Some of the hard things about parenting

Noah asked me if it is difficult having children.

I believe in telling children the truth, even about difficult things, because they find it out eventually anyway. Even while you are covering up a hard answer, the truth leaks through. So we may as well think hard about it, and think about it intentionally, and give him the most truthful answer I have.

These are the two things I came to.

The first one is like having your heart outside of your body. Elizabeth Stone put it better than I can: to decide to have a child is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

Somebody you love that much, and care for that much, and you are not able to solve their problems for them. The best you can do is help create an environment where they can approach their problems in a healthy way and solve them for themselves.

When I have a challenge in my life, I know I can do things about it. I can try a dozen different ways, a dozen different things. Some will work and some will not. The point is that it is in my hands, and eventually I always feel confident that I will grind through and find a solution to my own problem.

But when it is his problem, there is a limit to what I can do. At the end of the day I have to let him make his own choices and solve his own problems.

It makes me think of this.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

That is Kahlil Gibran. You can do your best to shoot them out into the world, but in the end it is their own life that they have to live.

The second one is that when children are young, a great deal of parenting is keeping the normal, easy moments from erupting into chaos. Moments that would be completely effortless on your own.

Giving them a bowl of food and having it end up on the floor. Saying let us go for a walk at the beach, and having that turn into a screaming match about not wanting to go. Going grocery shopping and being able to stand there and think, do I actually need this, instead of rushing round throwing things into the cart before they become dysregulated and start pulling things off the shelves.

The clearest version of it is that shopping for jeans with children is impossible. Not harder. Impossible. It needs thoughtfulness, and trying them on, and making sure they are right, and children do not give you the bandwidth or the time to make that decision.

Here is what struck me when I put the two side by side.

The second is hardest when they are smallest. Feeding them, burping them, getting them to sleep through the night. From there it eases, year after year, until they are young adults.

The first one I do not think ever goes away. It might even get harder, because their problems get more significant.