I’m STILL New Here

It occurred to me as I was freaking out over my middle school child’s school schedule that one of the most humbling parts about being a parent is that you never know what you’re doing. You’re just as inept as those fumbling idiots who brought home a newborn baby however many years ago—always. You’re forever a new parent.

Which really means you’re forever overthinking, over analyzing and generally driving yourself insane. Now, you do get the gift of perspective, but only AFTER the overthinking, over analyzing and freaking out. Once you have a four-year-old you get that eventually every kid will sleep through the night and use the bathroom, but that doesn’t help you in the midst of sleep or potty training. After your child has been in school a few years you no longer worry about them making friends, learning multiplication or how to spell words—all of this stuff happens with very little effort from you. That does not stop you from crying on the first day of Kindergarten and fearing that your little cherub will be friendless and illiterate—because you only get to look back and laugh at your hysterical self AFTER you’ve lived through it.

I mean sometimes you get a little more relaxed with each passing child, but if your kids are anything like mine, that doesn’t really work either because NOTHING you did for one works for any of the others. So, maybe you have faith that they’ll sleep, use the bathroom, read and socialize, but the way each of them chooses to do it is totally different. Thus, causing you to still irrationally freak out even when you KNOW you shouldn’t. You might as well be doing this for the first time like some kind of fresh-out-of-the-hospital newbie.

Then you get to adolescence. This is where you get to gloat (because you don’t have a baby) and give sage advice to the parents of small people—“bless her heart, she makes all of her baby food from scratch,” “God love them, they have a three-month old learning to read.” Laugh it up and know that the circle of life is real. Just as you’re taking pity on these sweet young parents your friends who have survived teenagers are pouring a drink and getting ready to sit back and enjoy the show. Your show, the one where you again have no idea what you’re doing. You have no idea how to regulate/monitor/use social media, set curfews or punish people that are taller than you. You are once again, a newbie.

You would think that after years of this cycle that we would all be able to control it. Perhaps we would begin to freak out but then remember: “Wait! I’ve seen this movie before! This happens every time I start parenting a new phase of childhood.” Nope. That doesn’t happen. It’s like the same chemical that erases all of your memories of pregnancy and childbirth is released in your body. You have no recollection that you have ever parented a child successfully thus far. It’s like you just showed up and someone handed you a brand-new kid.

So, after my irrational freak-out the other day I realized that this must be what’s happening. I am firmly entrenched in new parent land again—the place where I have no idea what I’m doing, where I think there are surely ways to do this correctly/better/competently, but I don’t know what any of them are! The fabulous spot where I am convinced that each small decision could impact my child’s life so profoundly that I’m paralyzed with fear. Let’s be clear, that realization didn’t stop me from freaking out or thinking all of these things. I was just able to identify what was happening, so there’s that.

I’m quite sure I have a good 15 years of new parenting left. In that period, I will worry for no reason, over analyze, spend countless hours seeking the help of wiser women that went before me, drinking wine and praying. This is the only way I know how to do it. These are my coping skills. Be nice to me, I’m new here.