Contradiction in Parenting

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Have you ever noticed how difficult parenting is?  Not the up-at-all-hours, changing diapers, pacifying criers part, but the they-grow-up-and-change-and-you-have-to-also part.  What’s worse, is that not only do you have to change your parenting procedures, but often, you have to do the opposite of what you once did.  I know.  It’s weird.  Let’s examine.

  1. When they’re young, we have to coax them to bed and pray they sleep until the sun comes up.  When they’re older, you have to pry them out of bed in the morning and you go to bed before them.
  2. When they’re young, you have to do tricks to encourage them to eat more.  When they are older, you find you have to be their surrogate “full” button.
  3. Remember when we’d encourage them to say hello to people they are just meeting as they bashfully hid behind our legs?  Later, we desperately tell them to avoid talking to strangers, and in some cases, run away!
  4. But the one I find to be most puzzling and challenging a transition, is that of confidence.  As small children, we have one mode: cheerleader.  They DID do a great drawing!  That IS a good trick!  But somewhere along the line we have to switch gears and somehow teach them to be humble, teach them to always want to better themselves – all while riding the perfect balance between being  supportive, yet encouraging more out of them. 

So now, some cute pictures of the kids – as a reminder of why we bother with this full-time unpaid job of parenting…

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