“Thank you for not having been that parent!” My Daughter the Teacher told me those words last
night, with some exasperation in her voice. She’s in a position with a couple
of her school organizations to make decisions about which kids make the
club/team/cut. She understands that some students will be disappointed, and she’s
always ready to talk to any student who asks. When her email blew up this
weekend after a Friday posting, though, it wasn’t the students who were contacting
her. It was the parents who were upset that their budding genius/prodigy hadn’t
been chosen.
“Thank you for not having been that parent!” No, I really wasn’t that parent. But I need to confess here and now that there was
nothing I would have loved better than being that parent. There were times when I had to fight every bone in my
body not to pick up the telephone or go to the school to right a wrong.
However, Andy and I decided early on that the best thing that we could do for
our kids was to teach them how to move forward though disappointment. Sometimes
teacher or coach decisions were made for good reasons, and occasionally they seemed
to be downright unfair. Sometimes friends would be unkind to them, accidentally
or intentionally. I would console my kids and encourage them to find the best
way forward. Internally, though, I would be seething, composing letters and
phone calls that were never made nor sent.
“Thank you for not having been that parent!” In retrospect, there were some times that I should
have been that parent that I wasn’t.
There was a teacher whose dislike for my child seemed to play out in classroom
targeting and incongruous grading. I know how those words sound to anyone
reading them today, which was partly why I kept silent at the time. I wish I
had spoken to the principal, because it turns out that there were other kids in
that class having similar issues.
“Thank you for not having been that parent!” I remember one time that I was that parent. My alma mater had not done an adequate job of
recruiting my child, in my opinion. I called the admissions office to discuss
my concerns, and the conversation did not go well. By the end of the phone
call, the junior admissions officer was openly mocking me. My child ended up in
just the right school and has done extremely well, thank you very much. Had my
child actually wanted to go to my alma mater as much as I wanted that child to,
though, my phone call would have totally sabotaged any chance.
It turns out that God has placed parenting in the hands of
amateurs. We’re all figuring it out as we go along. Sometimes we get it right,
sometimes we get it wrong, and most of the time we’re not exactly sure which it
is. I think that’s why God gave us love. Love will always cover a multitude of errors.
If parents and kids can keep loving each other while each is figuring it out,
then maybe we’ll be able to help create the next generation who’s going to save
the earth. Love holds the answer.
A parent who loves through thick and thin. Yes, that’s the type of parent to be.
