Raising Kids, circa 2006

I don't recall ever hearing the word "parenting" when I was growing up. These days, you can't even turn around without bumping into it. There's a lot more published, both in the academic literature but also in popular press, about the topic than there used to be. And, everyone seems to have a pet theory.

I don't have a theory, but I do have some experience and some observations. I've spent most of my adult life as a parent. One of the first benefits of becoming a parent is the possibility that (for the first time, really) you may start to understand your own parents. I suppose this may be because unless you're extremely careful, you'll find yourself repeating their "parenting" styles, some of which may no longer be culturally or politically correct.

You may also have come to the conclusion that your own parents made some mistakes, including serious mistakes, when raising you. If so, you're determined to not repeat those errors with your kids.

Your peers have lots of influence, and as I noted, everyone seems to have a theory, and everyone feels free to share theirs with you. As a single Dad, I'm particularly sensitive to how often people approach me (mainly women) with unsolicited advice as to how to do this job of mine, this parenting.

Hey, I'm lucky. I have great kids, period. In many, many ways, they make it easy for me. But still, I am conscious that I make many mistakes as their father. I regret things I say to them sometimes or ways I behave. I always regret when I get angry. I often wish I could hide parts of my own angst from their view. In my fantasy they would only get the good, never the bad, I have to offer them.

Over the years, I've noticed something else. Good parenting is hardly the exclusive province of those who qualify as biological parents. Many childless people may possess advantages we parents do not. This is logical; they are not necessarily as burned out around kids yet. And, in special cases, they have preserved the memories of their own childhood in ways that remain unclouded by the experience of becoming a parent.

This may be because while we benefit by understanding our own parents when we become parent ourselves, we also lose a bit of ourselves as children. For every gain there is a loss.

Many who try to grow and change for the better in middle age talk about locating their inner child. Without commenting on the lingo, which I detest, the concept is solid. I have learned from friends who do not have their own children that it is possible for some of them to stay clearer minded about both the good and the bad of being a child since they never have had to fully become an "adult" supervising other children.

I think this is a major downside of being a parent. Others will disagree with me -- entirely. Some will claim being a parent helps them merge with their own inner child, and I believe them. But that has not been my experience.

My friends who do not have kids sometimes complain about all the children around them and the family dynamics they observe. They complain about parents. I'm sympathetic. Many of us seem to have forgotten how to have our own lives, we are so wrapped up in theirs. We are not always very good friends to those who do not have kids because the business of raising a family seems so all-consuming.

Others of us seem almost pathologically oblivious to how selfish we have allowed ourselves to become in the larger social-political-economic context. We put our own families first, which in this and all cultures is an honorable choice, but we also can forget that many others are suffering a lack of resources compared to those devoted to the dominant culture of the mainstream family unit. None of this is meant to understate how difficult it truly is to support a family in today's expensive, middle-class American society. Frankly, it often feels overwhelming. You cannot ever earn enough money, for example, or do all the things others claim would make you an ideal parent.

I'm not sure where all of this is leading me. But I've had the benefit of watching a non-parent, one who swears she would never want to have her own children, add many layers of richness to my own children's lives these past two years. This is only one aspect of what I am talking about here, but an important one. She taught me a lot in the process, and that informs what is written above.