The more I learn, the less I understand

Parenting in today’s society is extremely stressful.  We are always second guessing ourselves, and do what we can according to our own understanding of the need. This is very difficult to do, especially with teens, because either they don’t know themselves, or are being rebellious and not communicating with us.

We are human. We will make mistakes. We will need to say we are sorry and ask for forgiveness. Just because we become parents, doesn’t mean we are instantly infused with parental wisdom.  This is not said as an excuse or as a rationalization or is it meant to shift responsibility. I simply mean, life is very stressful today. For our children AND parents. If there is any real communication between people it is in a condensed form, which leads to confusion and mis information.

There is no ‘perfect parent’. It’s hit and miss. There are certain guidelines you follow, but as with any group of people, what works for one, doesn’t work for another. You need to be with someone consistently for long periods of time in order to know them well enough to figure out which is which. Today’s parents just don’t have enough time with their kids. I see it as more of society’s short coming than a parental short coming. Our jobs insist we spend more and more time away from our families. The jobs we do today are so much more involved, 10 – 20 years ago it took two or three people to cover our duties.  This stress cuts into our home time. Even if we do manage to make it home in a good mood, there is so much to get done when we do get home, there isn’t a lot of time left to just sit and play, or talk with our kids. This is assuming ‘they’ have the time, what with homework, extracaricular activities, sports, etc. etc..

Then on the other hand you have the schools putting the emphases on testing and burdening teachers with incredible work loads and requirements which doesn’t allow them the time to actually teach. To make up for the time not spent teaching a child how to learn, they send home incredible amounts of homework just to get the material covered. This is more time taken away from the free form environment children need in order to communicate ideas, thoughts, and worries.

These are just my opinions. I don’t believe there is a ‘one size fits all’ fix. Each situation is subject to interpretation. Add in divorce, and it ups the ante. The non-custodial parent has to try to find a balance between retaining disciplinarian power, and creating a relationship that invites confidences. Can you really blame them when they really just want to enjoy their child’s company for the short few days a month they have them? How can you be the all inclusive parent when you have them 48 to 96 hours a month? You don’t even have enough time to keep abreast of whose who and what’s what in that short weekend every other week, much less have deep philosophical discussions which open the window in to who they are developing into or what problems they are having. Parenting is not a 30 minute sitcom, or a movie of the week. As with all things real, it takes time for a problem to develop, and it takes time to correct it. We have run out of time.

Until society as a whole comes to terms with this and start implementing changes in operation, there will be disassociated children and parents. The one saving grace for us as parents, is once our children become parents, some of what we did/didn’t do will be validated. By then, hopefully communication between the child and the parent are in the process of being repaired.

Until that little fairytale begins, all we can do is continue to love them and do what we think is best, what’s within our ability to do, and have the courage to seek help when we don’t.