Stop Raising Your Children
People take parenting seriously. As a child and family therapist, I work with parents wracked with stress about parenting choices and their child’s future. They see parenting as the process of transforming an infant into an adult. But what if parenting is not about “raising a child?”
What if parenting is all about you and what is happening right now?
We raise money. We raise houses. We raise crops. We raise children. Raising is a task. It is a thing we do to achieve a goal. “Raising” has a purpose. We raise crops—for food. We raise barns—to shelter livestock. We raise our voice—in order to be heard. We raise a question—to get an answer. Now finish this sentence, “We raise a child to, ____________.” Filling in that blank is critical to understanding what it means – for you—to be a parent. How you answer that question is not only central to how you think about parenting, it is central to how you feel about parenting.
“Raising” encourages us to consider each decision on the merits of whether it will move us closer or farther away from a particular goal. Turning our attention to what we define as “the goal of parenting” clarifies the thoughts, feelings, and frustrations that inform the cascade of decision we make every day. What we think about parenting becomes how we feel about parenting. It is the difference between parents who say, “Parenting is a burden” and those who say “It is a joy.”
“Raising a Child” automatically sets our sights on their future. Each of our actions is a step towards the life they will have. We are always looking forward, seeing that future, and then determining the best way to “get there.” Is it piano lessons before age 4? Is it limiting “screen time” to one hour a day? Or making sure she always gets to bed before 7:30? To think “success” or “failure” rides on any of these decisions is incredibly stressful. But, it’s bigger than that. It is incredibly disrespectful to a child. Humans are not fragile. We are the most adaptable animals on the planet. Trust yourself and trust them. We’ve been on this journey for 2.5 million years.
Having children takes effort, that’s obvious. Every day is filled with choices about food, reprimands, encouragement, and neglect. Those choices do have consequences. But, how much importance do you place on those choices? How do you see the relationship between your judgments and your child’s future? Parenting is about choices, but it is not about “raising a child.” It’s about the experience of parenting itself. I know this sounds crazy, but parenting is not about our children. It is about us. When we focus on the goals of parenting it is worth asking whose goals we are working to achieve.
Think about that and then consider these questions about “raising a child:”
How would you define, “achieving the goal?”
Whose goal is being fulfilled?
What would determine, “not achieving the goal?”
What kind of feelings emerge when you think about successfully achieving the “goal?”
What kind of feelings emerge when you think about NOT achieving the “goal?”
Are those feelings about you or your child?
Is it possible you are using your child to achieve a goal you are setting for yourself?
Might you be trying to “do it better” than your parents did?
Might you have a need to be needed?
Might the question, “What do I want to do with my life?” be easily solved by having a kid?
You decided to become a parent. Take time to ask yourself why. It is rational to think having a kid is a crazy thing to do. Being a parent can feel like being host to a temper tantruming parasite. It is easy to forget how the parent-child relationship is mutually beneficial. Turning our attention to what we get out of parenting, beyond the sleepless nights and loads of frustration, we can see it as a uniquely joyful endeavor. You provide your child support and in return they give you a VIP pass to the most amazing transformation in the animal kingdom.
Babies want to become adult humans, but they can’t do it on their own. They need parents—but do they need you? Are you the spirit that animates their soul? There are lots of ways to parent. The way you choose to parent is not about your child. It’s about you. I have worked with parents who lose sleep over their kid: eating a Big Mac, not being breastfed, not being enrolled in the “right” school, living in a single parent home, playing Fortnite, or dying their hair blue. They live as if any one of these events determines course of their lives. That mentality imposes an immense burden on you and your kid. Your child is better than that. Your child is more resilient than that. Your child is more powerful, intelligent, worldly, and smart than you could ever imagine. You are not the determining factor. You are not the sculptor. You are not the writer, composer, or designer of her life.
You don’t have to be a perfect parent—Nobody is.
None of us “teach” our children how to walk. We learn how to walk by falling down. When we fall down, we cry. But we get up. Suffering is part of the process. It is a part of life. It is difficult to see your child suffer. But when you protect your child from pain, are you protecting them or shielding yourself from your own discomfort? If you protect that child from his tears, you deny him the opportunity to learn how to cry, to experience suffering, and how to “get up.” If you never wanted her to cry, you would never let her fall, and if she never fell, she would never walk. We console them and trust nature to do the rest. Do parents see a toddler’s stumbles as steps back? Do we see their falls as moving away from the goal of walking? Of course not. We see it as part of the process. We see those failures, tears and frustrations as a process forward, not back. How do we forget that learning how to live is as innate as learning to walk? Why is it so hard to see how this simple process never stops and is more magical than anything within our control?
Maybe it is easy to see nature take its course with walking. (How in the hell would you teach a kid how to walk anyway? I guess the reason we don’t think about teaching it is because it was never “taught” to us.) Simply because we “learn” things does not imply things are “taught.” Most of the time the best way to teach is to just get out of the way. When a parent acts like their teaching is essential, they are telling their kid, “You won’t be ok unless I’m here to teach you.” Believe in them. Hold the belief that you are really not that important. Hold the belief that they will be OK. Do that and they will believe in their own power to figure things out. They will believe they are capable in this world.
We “raise” children because they need us. Like rows of corn, fields did not get that way by themselves. But does anyone really grow corn? The feeling of raising comes from the magical interconnectedness of our life experience and theirs. For twenty or so years your lives are inexorably intertwined. Then, in a blink of an eye, they leave and it all begins again. In a way, parents are just people you lived with for the first 20 or so years of your life. In a way, your kids are just people who lived with you for those first 20 years. If you break it all down to that level of simplicity, you can see childhood as just another stage of life, no more or less special than any other part of our lives. We all keep growing and changing. We think childhood is different because of the level of dependency and the immense amount of change. But to set it completely apart from all the other stages of our lives creates the impression that childhood is just the scaffolding within which an adult is built. Paradoxically it makes it less special, as if adulthood is the goal and childhood is just the means to get there.
To see a child’s every day as an end in itself, a moment of life no more or less special than any other, is to appreciate it. Each day is not merely a stepping stone on the journey to adulthood. It is a moment to love them for who they are right now. The idea of raising a child, to focus on future goals and outcomes, to think their future fully rests on your shoulders, takes you away from the moment both you and your child are experiencing. Stop raising your children. Stop being fearful of their future. Pay attention to the present moment and listen for what they need from you on their journey to adulthood. Children want to be seen for who they are – not for who you’d like them to be. To see childhood apart from all other stages of life and decreases its value. Life does not begin at 20. Parenting is not a goal-oriented process. It is a stage of your life like any other. Earlier, I invited you to consider this question “We raise a child to, ____________. Now, I invite you to consider this simple answer, “…. to enjoy the experience of parenting.” Odds are if you cherish being a parent, your kid will enjoy being your child.