I’m a working mom. I’m really good at what I do. I studied for four years in college and ended my time with a degree in journalism and English. I used to work as a managing editor for a newspaper, and I rocked that job every single day. Before that, I was a reporter. Now I’m an author.
I know exactly what I’m doing when faced with a blank screen. I know how to create stories from thin air, how to pull from my experiences and craft an essay that someone would actually want to read, how to position words on a page so that I can communicate what it is I’m trying to communicate. I’ve been doing this every single day for more than a decade.
I’ve also been a mother every single day for almost a decade. You’d think that after this long, almost ten years spent in the School of Parenting, I would have a slight idea of what I’m doing.
But I don’t.
When I open the door to my twins’ room, where they were supposed to be taking naps, and I see that they’ve just colored themselves green with a marker they smuggled in their room while their daddy’s back was turned, I don’t know what to do. When the 9-year-old’s mood flips at the drop of a LEGO mini figure and suddenly the whole entire world is ending, I don’t know what I’m doing. When the normally complacent and obedient child becomes a back-talking fool and I have to address all that sass, I have no idea what I’m doing.
I study parenting books, pouring over them for all the wisdom they have to offer me. I’ll read examples about children in the middle of rebellion, and I’ll think, “Yes, I can totally do this,” and then the 6-year-old will sneak out the door with a piece of gum I just told him he couldn’t have and surreptitiously stick it in his mouth while his back is turned to me, and all of that wisdom goes right out the door with him.
My children have the ability to turn me into a completely bumbling idiot with one disrespectful look or one ridiculous prank or one irreverent question or simply their state of being.
When they sneak out of their beds on a Saturday morning before the sun has even deemed it time to wake, just so they can get into the frosted mini wheats and make sure they get their fair share, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they eat half their brother’s deodorant in the bathroom while everyone else is sleeping, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they fill up the bath water to a flooding point, even though they’ve been told a billion times not to, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When a boy comes home and tells me about a bully on his school playground, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When the 4-year-olds take the canister of gasoline that sits behind a locked shed and pour it all over the yard, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they wake up in a horrible mood, even though they got plenty of sleep (because I’m psycho about their sleep), I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they refuse to love each other, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When the angry one threatens to run away because we’re the worst parents ever, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When one wakes in the middle of the night just to tell me he’s feeling sick and then, before the words are even completely out of his mouth, something else comes rocketing out of his mouth, too, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When one of them suffers from anxiety and depression, even though I’ve lived with these myself, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they take off their seatbelt in the car while we’re driving 70 miles per hour down a busy highway, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I think of how impossible it is to give all of me to all of them, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they’re all talking to me at the same exact time, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they get in a slap-fight, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I tell them they can’t fly from the top of their daddy’s shed to the trampoline and they try it anyway, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When the 4-year-old cuts a huge hole in his brand new shirt, because someone left the scissors out, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I worry that I don’t know how to help the one who flies off the handle, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I worry about them, period, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When they mouth off one minute and then the next minute they act like I’m their best friend, I don’t know what I’m doing.
When I think about the next stage I’m coming into as a mother—the Puberty one—I don’t know what I’m doing.
That’s okay. Here’s a secret most parents won’t ever willingly tell you: We’ll never completely know what we’re doing. Our children are grand experiments—some days we get it right, some days we don’t.
Before my twins were released from their 20-day stay in the neonatal intensive care unit at our local hospital, Husband and I had to take an infant CPR class in order to take them home. We learned all sorts of things we’d done wrong with our three older boys. At the end of the class, we looked at each other and sort of laugh-cried and said, “It’s a miracle they all survived.”
It’s a miracle any kid survives, because we’re all pretty much clueless.
[Tweet “We can spend a lifetime parenting and never feel competent at it. We’re a community of scientists.”]
We can spend a lifetime in this job and never feel quite competent at it. We can read books and take classes and listen to what other parents do and try it with our own, but the truth is, we’re all basically on the same playing field—that is, amateurs. What works today probably won’t work tomorrow. So just when we think we have it figured out, our kids will promptly show us that we don’t actually have anything at all figured out.
Parenting is hard. We’re dealing with irrational humans on an everyday, every-hour basis. We’re never going to know everything. We’ll never anticipate everything they’ll do. We’ll never be able to predict who our children will be when they wake up tomorrow. They are daily growing and changing and coming into their own bodies and minds, and that means that the best we can do is sit back and let it happen and try to roll with the uppercuts, devising our next grand experiment for what might possibly work to turn them into a rational, kind, courageous, creative, joyful, gracious, enjoyable adult.
No parent really knows what he’s (or she’s) doing. That means we, the clueless, are all in good company.
[Tweet “No parent really knows what he’s (or she’s) doing. We, the clueless, are all in good company.”]
Now, please excuse me, because my kid just told me I owe him a million dollars for making him sit down and do his homework and for being the worst parent ever, so I have an experiment that’s calling my name.
