Learning to Parent

My sister and her family left this morning.  It's amazing how quiet the house is with them gone.  Finn loved spending time with his cousins, though I think the constant stimulation, attention and recurrent close brushes with severe injury has worn him out.  He slept for 12 hours last night, and has already taken an almost 2 hour nap this morning!

It's interesting watching my parents with the boys...my sister and I have gained a lot of insight into how we were raised since the boys have come into our lives.  My mom adores her grandsons, but on her terms.  She will never be the grandmom that plays with her grandkids for hours.  Instead, she'll be the one that smothers them with attention as long as it doesn't interfere with her schedule too much.  The day after Christmas, we watched her sit on the couch, reading the paper while the boys played on the floor in front of her and tried to get her to play with them - she didn't even respond.  My dad is much more involved with the children, and they adore him, but he really has no idea how to handle discipline issues or a fussy baby.  I'm pretty sure that his grandparenting style is fairly similar to his parenting style, and while I don't remember clearly, I think my mom's may be the same as well.

My sister has the reputation as being the difficult child.  She cried all the time from the time she was an older infant on into her early school years.  She never seemed like she felt settled or secure until she was well into elementary school.  Flash forward a few decades to when D was around 2. J told our mom she didn't want to go shopping at the time our mom wanted to go, because it would interfere with D's nap.  My mom's response, "He'll be fine, he needs to learn to to be flexible," and later Mom complained to me about how J let herself be controlled by D's needs.  I told her that J knew that D didn't do well if he didn't nap and eat his meals on a regular schedule, and my mom actually snorted at me in response.

Later J and I talked about it, and came to the conclusion that all of J's crying as a child was probably related to her need for a schedule, and the fact that my parents didn't give it to her.  Based on her experiences when D didn't follow his usual schedule, we're pretty sure that he would have been just as bad as she had been, if J hadn't been an observant parent and responded to her son's needs appropriately.

My parents did do the most important thing right: I always felt loved as a child, and I feel loved by my parents as an adult child.  But I don't feel as though they were as involved in my life as they could have been or should have been.  My mom was a stay at home mom until I was in 1st grade, but my memories as a child that age center around me playing alone either with my record player in my room or out on my swing set.  I remember running errands with my mom, but I don't ever remember playing with her.  I don't remember her helping me with school work or reading with me once I could read on my own.  I know I never felt comfortable talking to her when I had fights with friends, much less trouble with boys later on.

Even before Finn was born, I knew I wanted to have a different parenting style than my parents.  I've read books, talked to friends and watched other people with their children, and have been gradually putting together something that works for me; I guess the closest thing to a description is "attachment parenting" though I'm not strictly following it by the book.  It's been difficult when my parents are around, because they can't help but criticize the way I parent since it's so different than how they did things.  It's helping that I've already seen some instances where I ignored their comments, and things have worked out fine.  One example is how both my parents constantly told me I needed to put Finn down more often when he was a newborn.  "Don't hold him all the time, he'll get spoiled and never want to be put down at all."  I ignored them, and I now have a baby who is happy to play on the floor by himself, as long as I'm somewhere nearby.  He knows I'm there if he needs me, so he's secure without me constantly holding him.

It also helps, reading scenarios in books that I can directly relate to my own experiences growing up.  In Superbaby, the author recommends avoiding labels with children, instead trying to praise them or thank them (or even describe them) based on their specific actions.  That really jumped out at me, since I remember always being labeled as "shy" and "smart" when I was a child.  That label of being shy really stuck with me, but the truth is, it isn't accurate at all.  I'm not shy, I'm just reserved in new situations.  I like to sit back and get the lay of the land before I jump into anything new.  It's funny, because once I realized that about myself, I found I had a lot more confidence in social situations - and I didn't realize that about myself until just a few years ago.  I wonder if my life would have been different if my parents had realized that about me when I was a kid and described me that way instead of labeling me as shy.  As far as being smart goes - I remember being so proud that I was smart.  Proud, that is, until I got to a math class that was really challenging for me, and instead of working hard to figure it out, I gave up because I figured I wasn't as smart as everyone always thought.  Which is exactly what the author of Superbaby says will happen.  Again, I wonder what would have been different about my life if my parents had praised me for working hard to solve difficult problems, instead of praising me for being the smart one.

We all want to be great parents, but most importantly, we all want to raise great kids.  In the end, I think I turned out alright, so it's clear there's a lot I can learn from my parents.  But in a single parent home, there's not the extra parent to balance out the mistakes, so it's even more important to me that I learn who Finn is and then learn how to be the best mom I can to him.  I think I'm going to expand my use of this space to write about the books and articles I read and how I interpret them to apply to my family.  If anyone has any suggestions for great books, articles or websites, I'd love to hear them!