On Being A Good Parent

In two posts, first here and then, in a follow-up, here, my friend and fellow Island resident Rob Paterson has asked some valid questions about what constitutes being a "good parent".  The posts - and the articles quoted - focus on what today's parents do to keep kids safe - and how relentless efforts to protect children from danger actually end up "protecting" them from living a full and rich life. 

As a corollary, there's the suggestion that adults who micromanage children's play time are doing more harm than good.

I couldn't agree more.  I get as exasperated with over-parenting as I do with neglectful parents.  I fear we're producing generation after generation of kids who won't have stories to tell about their childhood that don't start with "One day my Mom and I ...". 

The world is filling up with kids who have been so protected from danger and failure that they cannot enjoy risk and success.

                                       ***************

When Erin was about 9 or 10, she signed up for baseball.  They needed coaches, so I agreed to help out and ended up with a clot of pre-teens eager to draw from my vast knowledge of the sport. Well, good luck with that.  I've played softball and baseball, and know the basics - but that's about it.  I figured at that age, the basics would be enough, and I was more right than I expected.

We got to the first game and learned the League Rules.  In order to foster self-esteem among the players, the main rules were 1.  Every Child Goes Up To Bat In Every Inning; and 2.  Every Child Gets To Hit The Ball. 
There was no such thing as a "strike" or a "ball".  The pitcher kept pitching to a kid until that child made contact and felt the joy of running to first base.

Brilliant. 

How long do you figure that first game lasted?  It started at 6:30PM and went till 9:15 ... when it was called for bedtime.  In the goddamn fourth inning.

I mean, how could it not go that long?  Little Johnny or Janey would arrive at the plate, and anything that was thrown in his or her general direction was fair game.  Ten feet over your head?  Swing and a miss.  Ball thrown behind you?  Swing and a miss.  Whiff.  Whiff.  Whiff. 

Same kid at the plate for five minutes at a go, everybody - him, his teammates, the coaches, the spectators, everybody - praying that by some miraculous turn of events this child could accidentally make glancing contact with the ball so that it could dribble off the tip of his bat, squib to its resting place four feet in front of the plate, and dear Lord we could have another batter.

It was excruciating.

The next game, I called the kids over during warm-up.  I said, "How many of you signed up to play baseball?"  Every hand dutifully raised.

"Who can tell me what a strike is?"  Everybody knew.

"Who thinks the game we played the other night was real baseball?"  Not one.

"Who wants to play baseball, and not that game?"  Every hand shot up without one second's hesitation.

"OK.  Here's what we're going to try.  You can have as many balls as you want - the pitchers aren't that good.  But three strikes and ... what?"

A little red-headed kid ventured, "You're ... out?"

"That's right.  Three strikes and you're out, just like real baseball.  So if you swing at a bad pitch and miss it, that's one strike.  Swing at one over your head, that's two.  Swing at another and miss, you come back and sit down till your next at-bat.  Is everybody cool with that?"

They were.

I explained what was happening to the opposing coach, who looked doubtful.  "That's not how the league says we should do it," he pointed out.  "It's not fair to your kids.  I think we should play it the way we're supposed to."

"Oh, I'm good with whatever you want to do with your kids.  They can have as many swings as you want.  But my kids want to try this."

"Fine.  But I feel bad for them."

The game started, and our first batter was Luke, a big, goofy kid with a perpetual smile.  The first pitch was a mile high, and he almost fell over reaching for it.

"Strike One,"  I said.  His smile faltered.

The next pitch hit the dirt about five feet in front of the plate.  Luke swung and just missed tipping the ball on the second bounce.

"Strike Two," I said.  Luke frowned.

The next pitch was way outside, and he swung again.

"Strike Three, Luke.  Go sit down."  He looked back at me, eyes wide.  But the next batter was already prising the bat from his hand and Luke walked slowly back to the bench.

The next kid had seen what happened to Luke.  When the first pitch came in high, he didn't move a muscle.  Just like his heroes on TV.  He looked back at me and grinned.

Three or four pitches later, he got a good one.  He swung and made solid contact and I wish you could have seen his face when he arrived at second base ... the joy and excitement and sense of accomplishment just radiating from him.  He hollered back at the bench:  "It's easy, guys!  Just wait for a good one!"

And they did.  There were a few strikeouts after that, but they were honest cuts at good pitches, for the most part.  But almost all the kids got hits, and not little doinky hits off the top of the bat from swinging at a pitch three feet overhead - good, solid hits that rocketed through the infield.  Singles, doubles, even a couple of error-assisted home runs.

I felt sorry for the other team. By swinging at every ridiculous pitch (as their coach told them to), they were hardly able to propel the ball back to the pitcher.  Those times they  looked ready to wait for a good pitch, their coach harangued them to "SWING!"

The game was over in an hour and a half. We kicked their ass.  They were playing by rules set up by adults to "help" them, and they just could not overcome that obstacle. 

And when they did get a hit, there was no enjoyment in it.  They saw what we all saw - that their hits were mere chance, the law of averages coming into play. 

By protecting them from failure, the adults had managed to rob them of the opportunity to enjoy success.

                                      *************

When Erin was 13, she and her piano teacher Carrie-Ann decided she would do the Royal Conservatory of Music Practical Piano Exam.  It meant learning and performing a collection of difficult scales and short  compositions in front of a panel of judges.  Scary stuff, when you're 13.

The exam was on a Saturday.  On Thursday, Erin came home and said "I'm not ready.  I haven't practiced enough.  I don't want to do the exam this year.  Carrie-Ann says it's okay if I wait for a year."

"But you've known about this exam for months," I said.  "How can you not be ready?"  Erin shrugged. 

I knew what the problem was.  She has always had my work ethic, poor dear.  And what she also knew for months was that if she wasn't ready, she could back out.  Escape hatch.

I thought for a bit and said,  "No.  You're taking the exam.  We paid for it, you agreed to take it, and if I let you back out, what am I teaching you?"

She argued.  She cried.  She begged.  She promised.  She yelled, slammed doors, flopped on her bed, wouldn't eat supper, called me all sorts of names.  But nothing she did would change my mind.

Later that night, I heard her practicing.  She woke up in the morning and practiced, and when she got home from school on Friday she went right to the piano.  The pleading didn't stop, but when she met the brick wall she resigned herself to doing as well as she could.

Saturday came, and I drove her to the  exam venue.  I waited while she went in - no spectators.  I listened through the heavy doors as much as I could, and I heard some good things and heard some clunkers and it didn't much matter because I don't have anywhere near the musical knowledge to tell if she was doing well or sucking like a Hoover.

So I waited, wondering if I'd done the right thing.  If she did this and failed, would her confidence be shattered?  Would she give up piano?  Was I being a good parent, or was I trying to expunge some sort of childhood guilt of my own here?

She came out, and when I asked her how she did, she said,  "I don't know.  Some things I did okay, and some things I screwed up.  They'll mail us the results."

It took a month for the results to arrive.  When I found them in the mailbox, I had to wait for Erin to get home.  I wanted her to open the letter.

She got home, took the letter from me, and went down to her room to open it.  I waited.

She came up, beaming.  She had passed.  Just barely.  Not  Honours.  Not with Flying Colours.  She had squeaked through, but it didn't matter.  She had passed.

The thing is, she didn't need to take the exam that year.  I could have protected her from the risk of failing it, of having to go back and practice all that same stuff all over again.  I could have let her walk away from the fear.  But then what?

She's an elementary and middle school music teacher now.  She has a Black Belt in Karate and teaches that, too.  She does some things knowing she might suck but not afraid of sucking.

And she keeps her word.  When she says she's going to do something, she doesn't bail.

                                     *********

The point of all this is not "Oh, look how smart I was," or "Oh, I was the best parent ever!".  I was like any other parent. I screwed up more than I'd like to admit and sometimes it feels like my kids survived and thrived in spite of me rather than - as we all would like to believe - because of me.

When people ask me if I'm proud of what my kids have done, I demure.  Their accomplishments are not mine, and while I can admire what they've done, I won't appropriate their pride in it.  The risk is theirs, and the pride is theirs.

But I am proud of them as people - as decent, kind, productive human beings - and proud of the job we did in staying out of their way so they could become everything they are.

And that's the key, and the point of all this.  We stayed out of the way and demanded our kids take risks on their own, that they not play things safe, that they face the spectre of failure one on one and do their best to beat it back.

Being a good parent isn't about protecting your children from danger.  When we create a society where children are kept captive by their parents' paranoia, shuttled from activity to activity, shielded from the bogeyman in the darkened bushes or the possibility of failure or disappointment or falling short, we cheat both our kids and ourselves.

Our kids, because they lose an essential element of childhood.  And ourselves, because we foolishly squander the potential they once possessed.   

Comments

[Bucky Four-Eyes]

Good for you and for your girls that you didn't raise them to be pussies. Well, you know how I mean that. Now they're actually prepared for the real world, better than the bubble-wrapped, over-protected little shrinking violets that so many parents are fostering all around us.

[Katie]

Very well said! :)

[Squirl]

Yes, definitely good job on your part. You not only let them fail, you didn't put unrealistic expectations on them to overachieve. And look how well they've done.

[Squirl]

Oops, I shouldn't try to carry on a conversation and comment at the same time. I meant that you gave them the leeway to fail if that's what was to happen. They're lucky that you were smart enough to give them that opportunity.

[Melissa]

As a mother of 5 grown children I had to let them try or fail as I was always having too many balls in the air.Sometimes I'm amazed at how wonderful they have turned out,now I know. Beautfully written.

[Lauren]

Well Said.

[William]

THere is a book out that touches on this subject somewhat. I have not read it but I haerd that author interviewed. The book title is Last Boy in the Woods.

[twisteduterus]

This past week I had the luck of scoring a ticket to listen to the two guys who are the "Mythbusters", a Discovery channel show. Through experiments the prove or disprove urban myths.

One of the things they talked about was failure. They are not afraid to show their failures on TV and that it is Ok to fail. In their opinion as well, we are not allowing kids to fail and make mistakes and learn.

[Lowa]

AMEN!

I tell my kids ALL THE TIME that making mistakes is a good thing because then we learn from them.

So many kids in this country "graduate" from high school barely able to read and do basic math. Instead of working with them and finding out their learning style and how best to present concepts to them, the administration just keeps shuffling them along and pushing them through for fear of damaging their self esteem by failing them. I understand that in a huge classroom it is very difficult to give kids the individual instruction they may need. Still, just letting them do whatever they think may be right and then telling them it is, so they will feel encouraged obviously is not working! How unfair is that to these kids!??! I don't know if things are this bad in Canada yet, since I have been gone for so long. When I grew up there, this was not the case. I failed PLENTY! LOL

My brother moved from Canada to the USA to teach creative writing at a University for a few years. I had told him of the education system in this country and he didn't really believe me until he was teaching here. He was totally shocked at how inept most of the students were! He did not have these issues with his Canadian students. The American ones whined when he failed them because they were honestly clueless with the basics! He said that my 12 year-old-son wrote better than they all did! He could not get over how they did not have a basic understanding of proper writing or the most simple things.

I am just using this as an example of what you are saying happens when we "baby" kids. People complain about the education system getting worse all the time and this is one of the many reasons. I don't think they had these issues 30 or 40 years ago, before they adopted this system of "encouraging" and not letting them get something wrong and then showing them the correct answer or helping them to figure it out. Or even better, watching them figure it out and just being there to guide and encourage! I am all for encouraging, that is great. Just not being false and allowing the poor kids to think all is well when they are WAY OFF. So sad and unfair to the kids who suffer:(

I love what you did with the baseball team! How awesome!

[Susie]

"By protecting them from failure, the adults had managed to rob them of the opportunity to enjoy success." Exactly. I'm trying to do my parenting gig in this way. Our civilization regresses if good people can't risk failure.

Just this week, I gave a grad student, one of the best I've ever had, an evaluation in which I told him, "You've screwed up ROYALLY a few times." And I went on to tell him how thrilling it was for me, his mentor, to see that, because it meant that he was honest enough with me to let me know what he was really doing, and, more importantly, passionate enough about the work to go out on a limb from time to time. I told him if someone gets through the year without making big mistakes, I perceive them as not caring enough to "put out."

Applause for your post, and your perspective. Sad that it isn't more widely held.

[K @ The Homestead]

"Brilliant Failure!!!" Name that movie.....

[Rob Paterson]

Nils - bang on and great examples - how did we lose hold of the reality of real achievement?

[Breeda]

Great post - another thing I don't get is the need to fill children's lives with 'activities'. My siblings started their families way after me - my youngest is now 19 and the next oldest cousin is 8 and she has after school things to do every day plus 2 on Saturday. What happened to 'doing nothing'! and a quick comment on your bald post my father always used to say 'all noble men are bald'!!

[UCM]

I about bawled when you said that Erin was a music teacher. Think of how her life may have taken a different turn had she not done what she did because you would not let her quit. I have a similar story, and I'm glad my parents wouldn't let me quit. It shaped who I am today.

Bravo, Nilbo, bravo. I was enthralled with the baseball story. You can't make that stuff up. Wonderful.

[Lyn]

I was raised to make decisions about what I wanted, go for it or not, but to live with my decisions. If my choice could have been permanently damaging, my parents stopped me and explained why, but in the day to day things, it was my option. They also pointed out ... nothing ventured, nothing gained, but think first! I made mistakes, but I learned to think, as well.

I, too, played piano. I froze at recitals, so my "Carrie-Ann" excused me from further terror after the second painful attempt; however, I competed in a similar system, judged by a panel on my skill, playing prepared selections and one of their choice, always doing very well. I later learned that, while playing solo terrified me, I did well as part of a group (orchestra) and excelled at acting.

One never knows where their strengths lie unless they try, something I attempted to pass on to my own children. Sometimes their choices bombed, sometimes they excelled. But they both knew they had the final decision, and the great majority of those were good ones. Neither swings at every pitch, nor strikes out waiting for perfection. I'm proud of them both. You understand that.

[Erin]

Lyn: We had two rules growing up and they both fell under the category of "not doing anything that will permanently damage or end your life" ...
1. Don't get pregnant before you get married.
2. Don't drink and drive (or get in a car with someone who has been)
Everything else was our bad decisions that we had to live with. Even, like, marrying a redhead when you know any kids you have will be destined to have the same pasty white burns-even-thinking-about-the-sun skin. For example.

[Nils]

It was more "Don't get pregnant by accident". Getting married was a bonus.

What the girls heard - ad nauseum, through their teenage years, to the point where they could (and would) mouth the words along with me - was "Don't do anything life threatening; don't do anything life altering." That was the mantra.

I support parents who harangue their children not to have premarital sex, not to do drugs, not to drink, not to ... whatever. Your kids, your call, fill your boots. I never felt such imprecations worked on me as a teen and had no particular reason to believe they would work on my children. Instead, I took the moral issues out of the equation and focussed instead on simple, practical demands that met my concerns as a parent.

I didn't care if my daughters had pre-marital sex. I cared if they got pregnant and altered the course of their life. "Don't get pregnant by accident," seemed (and ultimately, was) a reasonable and achievable demand - I figured my girls would meet me there, whereas if I'd said "Just don't have sex", I would be fighting biology, peer pressure, and those pesky, all-too-persuasive boys.

That's why I roll my eyes at parents and school systems that focus efforts on demanding (and expecting) abstinence. If your goal is preventing teen pregnancies, why not focus your message on that? Even if you believe (I don't) that there is a correlation between sexual activity and "immorality", you are picking a fight that you not only cannot win - you can't even know how badly you are losing.

[Bucky Four-Eyes]

I find the whole "JUST SAY NO!" mindset to be absurd and impractical, yet so many people in this country seem bewildered to think there could be any other way to handle issues like sex and drugs.

Can I please come be a Canadian? I'll bring my own toque.

[Kathy]

Very interesting!!! Thank you!

[The Kept Woman]

Great post...I'm in the middle of a neighborhood 'thing' where there is a parent who is looking for any way to displace the blame for what her child did. It's frustrating b/c as a former teacher I know that this happens all too often. My next door neighbor said that the newest thing in college grads is to have their PARENTS negotiate things for them during the job search process...uh, yeah, can you even imagine!?!?!?

[Jana]

Great post. I see this lack of responsibility constantly among parents.

It is hard to accept heartbreak sure, but it is (should be) a part of life! Last month, my daughter was in a speech meet and you could either get 1st or 2nd place, that is it. She got a second, and although she was completely torn down, she held her head up and swore she would go back next year and do it again.

And isn't that the most important thing to teach our kids? Resiliency?

Funny, last night my daughter had her first softball game...4 balls, 3 strikes, normal rules. It STILL took us over 2 hours!!! (and ONE hit!)

[Jana]

Oh, and the two rules in my house were also "do not get pregnant before marriage" and "don't drink and drive or get in a car with someone who's been drinking".

I succeeded with the latter, but the first one I had a *wee* trouble with.

But hopefully my daughters will see that a)getting pregnant before you are married causes you to have to sacrifice a lot of things and b)you are also able to bounce back and still have a great life!

[shari]

"If you don't snag the bottom every now and again, you're not throwing the line deep enough in the water."

That was my granddad's little bit of salty fisherman's wisdom, and illustrates succinctly what you articulate beautifully here.

[sheryl]

Every month my boyfriend and I have one of my nieces over for a weekend. J, who's 10 came last time. Because she loves sushi, we took her to Japanese and let her order whatever she wanted to try.

Midway through dinner, my boyfriend dared her to eat a (tablespooned-size) glob of wasabi. He said he'd give her all the money in his wallet if she did. My immediate urge was to stop the transaction, but I thought about how the two of them have their own relationship. And one aspect of it is that he tries to toughen her up and she responds by showing her how tough she really is. So I stopped myself.

Of course she asked him how much money he had in his wallet. She wanted proof of the stakes. He had $50. However much she wanted that $50, she wasn't about to burn her tongue and sinuses.

They eventually negotiated to a smaller glob and $20. And she did it with pride. And I let her.

[Mainline Mom]

Great post, love the baseball game story! I took that piano exam...scared the crap outta me but the pride was worth it.

As far as the just say no stuff...I understand the difficulty with that, but it's not completely in vain. It worked on me, (and certainly NOT for lack of opportunity) and so I can't help but have expectations that it can work on other kids. The goal is not just to keep kids from getting pregnant, it's to keep kids from being physically AND emotionally damaged from engaging in a level of intimacy meant for deeply committed adults. Nobody ever talks about the emotional repercussions...or the emotional benefits of waiting.