Parenting: It’s About Growing Up Yourself

In college, they taught me that siblings have different personalities partly because of genetic predispositions and partly because of the fact that their parents approach the art of parenting differently.  Since I was 20 and without children, I believed them.  With over another 17 years of life, a wife, and two children as additional seasoning to my life, I see very clearly that they left out a third variable.

I had this revelation a few years ago that older siblings pretty much undermine a good deal of the foundation that parents try to lay down.  I found myself spending an awful lot of time undoing the stuff my older child was doing to my younger.  The name-calling, the sibling torture, the shoving, the whispered threats…all the stuff those of us with siblings remember so fondly…these are all things that corrupt all the great, textbook parenting that I was trying to do.  I would become infuriated.  In one of those bouts of fury, I came up with my theory that siblings are different not only because of genetics and my parenting but because older siblings co-parent their younger siblings.  The problem is that they don’t read the same books that I read.  

I ran with that theory for quite some time.  It gave me some solace when my little one wasn’t behaving quite like I wanted.  I’d just point a mental finger at my oldest and think, “This is your doing!  I never would have trained him to act this way.”  Sad, really, but that’s how my brain was working.  It took me some time to really get the story straight.

You see, my anger was fed by one very misguided idea: that it is possible and desirable to control your children.  In addition, I allowed myself to believe that both of my children were acting independently of my own behavior.  Therefore, I was somehow absolved of responsibility.  Silly, really, but that’s how my brain was working.  

When I cracked the code, I literally had to laugh at myself.  What I realized was this: my oldest was not co-parenting my youngest, he was simply being a sibling.  He could no more parent his brother than I could parent my own parents.  But what he could do was use his wits to influence his brother, both learning and teaching valuable social skills in the process.  When I was able to see that fact clearly, I was also able to see my own hubris, my own ego at work.  Here I was, thinking that as parent I could play God and shape the outcome of things.  In the process, I failed to embrace the complex, interconnected network of relationships and influences that build the parent-child/child-sibling mesh.  I failed to see something beautiful at work.

Today, I do embrace how this all works together.  In doing so, I can appreciate and more fully enjoy my role as father. I can appreciate and enjoy the influence my two children have on each other.  That’s not to say that I don’t have my “meltdown moments” or that I don’t have to step in and undo some of the damage these two frustrating little people inflict on each other.  All that still applies.  However, as a general rule, embracing the process allows me to be a conscious part of the process, and I think that works out best for everyone involved.  

Parenting is as much about helping your children grow up as it is about growing up yourself.