“It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching to see what we do with ours” - Joyce Maynard
What you do, day in and day out, has a profound impact on the life your child will lead. And I’m not talking about the amount of time you play with them, or read to them, how extravagant the meals you make are, or how many trips you take them on. I’m not even talking about how often you go to their games, activities, competitions or recitals. I’m talking about what you do for yourself, the way you live YOUR life, the life beyond your title, your role as mother or father.
We have fallen into a state in which most parents, most adults are working for the weekend. Mortgages are high and so too are car payments, insurance, bills, groceries. The list could go on and on. We work tirelessly, slugging away at jobs that all too often evoke little passion, in order to keep paying, to keep living. But we aren’t living at all, and those little eyes are watching. They watch everything, and they learn quickly. They learn that weekdays are for work, and weekends are for fun. So as you slug away working for the weekend, counting down to “FriYAY”, they are quickly learning to watch the clock, and wait for the bell. Yes it’s idealistic, and perhaps unrealistic to think we will always love our jobs, enthusiastically returning day in and day out. But you should at minimum like it. And if not, you’re ultimately showing your child, engraining in them both a belief and an acceptance, that our existence is one in which we grin and bear 5/7 of the week to enjoy two days. Work or school. It all becomes the same, it all becomes one.
While it may seem as though I have succinctly covered the issue of work, the nine-to-five, eight-to-six day is, more often than not, responsible for even more of what your child is watching, and what he or she is seeing you do with YOUR life. If we did a little experiment and asked all of the parents in your child’s class
What are your hobbies? … Yes that’s plural ;)
What are you currently learning?
the answers would be sparse. There would be a handful or more hobbies shared, and then likely crickets. Learning something new? More crickets. Enter the “there’s no time for that” argument. And that is precisely the problem, and that is what children are watching and learning. While I’m of course making a generalization here (there are undoubtedly parents who are engaged in their own pursuits) North American children primarily observe that when they grow up “playing” ends, and so too does learning, instead of seeing that pursuing personal interests and learning is a life-long endeavour, a never-ending journey. Ask your child right now “What does an adult do?” I’m confident the answers will not only be eye opening and thought provoking, but that “go to work” will be first, and the words “play” and “learn” won’t be mentioned at all.
Yes, working and parenting is immensely demanding. It would be foolish to argue otherwise, but it is not the root issue I am hoping to highlight. The issue is what we do as adults for ourselves, separate from those two roles. Instead of maintaining personal interests, adults have collectively and readily adopted cyclical, indulgent patterns under the false guise of self-care. Quick remedies that are in fact not overly effective. Binging Netflix, consuming more treats, more drinks, more lattes because “you deserve it” or “it’s been a hard week” is not a sustainable means to improving and taking care of our mental, emotional and physical health. This distorted version of self-care focuses more on band-aid solutions and mini-fixes, rather than on finding long-term activities or passions that help adults develop their own interests and skills as a person. Endeavours that are not fleeting, but that truly make you happy over the long haul. But to do so requires a commitment to challenging societal norms, and rewriting the accepted cultural script of adulthood. Those little eyes that are fixated on Mom and Dad, that watch their every move - their daily, weekly, monthly habits- imagining and envisioning their own future adulthood, need to see one that more closely resembles an extension of childhood; one that makes time for personal interests, for play, for learning, and one that is not the summation of only work and parenting. It’s not selfish, nor is it a waste of time.
Inherently connected to what our children are watching us do, is what they are also listening to; both of which are also shaping their present and their future. We come back to the picture of parents working tirelessly, slugging away at their jobs. Feeling overworked, undervalued, and exhausted, the end result is one in which adults consistently and audibly complain about their jobs and their bosses. Those little ears hear this - maybe everyday, maybe weekly or maybe only monthly - but the by-product of this patterned behaviour is one that not only teaches children not to accept responsibility for a given situation or problem, but also teaches them to cast blame squarely on others. Personal accountability, a self-reflection on how we, the adult got here, how we found ourself in this situation is never a part of what they hear in our ramblings. When that is removed from our behaviour, it will certainly be removed from theirs.
You’re folding the laundry, you’re making dinner, you’re packing lunches and yes you’re “only venting”. But children don’t understand that concept. In the pre-operational (2-7 years old) or concrete operational (7-11 years old) stages of cognitive development, complex, abstract thinking and reasoning is not yet developed. Theoretical, hypothetical and counter-factual thinking are also not present. So while you are “just venting” it is much more literal to them. They aren’t processing and putting together the array of complex pieces - workplace dynamics/relationships, personal stress, financial stress - the myriad of factors that have combined and culminated in this moment. They aren’t recognizing exaggeration, embellishment or bias. They simply hear it, they consume it, and they believe that this too will be a part of their future.
It engrains.
It normalizes.
It becomes an accepted part of adulthood in the eyes of children and teenagers.
…
It’s certainly not easy being an adult.
And as far as I know, I don’t think anyone ever said it would be.
But I also know it doesn’t have to be THIS hard.
We reminisce and relish the days of childhood, but adulthood does not have to be its antithesis.
So choose to keep growing alongside your child. Keep playing, keep learning, keep improving YOURSELF, remembering that every day they are watching what you do with your life, as much as you are watching what they do with theirs.