parents, But It Doesn't Work in the Long Run

How many of us have grounded the youth for six weeks “until he gets his grades up”? Did it work? Could you stand having a moping, whining, complaining youth confined in the same house where you live for forty-two days and fortytwo nights? Didn’t you make exceptions to the grounding….just to have some peace and quiet? And what about sending your daughter to her room until she “calms down” only to have walls to repair, mirrors to replace or have to take a quick trip to the Emergency Room to get stitches and an X-ray of her swollen knuckles? So did that punishment work? (By the way, I think that when most parents use the term “consequences” (like “If you don’t clean your room, there will be consequences.”) they really, really mean “punishments.” (“If you don’t clean your room, there will be punishments.”)