“I don’t want to, Mom. I’m scared,” my 6-year-old daughter said today on our way to her very first basketball game. This is her first organized sport, and it turns out that even though she’s quite the performer at home, she’s shy when she’s in the spotlight.
I told her to try her best, to have fun, and I reminded her that since she’d practiced, she was ready. Off she ran across the court to her team, and although her coach and fellow teammates had to walk her through several plays, she stuck with it and greeted me with a smile at game’s end.
Sounds like successful parenting to me. Why even write about it?
Because inherent in each pearl of wisdom I impart on my children, I look inward and wonder if I’m taking my own advice. Further, I wonder if sound bites like those I issued this morning are even worth uttering, much less following.[/pullquote]
In many ways, it’s easier to parent very small children. I would never have thought that during the sleepless nights with newborns or the hyper vigilance of toddler watching. I’ve already written about some parts of the job description that no longer apply to us (no more kneeling on the hard tile floor over the bathtub to wash little feet and rinse shampoo out of little heads), but today I want to focus on what country singer, Rodney Atkins, already popularized in his song, “I’ve Been Watching You.” Once our children are of a certain age, they mimic us, and it’s usually our bad habits they like best.
I’m a cuticle biter. Both Oldest Son and Youngest Daughter chew the skin off their fingers when they’re nervous or bored.
I hear my own words repeated back to me (complete with matching tone) when Youngest Son admonishes his little sister.
Soon enough, they’re going to call me on how easily I dispense tips for dealing with their fears when – in my own personal matters – I sometimes watch wistfully from a safe distance rather than reach out and risk failure, or worse yet, criticism.
I like to look at the idiosyncrasies of parenting … those places where we reside in too much comfort … where we’re proud of ourselves, say, even, self-righteous, and I like to expose my flabby underbelly in hopes that you, readers, will say I too am stumbling through the hardest job I ever applied for, and somehow got, even though I had no training or qualifications or even any sound ideas on how to do it well.
Years ago, although I’d always wanted to be a columnist, I was afraid to write about myself and my family. So instead, I decided to write fiction where I could hide. Now, although it’s not always easy to write about my personal life, it’s what I’ve chosen to do, and I enjoy exposing and sometimes exaggerating our lives’ joys and miseries. Likewise, I’m hoping my daughter will enjoy dribbling that ball and passing it to her teammate for a shot, and I’m modeling for her that you’ve got to get out there and do what makes you happy regardless of the your fears and what the folks on the sidelines say.
My daughter was scared to play her first game, and I gave her a rote response that was meant to calm her fears and build her confidence, but also to keep us moving toward that door so we wouldn’t be late, and perhaps, so I could avoid the discomfort she was feeling. The discomfort I am also feeling in examining my own fears, knowing that none of us – really – want to peel back too many layers.
Moms, there’s no time like the present to examine life’s convenient, auto-pilot aphorisms and to remember the best action is modeling for Youngest Daughter what it’s really like to walk across that court with confidence and play like you were born with a basketball in your hands.
Busy in Bristow is a parenting column not meant to advise, but to share the journey of parenting though both the good and the bad, and to explore what parents themselves learn throughout the process of raising their children. Most of it is true, although some of it is exaggerated.
Like many moms, Kathy drives a mini-van full of booster seats and Disney/Pixar DVD’s. When she’s not chauffeuring her kids, ages 11 and under, to activities, she teaches, writes fiction, poetry and this column about the challenges and rewards of being a mom to school-age children. She has a MFA in writing, has taught writing, language arts and gifted education.
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