Universal Subjective Parenting Distress

Recently I met with a parenting duo that looked haggard at the start of the session. They reported they had been having trouble sleeping and been up late and up early, and up throughout the night for a couple of weeks. The session did not seem to improve their mood. The duo was irritable with each other and with me and there were lots of starts and stops as each parent cried and took time to regain composure. I could tell this couple was suffering in their role as parents. The issue was that their daughter did well academically throughout high school and was offered a prestigious college opportunity overseas that was too good to pass up. Everyone, myself included, determined she was more than capable of being successful, but even still, the parents labored over this choice to let her go, and then labored over the grief and fear of her leaving and being overseas on her own.

An experience all parents must make sense of is the distress of parenting. Parenting, even at an average level, is physically and emotionally taxing. I remember my barber Gary telling me right after the birth of my first child that he hadn't slept well in 25 years-since his oldest child was born. The most common way of making sense of parenting distress, however, seems to be relatively ineffective. People form one of two beliefs about their distress:

1. Others have it worse.

2. Mine is worse than others.

Such statements have never brought parents true peace or satisfaction. In fact, such statements almost always increase the distress they supposedly explain. I think the reason for this observation is that there is really no difference in the subjective distress parents report. I think the distress of sending a very successful child off to college is quite similar to the distress of being unable to send a disabled or disobedient child off to college. Hitting benchmarks is as difficult as not hitting them. Those explanations don't bring peace because they are lies.

Whether your child is successful or fails, disobedient or obedient, disrespectful or respectful; whether you identify as a successful parent or a failed parent based on how your children "turn out," all parents who are persistent and actively engaged in parenting are presented with the same, basic dilemma: they cannot control their child. Whether your child refuses or is unable to potty train, gets a terrible tattoo, marries someone you don't like, or simply moves out of your house, at some point you have to deal with the reality that you cannot control your child. And for people who continue to care about their children, this sense of lack of control and the decisions your children make against good counsel can be excruciating. To that end, I see no difference between the distress parents of "successful" kids experience compared to parents of "unsuccessful" kids. The distress is less about child outcome and more about the limits of parent control.

Reality of Parenting

What, then, can we say about the reality of parenting?

1. If the ultimate demand of parenting is to persist (i.e., keep parenting, don't give up) despite having limited control, we should probably spend more time coping with the reality of being out of control than increasing our specific parenting skills. I say this as a professional who has written several parenting books that focus on parenting skills.

2. Parenting should probably focus more on helping children make solid decisions and asking for help than making children do certain things. One parent told me his ultimate goal in parenting is for his kid to call him first when he's in trouble. I think this is a good goal -- even a guiding principle -- for individual decision-making as a parent.

3. Parents should focus more on their co-parent's internal (i.e., emotional) experience than the co-parent's technique or individual decisions. This is a gentle way for me to say, "Stop criticizing your co-parent." Co-parents benefit far more from your understanding and empathy than your so-called parenting expertise. And you both can identify with that feeling of being out of control and work on dealing with that feeling together.

4. No parent really has it harder or easier. We all struggle, pretty much the same amount, but with different issues. So, getting stuck in the "they have it better" or "they have it worse" thinking is largely a waste of time, and almost always counter-productive.

5. The only way I have found to eliminate this subjective distress is to disengage from parenting. Some parents do this by having busy or demanding jobs, hobbies, or other "passions." Some do this by becoming alcoholics. Some parents do this by choosing an age where they will no longer care about, or feel effective in influencing, the well-being of their child. Elderly parents often tell me their parental influence changes but remains intact well past the time their children reach the age of majority.

Consider the possibility that no one has it worse or better when it comes to the burden and experience of parenting. Consider the possibility that all of us dedicated parents feel basically the same, and we're all trying to cope with the fact that our children are ultimately going to do what they want. What then?