One of the biggest challenges I feel I face as a parent is figuring out when to push for what I think is good for my kids and when to allow room for my kids to decide for themselves.


Another big one is being ready for their answer to my questions I don't really like without making my kids feel they should have told me what I wanted to hear instead. In other words, accepting who they are and what they like without judgement.

Last night after his pops concert he had just performed in, I asked my son how much he enjoyed having performed. He shrugged his shoulders and said he wished he could have been home playing with friends. I was very disappointed in his answer, having loved every minute of performing in my band days, even 5th grade. After he walked away, I settled down to realize he just isn't me and I shouldn't be expecting all the "right" answers. And this was fairly inconsecquential. What about the really big incidents in his life? I have to be ready for the big stuff.

There is nothing unusual about these challenges. But they both have me thinking and worrying fairly constantly.

I sure would like to have more instinct to work with on the first one. Being able to make a quick call would be a monumental thing in my life! I spend an awful long time mulling things over sometimes and I wouldn't say it gets me great results either. To make J participate more in things he tends to shy away from, to force my daughter to call for her own hair appointment and to order her own food at a restaurant and more weighty things too. I think back on my own life and wish my parents had pushed me a bit more with constructive help and a direction and dialogue. But then would I have been more than what I am now or just resentful they pushed me?

The second challenge is more of an adjustment really. I like to think my kids take after me and enjoy things like I did at their age or do now. But many time I am slapped in the face with the reality that they are their own persons. It's actually a wonderful feeling after the burn had dissipated. I can enjoy the thought they are certainly unique people. I don't want "Mini Me's".

One of my best friends has a daughter a few years out of high school. This daughter revealed through many troubling episodes she was gay which is not really a shock to me. I sort of saw it from her. But it absolutely killed my friend. This was her only daughter. The kind of daughter who is a best friend and shopping buddy, a girly-girl daughter, sharing dreams of a marriage and family. Trouble was, my friend ended up with really broken dreams because they were her dreams, not her daughter's. She is only now recovering enough to share good time with her. They care deeply for each other and it's a tight knit family. She can treat the daughter with loving kindness. But she feels she will never get over it from a mom's standpoint.

I don't want to invest time dreaming of what my kids will accomplish and what directions they'll take because if I route things out for them in my mind, I would undoubtedly change their ideas for their own futures. I try really hard, hopefully succeeding, to encourage them to follow their ideas. I tell them I am their biggest fan and want what they want as long as it isn't going to maim or kill them.

But sometimes it's too much mystery for me to handle. I don't tell them what I'm thinking. What are they going to do with their lives? What are they going to do wrong and right? What have I done right or wrong for them and to them? How much will they have to shell out for psychoanalysis? I have to prepare and plan for all that.


I don't call them my little science projects for nothing.