Parenting Sensibly - Turning Messes Into Successes

CHAPTER 1

The Past Doesn’t Determine Your Future Parenting

PARENTING POINT: Our past does affect us positively or negatively, but it does not determine our future

Every person has their own style and beliefs about raising their children. There are many factors that go into developing these convictions, but one of the biggest is how you were parented. You may parent just like your parents; maybe you do the opposite. Either way, it is important to take some time to reflect on the parenting style your parents used and realize how it has affected your own parenting. If you are following in the footsteps of great parents, then you are starting with a good foundation. And if you realize you’re using some—or all—of the same parenting techniques that were harmful to you as a child, remember: You have a choice. It will require you to stop, think, and intentionally choose to parent differently, but you can change.

Some of us come from homes with strict parents who had the “You Better Obey or Else” philosophy. Some of us come from homes where parents used very little discipline or structure in raising us and acted more as a friend than a parent. Some of us come from loving, balanced homes. Some of us, for one reason or another, had very little parental involvement, whether it was because we were home alone or our parents were so emotionally distant it was like they weren’t there, even if they were physically in the room. And unfortunately, some of us have come from abusive homes.

No matter our background, how we were raised affects us—sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. Oftentimes, it’s a bit of both. We may have deep-seated resentment toward our parents; we may be extremely grateful for them. Some find ourselves parenting just like our parents did—even if we don’t want to—because that is the only way we know. Some of us go to the extreme opposite of our parents. To complicate things even further, our spouse or significant other has their own background and parenting philosophy, which may or may not be in line with our own.

My Search for Parenting Guidance

When Dave and I were new parents living in Tucson, Arizona, I sought classes for guidance in parenting. Having two young boys, I wanted so much to parent well, but I really didn’t know what that looked like. I took several classes at different churches, but I didn’t find anything that proved very helpful until my friend told me about the Mom’s Class1 at a church across town. She had taken the class the year before and couldn’t talk highly enough about it.

So off I went to the Mom’s Class; it didn’t take long for me to understand why my friend had loved it so much. It was the first time I had weekly practical help that was applicable in my own home. In a short amount of time, I saw significant changes in the atmosphere of my home, and I felt better equipped because I had some tools and direction. I couldn’t finish out the class because of having to be on bedrest due to preterm labor during my first twin pregnancy, but even in an abbreviated format, that class stuck with me.

Over the course of the following years, I continued taking other parenting classes and read dozens of parenting books. Why was I searching so hard? I started my parenting journey with some baggage—particularly in my relationship with my father. A key part of my parenting journey was reflecting on my father’s journey to becoming a parent to me.

Looking Beyond the Past

In order to understand why my father parented the way he did, I had to look at how he was parented as a child—or rather, how he wasn’t parented.

My father’s parents both drank too much, which led to employment and financial challenges. My father had an older half-sister and half-brother, and he was the oldest of the next six children born. When he was 15, his parents wanted him to quit school to start working at a factory. It just seemed logical to them. He really wanted to finish high school, because he knew that was the only way to get ahead. Fortunately, even though his parents were both Canadian, he happened to be born in Michigan where his dad was working illegally. (A few months after he was born, they moved back to Canada where they remained the rest of their lives.) So he left home at 15 carrying a small paper sack that held all he owned, crossed into the United States, and went to live with his aunt and uncle in Minnesota, who were childless and lived in a one-bedroom house. My dad lived there, sleeping on the couch, until he was 16 and could rent a room at the YMCA.

My father ended up being on his own at 16, supporting himself by working at a grocery store, where he eventually became a manager. After a time, he became the owner of two auto parts stores, which is how he supported our family for the first 18 years of my life. For my dad, this was a sign of his good parenting—he was providing financial stability for us, which was something his own parents struggled to accomplish. We had a middle-class house, clothes, and food, and we took a vacation in our station wagon once a year.

Unfortunately, my father drank as well, though in a less obvious way than his father had. He would stop at the bar on his way home from work and drink with his buddies. However, when he drank, he said and did things that were hurtful. As a child, I did not understand—and certainly did not process—how the alcohol caused him to do these things. When I was younger, I learned to avoid him; when I got older, I often confronted him and accepted the consequences. As a result, our relationship was extremely strained.

When I was in ninth grade, we had a house fire that was started in the clothes dryer. Although no one was hurt, the damage to our home was extensive, and we couldn’t live there for a few months because of the toxic fumes and fire damage. Our insurance only paid the depreciated value, not the replacement value of the damaged items, so my dad was stressed about our finances.

For my birthday that year, I asked for a phone for my room—one of those old corded dial phones available in 1982. I also needed a new bed since mine had been ruined in the fire, and I requested a water bed. My father got very angry and said, “I wish you had never been born!”

Ouch.

What I didn’t know at the time was that he had been drinking; he never remembered saying those words. Yet they haunted me for many years and sent me down a detrimental path. Though my father went through an amazing transformation that led to a reconciliation in our relationship and healing for both of us (which you can read more about in Chapter 17), the impact of those words changed my life. And they changed my parenting.

Each of you has a story—your story. Your parents do, too, which affected how they raised you. However, the good news is that though the past affects you, it does not determine your future. Dysfunction can be passed from generation to generation, but it doesn’t have to be. That cycle can be broken, and new pathways can be taken. We can reject harmful cycles of poor parenting and instead work to pass on positive multigenerational patterns through our examples to our children.

That realization was what led me to attend numerous parenting classes and read countless books. I wanted to break the cycle. I deeply desired to have a better relationship with my children than I had with my dad. I didn’t want my kids to experience the hurt I had felt. I didn’t want them to experience the fear I had when my dad was angry. I didn’t want them to feel worthless, like I had.

Through parenting classes, books, and mentors, I started to figure out what kind of parent I wanted to become. I wanted to become an authoritative parent.

Four Types of Parenting

There are two key aspects foundational to parenting: love and discipline. Children need to know they are loved; they also need boundaries and discipline in order to learn and grow.

Various combinations of these aspects create four unique parenting styles, illustrated in the figure below:

To understand this chart, think of the two foundational aspects of parenting as each having their own scale ranging from low to high. The horizontal line represents the amount of parental love that is visible and recognizable by the children, with low levels of love on the left and high levels on the right. (Note that while parents may truly hold minimal love toward their children, this scale generally refers to what is visible to the children, which may not always accurately reflect how the parent truly loves and cares about their child. We will discuss how to better show our love as parents to meet each child’s unique needs in Chapter 4.)

The vertical line measures the amount of discipline used by parents, with low levels at the bottom and high levels at the top. (We will discuss what healthy discipline looks like in Section 2.)

Now, depending on how much love and discipline is utilized by a parent, that parent’s style will fall generally into one of four main categories:

AUTHORITARIAN – Parents who use a lot of discipline but do not show a lot of love.

UNINVOLVED – Parents who use little discipline but also show little...