From The Desk of Mr. Houseful: Parenting

The moment you realize that your parents had no clue what they were doing when they started parenting, your whole world takes this weird, new perspective. After having my first child, my first thought was about how well they faked it. How did they make it look so easy? It was almost effortless. They just seemed to know how to respond and what to say and how to get me to do what I needed to do.

Once I had my second child I recognized that all that fear and non-confidence was gone. I felt it in my bones. I could handle this baby. All of the weird baby noises or coughs or fevers seemed remedial for my expertise. I could diagnose almost everything. Then I had my 3rd and 4th children. And I feel the same as I did with the 2nd. I’m not sure if the learning curve has a steep decline or if I simply stopped learning, but I felt the same. So I posit that parenting is like riding a bike.. or driving a car. It’s a little scary your first few times, but once you get it, you’ve got it. Sure you can learn to ride with no hands or learn to drive through snow, but it’s still driving/riding. You aren’t doing anything differently than you had before. You’re simply steering/pedaling a bit differently to keep yourself moving. I give my parents kudos though. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without them being the parents they were then. I recognize that there are moments where you just don’t know. You’re unsure of everything. You second guess and question every decision; every course of action.

We’re so afraid of making a mistake. All for it to turn out okay in the long run. I now recognize that most times when I stressed about the class or teacher or school or activity my children would join/attend/participate in, it was the most unimportant in their life. My son wasn’t even thinking about the things I thought he’d be negatively influenced by. I said all that to say this, parenting is a journey of peaks and valleys. The stress of figuring out how to climb the peaks and descend into those valleys is par for the course. You can take or leave my sentiments. I acknowledge that there are other points of view and belief systems built around parenting. Although, when I hear most of them, they sound a lot like