The Parenting Ride

Photo by George Howden on Unsplash

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”
~ Marcel Proust

As fond as I am of authenticity, there is one area in which I’m not entirely frank with people. When I see young parents exhausted with the effort of caring for crying babies and screaming toddlers, I often tell them, “It gets easier.” I remember the struggle of those years and want them to know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

In my mind, my statement includes a parenthetical that I neglect to voice. It gets easier (physically).” As in, “you will eventually get more sleep and not have a child attached at the hip at all times.”

As the little ones grow, parental exhaustion wanes, and the middle childhood years are often filled with great fun and adventure. But as the ride continues, it gets rocky again during the turbulent teenage years. Fortunately it smooths out as they settle into jobs and enter serious relationships. Full adults at last, exhilaration kicks in as they plan weddings and buy houses.

And then that’s it. Your kids are grown up, and your job is done. The journey is over.

Except…it’s not! As anyone with adult children will tell you, you never really stop being parents.

Who knew? And in some ways, the second part of the ride is more challenging than the first. The pace certainly picks up as their new families begin to grow.

I’ve been surprised by the level of anxiety we’ve felt watching our kids become parents—I guess because we know what lies ahead for them at every turn. Their first pregnancies are exciting but worrisome. Holding your first grandchild in your arms is sheer bliss, but only until it’s your turn to keep the baby for any period of time, and then it’s terrifying!

I’ve talked to several grandparents who’ve admitted that their worst fear is of something happening to one of their grandbabies on their watch.

When I was a young parent, I had no idea my parents worried as much about our kids as they likely did. I think it comes with the territory. I’m actually glad I didn’t know. I guess I had the confidence of youth to shield me.

It’s curious to me that with all the parenting information available online, hardly any of it is about these later stages. Most of what I’m learning about parenting adult children is from word of mouth.

The most surprising thing is how little our kids’ generation wants advice from us! We spend a lifetime learning from the school of hard knocks, only to find out that they’re not interested, too distracted to take it in, or worse — that our “old-fashioned ways” are out of date.

It’s a little disappointing, but we get it. We didn’t want to hear it from our parents either.

What a funny phenomenon. All that accumulated wisdom from our life’s trek, and no place for it to go. At least here on this blog and in my books and articles, I get to share whatever I please.

(Thank you, dear readers, for indulging me!)

And once in a while, I even get to share parenting tips!

But why is the need so great at our age to pass on what we know?

As usual, I turn to psychology for an explanation. Erik Erikson was one of the early psychoanalysts to study the personality development of adults, including in their later years. You may have heard of him and his 8 Stages of Adult Development. For each stage he described an identity crisis to be resolved, a basic virtue to be learned, and a corresponding age range at which it occurs.

I’m apparently in Stage 7, (ages 40-65), which Erikson labeled Generativity versus Stagnation. “Psychologically, generativity refers to ‘making your mark’ on the world through creating or nurturing things that will outlast an individual,” explains this Simply Psychology site. Older adults look to create positive change that will benefit other people, making them feel useful and accomplished. The virtue or strength identified with this stage is “caring.”

We care, and therefore we want to see things go well for our offspring.

But we’re learning to hold back at least some of our advice. Despite my grumbling (and I’m mostly teasing), I do know it’s fair that our kids get their own opportunities to parent as they see fit. It’s their chance to correct what they see as our mistakes and offer their kids opportunities they wish they’d had.

Still, the need to impart knowledge is there on my part, based on two of my enduring personality traits: empathy and efficiency. Why should someone else have to struggle to figure something out when I’ve already done that?

But our adult children are newly out of Erikson’s Life Stages 4 and 5, which have to do with competency, identity, and independence. It’s their turn now to take the controls.

My solution? To share my parenting knowledge with my nieces, nephews, and the children of my friends instead! (Only when I’m asked, of course.) Without the tricky parent/child dynamic in the way, they seem plenty open to Aunt Elaine’s pearls of wisdom.

If you’re a country music fan, you may remember Erik Church’s 2018 hit “Some of It.” When I heard it again on the radio the other day, I realized how well the chorus describes the wisdom we gather as we journey through life:

“Some of it you learn the hard way
Some of it you read on a page
Some of it comes from heartbreak
Most of it comes with age
And none of it ever comes easy
A bunch of it you maybe can't use
I know I don't prob'ly know what I think I do
But there's somethin' to
Some of it.”

Affectionately,

Elaine