Parenting for Dummies

We're at full-tilt teenage cruise. That is, my kids are now fully teenagers and the fun has just begun.

I find myself sitting back and thinking a lot about my own teenage years. It humbles me a bit before I get too much in their faces. It brings me back short to remember "when".

Still, my job as a parent is to provide less of a guide at this point and more of a direction. I liken it to sledding. The direction is not always the question, but avoiding obstacles is. It's as if I sit behind my kids, with my arms around them, ticking off debris and pulling back or forth for the right momentum. Yes, that is it exactly.

We are fully discovering the art of maniupulation by young people intent on having their way. The performances are lively, interesting and always challenging. Like when they were little, I always get requests when I'm involved in other conversations -- on the phone, especially -- so now the rule is, "If you want a quick 'no', ask me when I'm on the phone (or otherwise engaged)."

There is no job that puts you more in front of yourself, with all your demons, ambitions, desires and dreams than the job of being a parent. You confront yourself and your fears each time they walk in the door, or worse, when they leave. I use to think that all the rules at church, work, school were created by adults that clearly had their own childhood/adolescence in mind. Now, I'm sure of it. Being a parent means that you realize not only the magnitude but also the potential for major life mistakes...and probably, you've already experienced them.

I believe good parenting is like renting a house...you know your role isn't permanent and that you have to keep it nice for the next folks that move in. My kids are now well on their way to their own lives and the people with whom they "do life with" will more or less, pick up the slack on what I did -- and did not -- teach them. I've thought a good deal about situations that we might encounter as they make their own life choices.

I hope to be the kind of parent that communicates love regardless of lifestyle or profession. I hope that my kids know that their life is THEIR LIFE, and not some version of my own. I hope most of all that my own demons don't haunt them or hold them hostage. In short, my job as their parent is to make myself unneeded and, hopefully, unwanted. I would not want my kids to "miss me" too much when I'm gone...I hope that they remember good times and funny times but I want them to move on with their lives with what they rec'd from me, not running from some tyrannical idea of what they might think I would want.

Every job I've ever done pale in comparision to the energy, committment, joy and pain with parenthood. I pray that God raises these kids in spite of me.