I have two boys. At the end of the summer they will turn, respectively, 3 and 5.
The multi-billion-dollar parenting industry wants you to think that parenting is complex and technical and that you need expert advice to handle it. But I've discovered that it's fairly simple. I've unlocked the grand secret. Are you ready? Here it goes:
If you want to be a good parent, be a good person.
There you have it. Children will model their lives on the lives they see. So model a good life.
Terrifying, right? Warming the diaper wipes is one thing, but living a good life? Being a good person? Who knows how to do that?
But there's no way around it. You can tell them to manage anger constructively. You can tell them not to take more than their fair share. You can tell them that all people, even those most pitiable or aggravating, deserve empathy and respect. You can tell them that they should own their feelings and not be afraid or ashamed to express them. You can tell them that kindness is not weakness and that love can move mountains.
But if you react to your own anger with yelling or violence; if you hoard and begrudge resources; if you insult or berate others; if you are insensitive to those you love; if you bottle up your own feelings or attack perceived weaknesses in others -- if you do that stuff, that's what they do.
Those who know me well know that I'm incredibly hard on myself. In many ways, before I met my wife and had children, I'd become resigned to being a person I didn't much like. I berated myself, often loathed myself, but I didn't have much faith in my ability to be a better person.
But now I have no choice, right? I can't very well let my kids down. I don't want them to act like I did when I was young or to hate themselves for it like I did. If I want to do right by them -- and there is literally nothing in this world I could want more -- I have to learn how to be less selfish and more kind. I have to find the good person I know is lurking down there under all the layers of fear and doubt and I have to bring him out. If I want them to feel confident, to love and respect themselves, I have to show them how.
That is both the curse and the blessing of parenting. It's a curse because it condemns you to a parade of failures, small and large. Every day you fall short. (A story: the other day my older boy wouldn't let me take a splinter out of his foot because he was scared, and I told him to stop being a baby. I actually said that. More than once! And having learned the whole verbalize-your-feelings thing, he then said, "Dad, every time you call me a baby it makes me sadder and sadder." Boy did I sleep well.)
But it's also a blessing. Your aspirations for your children become aspirations for yourself, and for your community, and for the world. Your love for your children refracts, and is thrown everywhere.
Anyway, if you'd like to hear someone much more eloquent (and succinct) than me discuss it, check out Barack Obama's Father's Day speech. Or watch this:
Chuck Norris on Copenhagen
Comments
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:45 pm
15 Jun 2008
Judith Rich Harris, the foremost person in recent times to point this out publicly, has written 2 books explaining the evidence, The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do--Parents Matter Less Than You Think and Peers Matter More and No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality. Her website is here and one of her short essays explaining her ideas is here.
All of which is not to say that you have no way to affect the outside-the-home personalities of your sons, just that your ability to affect them is less direct, through the decisions you make that will help determine who their peers will be during childhood.
"You can never get enough of what you do not really want." - Huston Smith
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Steven T Posted 3:00 pm
15 Jun 2008
So a friendly amendment? If our kids learn the most from our actions rather than our words, then we might tone down the rhetoric and become better -- much better -- at standing back and observing our own behavior.
If we see things we don't like, it isn't easy to change. A big reason why is because we don't move through life in isolation. We are part of a family system whose basic dynamics may reach back generations.
If, for example, our family system suffers from widespread and largely untreated alcoholism, that won't be an easy issue for an individual family member to deal with. Indeed, the individual may not transcend his or her own addictive tendencies without reaching for support outside that family system. Renegotiating the power structure in a dysfunctional family system can be particularly difficult when you have kids.
Children are mirrors into our souls. In their own way they are like Zen masters, because they place before us every day new challenges to the way we have lived. Try as hard as we might, we as parents will never quite "get it right." That's because we are human. But if we are able to model empathy, perhaps our children will end up having empathy for us, and we can laugh together at the absurdities of life.
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kmp Posted 1:46 am
16 Jun 2008
While I can see the logic in the theory that John Fish Kurman presents, that you cannot control who your children turn out to be (my own siblings are a case in point) I also agree wholeheartedly with you that the best, and in fact, only, real gift you give your children is to be the best possible version of yourself, day after day.
Back in January I took care of a friend's three-and-a-half year old daughter for a month, while my friend was having, and recuperating from, abdominal surgery. Even though I would generally consider myself a "good person," I can't tell you how many times I had to check a typical behavior, or re-examine a behavior, once viewed through the lens of this precocious and very intelligent little girl. I would tell her that she shouldn't run the water while she brushes her teeth, that it is wasteful, and she would say "But you do." And I would think, "I do??" And I would have to answer "Well, I will stop doing that then." I taught her not to talk with her mouth full of food, and now if I ask her a question and she is still chewing she'll point insistently to her mouth and give me a look of great disdain.
Even in such a short time as a month, I found myself refining to a better, more tolerant and more understanding person, even with the background of exhaustion (5:30 am is NOT my normal wake up time!), worry over my friend's health, and stress in trying to do my job at night and during the all too infrequent naps.
The other day, I was talking to my friend on the phone, when my little (now 4 year-old) charge got on the phone to tell me about her day in school. When she was done, she said "I love you, Big K" (my nickname, to distinguish from her 3 year-old friend Kayla). It should be ridiculous, the rush of pride I felt at hearing those words; it should be, but it isn't. I want to continue to be worthy of her love, to be the best possible person I can be, in her eyes and in mine. And not so she will grow up to be just like me; so she will grow up understanding the joy of being the best possible person she can be.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:01 am
16 Jun 2008
It's a pyramid. Built stone by stone. Good job exposing it DR! It just maybe the biggest problem, underlying all other problems. On target as usual.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 3:25 am
16 Jun 2008
Good words from Barack and Kaela, too! Kaela, it is for such as you that the proverb, "A friend in need is a friend indeed," has been passed down.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 9:33 am
16 Jun 2008
I forgot one thing, if you encourage kids to remove their own splinters it suddenly doesn't hurt. It's like majic.
You just have to love it how DR's story directly illustrates how we all need to give ourselves a break from our own harsh judgement of ourselves, in order to give that same break to others, especially those we love and care for. Aum, that's zen.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 9:46 am
16 Jun 2008
I might add, totally unrelated to anything: DR is indeed a fuzzface, but the nape of his neck is adorable.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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