Family Experience: Make It Personal

Yesterday vs. Today
By Kristen Ivy

It wasn’t very long ago that I stepped out of college and into my first ”real job” as a high school teacher. There were so many things that I experienced that year: realizing that I determined the class rules, that my lessons were responsible for training students, that other people looked to me as an expert in my given subject (Literature). Even as unsettling as these realizations were, I knew that they were all part of the job. This was what I had been trained to do. This was why I had taken courses in classroom management and Shakespearian tragedy. This was why I had spent countless hours apprenticing under more experienced teachers.

But there was one part of the job that I hadn’t trained for—parenting.

I can remember vividly the face of a woman with years more experience than me, looking at me and asking for advice on how to discipline her daughter. She wasn’t alone. Whether through e-mail or in a face-to-face conversation, many parents seemed to express uncertainty in their own ability to parent their teenagers. As I began to look more closely, I noticed that even those who weren’t expressing their uncertainties seemed to be living them out in the way they interacted with their children.

As I thought about these parents I was struck with the question: What would motivate an adult who is successful and competent to turn to a recent college graduate for advice on raising their child?

My observations led me to believe that one of the most basic and powerful obstacles these parents faced was guilt. Whether it’s was an ambiguous guilt over feeling inadequate to help their child meet certain standards or whether the guilt came from a more specific piece of family history, many parents seemed to be constantly doubting their own ability to parent their child.

Guilt is a powerful thing. It robs us of joy. It limits our relationships. And it prevents us from being the people we were created to be. No matter what the source of your guilt may be, no matter how much you feel you deserve your guilt and no matter how strongly others may add to your guilt through explicit or implicit reminders of your shortcomings, one thing is certain—your guilt isn’t helping anyone.

Guilt cannot heal the past. Guilt cannot somehow serve as penance to change the future.

After spending hours upon hours immersed in the world of high school students, here is what I know—teenagers need their parents. And they need them to be parental. They have other friends. They even have other mentors and role models. But they do not have other parents.

Don’t let the things that you wish you could have done, or should have done, or would have done differently impede you from what you can do today. Forgive yourself—work at it, because sometimes it’s a process. Learn from the past. But be the mom or dad your child needs today.