Never Say Never

Written by Jennifer Redmond

Parenting

It's a universal experience. Before you have children, you look at the most ill-behaved child and think that your offspring will never act in this manner. Your child will never throw a fit in the grocery-store checkout line, will never misbehave in church, will never defiantly blurt "NO" in front of your most proper relative, will never push his baby sister in anger or hit the neighbor's daughter. Your well-researched disciplinary methods will result in a respectful youngster who will never make you look like the worst mother ever.

And then your child is born, and the fantasy continues until your cherub develops a will. The next thing you know, you're dying your hair and eating your words.

I'm finding those words to be less than tasty these days.

Joke's on Us

My children are famous-no-infamous, for their humbling effect on their parents. Perhaps because my husband and I were fairly quiet kids, the antics of our offspring are recognized among family members as more than amusing. My own brothers even admit that their oldest nephew (my son), now in his late teens, is quickly setting family records for unusual driving mishaps and bizarre girlfriend scenarios. He is also the most likely of my children to embrace bungie jumping and bullfighting. I fear that his siblings and youthful relations are enthusiastically taking notes.

Some say the wild hair skips a generation. This must be so. Do you think I can blame my children's creative independence on their grandparents? Sure they're respected, law-abiding citizens now but maybe they once led a student revolt or locked their cousins in the shed overnight.

Regardless, those older and wiser are observing with amusement our efforts to maintain order in this crazy place where children have been known to sleep upside down (sure, the bed broke and he was really tired, but still...), wear their clothes backwards, fry oatmeal in a skillet, shelter homeless creatures of all species, and rig the light switches so you have to use a pulley system to find your shoes in the dark. To be honest, this is funny to everyone but my husband and me, although in retrospect we're laughing a lot more. This is how we nurture our own sanity.

Get Real

Every time I recall that naïve image of motherhood I had a long, long time ago, I ponder the eternal question that has plagued parents for ages: What could I have done differently?

Enjoy the fun?

Offering this obnoxious piece of advice to parents with a newborn and a toddler (or those with a 16 year-old) is like telling a new mom to "sleep while the baby sleeps." As I recall, I wanted to substitute that idiocy with "brush your teeth while the baby sleeps," or take a shower-quickly. Who needs hot water?"

So if I could give one piece of advice--and I rarely limit myself to just one--it's that people need to stop thinking that raising a dog is like raising a child. Bite-sized treats and a "good boy" aren't exactly training rewards for keeping grape juice off the carpet or resisting peer pressure to drink and smoke. Parenting is a long-term roller coaster that begins with the realization that those cute babies morph into grown people, with dreams and ideas of their own. They don't slow down as they get older. They just get really, really clever.

And how you react to their growing pains matters.

So every time I am tempted to say "never," I stop and remember all of the times that they did. I thank God that so far, their adventures and mishaps have been harmless. And then I say a prayer for each of my independent, free-thinking kids, because help from upstairs is something we parents always need.

Jennifer Redmond is editor of Inspired Mother Magazine, a freelance writer, and a parent-in-training of three teens. She moonlights as part-time marketing director for her husband's design firm.