Several weeks ago, I saw Vanessa Williams on Fox and Friends. I thought she was a tennis player but it turned out she is an actress on the second worst show on TV. (I have only seen part of one of her shows, and I know I shouldn’t judge so rashly, but it’s kind of like knowing it’s raining when lightening flashes across the dark sky and water wets my hair. I don’t have to wait until the basement floods or the weather man tells me it’s raining). She is also involved in Special Olympics; I think she is on the Board of this wonderful organization. In additionally she is a parent. When one of the hosts asked her what was her hardest job, she replied. “Parenting, it’s no doubt the hardest.”
How can that be I thought. I am sure she has a nanny, a house keeper, all the money she needs, and probably a driver. I don’t know if she has a husband; she didn’t mention one. What could make parenting hard?
Yet, many parents complain parenting is the hardest thing they have ever tackled. I doubt if my Grandmothers ever complained of parenting being hard. I know my mother had plenty of opportunity to complain. She had her first three kids during the depression and lived on a farm in Minnesota. She literally had no money. She and my dad lived in a tiny house which sat, without a foundation, on field-stones on the windy prairie. Every thing they/we ate was grown on the farm which they “share-cropped”. I mean everything except the flour which they traded for eggs at the local market. Six more kids followed over the next couple of decades. I heard her complain about many things, but never about parenting! And all her kids, now successful senior citizens, are financially independent, and have productive kids of their own. Those who are not college educated have enjoyed their careers, some of them owning their own businesses. She still lives in Minnesota at the age of almost 98!
Dogs know how to parent, so do cats, cows and even the dumb old ox. They seem to do it easily, too!
Our problem is we try to educate our kids before we train them. I’m not talking about toilet training, although I could add that, I mean training them to sit, stay, come,listen and the like.
I believe that parenting is about the easiest thing a person can do! At least it was for me. Oh, sure you say, that coming from a man who probably never even knew his kids names. But I was very involved with the kids. I helped with the cooking and bathing, read to them at night or told them stories. Even washed the cloth diapers and hung them on the line before going to the hospital in the morning! Ask any of of my kids to tell you about Mr. Tripletrot and his camel, Nearest. They ‘ll laugh telling you how crazy, mixed up the stories were, but they loved them at the time.
I spent most evenings with these kids; if I had to go see a patient at the hospital one of them went with me. They “helped” read x-rays, put on casts, and entertain the hospital staff. Weekends and summer afternoons we enjoyed each other with bike rides, hikes, visits to the zoo, anything to have fun with them. I never considered it work let alone hard work. It was just pain fun. Now these kids are all successful professionals with kids of their own. One night in June, Mary and I had the pleasure of sitting alone, after dinner, with two grandsons who graduated from high school this Spring. We, or I should say they, talked well into the night; I finally had to send them home at half-past midnight so I could get some rest.
I think the big Bogey man is the media who have bullied parents into thinking parenting is difficult. This mis-information has sold many how to parent books and self-improvement books. Least you think I am panning my own book you should know “Messengers in Denim” is not a book on how to parent, but a book on how to be a parent. There is a major difference.
Now, I know today is a lot different. There are so many things to distract us and so many opportunities for our kids that we just can’t fit everything in. But the big problem is we have failed to teach our kids how to sit, come, stay, stand, and converse with adults. Instead we have plugged them into TV, computers and “educational” videos; signed them up for soccer at age 3, T-ball at 5, and who know what else. Kids don’t need these things; kids need time with their parents talking with them, working with them, and becoming them.
Take home message: Be the person you want your kid to become! Then don’t worry, if you are happy and successful they will be too!