Musings on life

I find that people tend to make all sorts of statements about parenting that are utterly and completely misplaced, untrue, and totally bizarre.

Here are just a few:

“Is he sleeping through the night yet?”

Well, he is now 18 and still doesn’t. I don’t sleep through the night either. I usually wake up a few times because of various aches and pains or just because…?

“The terrible 2s, these are the most difficult years… just hang in there”

Uh… ok. Like my child won’t ever be angry or frustrated ever again after that? I see grown-ups having tantrums well into adulthood… so what about the terrible 38s? The terrible 22s? The terrible 49s?? Any suggestions about these?

“It’s only hard when they are small, then it just gets easier as they get older”

Uh… What? In my experience, each age has its own golden nuggets and its own challenges… it sounds dumb to me to say that a 2-year-old is harder than a 15-year-old.

They are still going through the same struggles of the human experience… rejection, loneliness, frustration, fear of not being loved… same boat, just different ways to cope.

“Teenagers are so annoying”

Well, maybe we need to let them be and stop trying to rush them into the unknown of adulthood? Perhaps they don’t need to be told what to do or think as much as we think… maybe they just need a trusted friend who will listen, instead of an authority figure?

Parenting always feels like it’s such a big responsibility, and we tend to believe that the fate of our children relies on us, parents, to make the right decisions for them.

Maybe it does. But what if it doesn’t entirely rely on us knowing best? Because often we don’t know best. Who can claim to know what to do, or what the world they will inherit will be like?

What if we learn, as parents, to trust more.

To trust our kids and to trust the process. And to chill the f out and just enjoy what is, right now?

Home education has definitely taught me that. It’s a hell of a ride, but then you have to be able to let go of everything and surrender. It’s like a roller coaster ride. You put the seat belt on and … close your eyes; 😀 you might scream at times … and your heart will come out of your throat fairly regularly.

Of course on those days when I doubted everything, myself included (especially myself!) – I had to remind myself that I’m not in charge of much, actually.

And plenty of variables are at play. And fate and circumstances and happenstance and whatnot. All there to throw banana skins and derail my plans.

So I might as well go with it, because if I don’t, I’m in for endless battles, and honestly… who wants to sign up for that? An ongoing battle against the Universe? Living in a permanent battlefield… yikes… well, I kind of do anyway. I think when people walk inside my house, they probably think that a bomb has just gone off. But again…. something I have learned, getting older and navigating parenting, is to carefully choose my battles…

It will all happen in good time. When the time is right. Or when I actually set fire to the place, on a day when I long for a tidy house..

Anyway, this is just a postcard from the inferno – just a random musing.

I hope you are finding your groove in the suspended chaos we call Life.

Speak to you soon

Noémie.