Crossing Fingers, Closing Eyes

Preface:  Okay, I wasn’t going to do it.  I wasn’t going to write about the Time Magazine cover because DEAL LORD, haven’t we had enough of that this week? However, while wading through all the articles, all the blogs, and all the hype, I saw one too many comments from moms on both sides of the stupid media-incited “mommy wars” snipping at each other about how their children were going to grow up wonderful and how damaged those “other” children would be.  I find it so irksome and tiring.  Here’s my response to that nonsense:

One of the things you do after you have a baby is to find a group of mom friends.  It's got to be done because one of the things that new parents like to do is talk about their kids.  A lot.  And if you try to talk to your childfree friends incessantly about poop color and exhaustion they will become bored and leave.  Then you'll be all alone in the world with a cute little bundle of noise that leaks shocking amounts of body fluids, and no one to describe it to.  So you see, mommy friends are necessary.  They are all about comparing poop colors.

I, myself, have found a group of intelligent, smart, funny, and creative mothers who have their own style of parenting.  We came up with it ourselves over dinner and drinks a few weeks ago.  While discussing the impossible behavior of teens and preteens, someone (maybe, possibly me) said that parenting these guys was like floating around in space with no idea if what we were doing was effective or not.  Someone remarked that we may as well close our eyes and cross our fingers, and that’s how the "cross your fingers and close your eyes" theory of parenting was born.   It's genius.  There are basically only three principles to this philosophy and they go like this:

1)     Do your best

2)     Find humor where you can

3)     Tell the truth, always.

Our group is open to everyone, except for the people who feel that their way is the absolute only correct way in the whole universe. Obviously, you cannot close your eyes against something if you already are certain that it is the best.

Our group accepts that sometimes life gets between the best intentions that parents have for their children.  For instance, sometimes children will lose a parent at the brink of adolescence.  Sometimes children will begin wondering about their biological parentage and hurt others in their curiosity.  Sometimes close relatives will favor a child of one gender over another, thus causing unintentional pain to others.  There will be countless situations beyond your control, and at this time it won't matter one bit if you breastfed your child to 3 months, or to 3 years.  It won't matter if you let them choose their own education or if you sent them to an extremely structured and authoritative private school.  Whether they co-slept in your bed or if you sleep trained them won't matter at all, because life happens.  Things that we could never prepare our kids for occur, and our kids will have to deal with it their own way.

I know what many of you are thinking.  You're thinking something like "But by parenting my child with the (insert parenting method here), I am building self-esteem in my child and empowering them and this will be helpful to them when dealing with life."  Well. Maybe.  Or, maybe not.  I think reality is that often people latch on to a parenting method because it’s the closest thing we’re going to get to an instruction manual for parenting.  There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you realize that it’s not a guarantee for how your child is going to end up.  

My own mom was parented by two alcoholics.  They were so far gone into their disease that they weren't able to take care of she and her sister properly.  The police once found my 2 year old aunt at the bottom of a freeway onramp, which is where she had walked to while my grandmother and her husband had gone on a binge.  My mom's 70-year-old grandmother had legal custody of both of them, but my mom mainly raised herself.  Both her parents had drank themselves to death by the time she was 19.  When that happened, she took over custody of her 10-year-old sister and raised her. She did this, and then she raised my 2 sisters and myself while going back to work and school.  Today she runs her own business and is a wonderful grandmother to 9 grandchildren.  According to some of the better known parenting theories out there, and some “research” as well, she should be violent, angry, insecure, and alcoholic. She is none of these things.  She is well balanced and as happy as anyone else is.

What I'm saying here people, is that it's a crapshoot.

So when you find out your kids have been lying to you for months about schoolwork and what they do online?  Cross your fingers, close your eyes, and pray that you're handling it okay.

When your kids are supposed to write a paper about a loved one and they decide to write about themselves instead? Cross your fingers, close your eyes, and pray that this is not a permanent affliction.

When your kids are getting too cozy with their boyfriend/girlfriend of several months?

When your kids are hurt by the mean group at school?

When your kids want to try out for the all-star team when you know they haven't a chance?

Cross your fingers, close your eyes.

Cross your fingers, close your eyes.

Cross your fingers, close your eyes.

Nora Ephron says this great thing in her book I Feel Bad About My Neck.  I can't find the exact quote, but it's something along the lines of how parenting has changed from a noun to a participle. In other words, it went from “I'm a parent" to “I'm a parent".  I don't know if the difference is clear to you, but I get what she's saying.  We’re over thinking things.  Of course we are.  We have access to too much information, and we want to believe that that information somehow gives us control of how things are going to turn out. Don't think.  Just do.  Do your best.  Be a family.  Love.  Argue.  Get mad at each other.  Forgive.  Don't expect perfection.  Don't expect anything.  Just be.

And through it all, cross your fingers and close your eyes.

(By the way, I feel like I should tell you that sometimes we cross our eyes and close our fingers, but that's only if we've had one or two extra glasses of wine.  It doesn't really matter, because the end result is usually the same.)

Have a good weekend!