I have, over the years, thought that a great little book—the kind people buy when they have no idea what else to give as a gift—would be essentially a list. Title: 1000 Things About Parenthood No One Ever Told You.
Here’s #896: You do not remain the same parent over time.
Now, I think about #896 frequently these days, as I am on toddler number four (along with teenager number one, tweenager number two, and kid of latency age number three). I mean, long, heartfelt descriptions of my child for new teachers have morphed into lists or extremely brief, relatively unhelpful answers. For the toddler teachers’ questionnaire query, “How do you handle your child when acting out?” or something along those lines, my answer was, Time-outs and good cheer!
This isn’t to say my oh-so-brief answers aren’t true. They are. And I really do pay attention to my kids and I really do worry about them. I just don’t do lots of thing things—say, filling out forms—in the same way I used to.
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Perfect case in point: last Sunday, the eldest’s fifteenth birthday (add exclamation point here, because, really? WOW), a day upon which at the town’s favorite local ice cream emporium, one is entitled to a free sundae (ID required for proof of birthday, although bringing one’s mother to vouch for the veracity of the date counts if one’s not yet of driving, voting or drinking age). Obviously, the birthday guy got his birthday sundae (in case you’re wondering, peppermint ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream, Andes mints and, yes, a maraschino cherry). I didn’t bat an eye at his good friend’s order nor his nearly eight year-old brother’s order.
So, what’s the reason I know this guy had a different mama than the current two year-old does?
Well, for one, she goes to the ice cream store often enough to know exactly where it is. What’s more, the last few times (how else would she develop such a keen sense of direction?) she’s been there, she’s peered through the glass case at the giant waffle cones dipped in chocolate and spackled with rainbow sprinkles (almost as filled with colorful dyes as the maraschino cherries, not the real, dark chocolate sprinkles, mind you) and asked for one. Without a moment’s hesitation, I’ve denied her. Somehow though, I was feeling all gracious and generous and magnanimous and mostly, I think, relaxed, in celebratory my-kid’s-15 mode and I let her have the cone. She wanted ice cream. I got a teeny-tiny dish of vanilla ice cream. No surprise, she had maybe three bites of ice cream and about six bites of the cone.
Mostly, it was an expensive treat for a toddler, rather than a particularly egregious one (at least from my been-a-parent-15-years’-perspective).
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For comparison’s sake: the teenager? He got a zucchini muffin baked by his mama (here’s the recipe although I cut the oil in half and use plain yogurt) with not very much sugar in it for his second birthday (oh, and he did not finish the fifteenth birthday sundae).
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The most striking thing for me, though, was how much I had changed, how the things I do worry about are so different and the things I once thought mattered a great deal seem pretty (relatively) insignificant. I mean, I don’t think it’s necessarily the best, most desirable thing to give a toddler endless ice cream (and to be honest, we kind of do; it’s just that endless ice cream to her isn’t generally so very much ice cream). In the scheme of all that’s happening in our lives these days, though, monitoring her ice cream intake just doesn’t seem terribly important.
Here’s the important stuff: she’s a really happy little kid. Perhaps because there’s so much going on at all times, she is an extremely articulate little kid, and we do listen to her. So, she is very much heard. She’s a delight to all of us, and she knows it.
Even more importantly: while, with the first one, the moon really did rise and fall on him, I was so much more worried about every little aspect of raising him. I always figured I was doing something wrong. I always wanted to kind of “nail it.” I no longer believe there’s a chance in heck of “nailing it,” because every single day I mess up, be it by giving the toddler the giant chocolate and rainbow sprinkle waffle cone or snapping at the kids or forgetting something (insert something you’ve forgotten here, I’ve probably forgotten that, too). In exchange for all that messing up—my eldest describes me as a “free-range parent” with the addition of the fourth child—I have much more confidence in my kids than I used to, and I guess, really, I have more confidence in myself (and my dear husband!), too.
