The hardest part of parenting for me is letting go. Letting my kids travel a path I know has an easier route is incredibly frustrating. I’ve been a parent for 11 years to one, 8 years to another, and 5 to the youngest. All three are their own unique brand of “Bryan” and I’ve learned that there is no one formula for loving each of them. Children are miraculous and frustrating every moment of their lives. Until I became a parent I didn’t know true love, I didn’t know true frustration, true anger, true admiration, true wonder, true shame-I didn’t know the true feeling of desperation and fear. Nothing prepares you to be a parent-to experience such deep and raw emotion.

Learning to let go is a daily challenge for me but it is a challenge that I have realized I must purposely practice each day. I find it difficult to observe the “helicopter parenting” that seems to pervade our culture and while I feel confident in many of the choices we’ve made for our kids, I still have to remind myself to stand back and allow them the freedom to make their own choices and to experience the consequences of those choices, good or bad.

One of the areas of greatest tension with our kidlets is their instrument practice. In our house, my husband and I have decided that music is an important part of our children’s overall education and they would each take lessons on an instrument of their choice. Those of you who know me well know that I studied violin from a young age and have both bachelor and master’s degrees in music. I no longer play or teach professionally but I feel very strongly that music and music education are an important part of the greater academic picture for our children. In fact, while we require they play an instrument, I secretly hope that none of them is seduced into the profession because it is an incredibly challenging life, one that was not ultimately for me. They fight practice, as most children do, but each time they perform or have a good lesson the pride and confidence in their smiles reassures me that this is important and will be with them for a lifetime.

In any case, here we are, over a week into summer break and the boys are actually quite independent in practicing their violins every morning, then checking in to show me what they worked on before heading off to enjoy freedom. Since pulling myself out of the daily practice sessions they have actually done very well on their own. Proof in my argument that children gain more self confidence and a sense of responsibility when they are actually handed the responsibility and held accountable for the things we ask them to do.

On the other hand, my 5 year old is still dependent on me to help her practice piano.  Oh, how painful it is for a parent to watch their child so agreeable and brilliant in front of their teacher, only to pull out the drama during practice sessions at home. She turns into a silly child that refuses to focus and doesn’t even seem to try. The tears and drama from this child could be award winning!

Three years ago they all loved the violin.

… I’ve gone through this phase with 3 kidlets now. Friends will tell me how jealous they are that I am able to practice and help my kids with their musical instruments but honestly, I think my kids would be happier if I didn’t know anything about what they were doing. From the time they started I search for the best teachers, the teachers that engage me as part of the process and enable me to help them practice at home…..my kids are able to practice more efficiently because they don’t pick up bad habits, and I know all of the best practice techniques to get ‘er done. They hate it though-they have all fought me and I know that it is common but as soon as my oldest was given direction from his teacher to practice on his own, without me,  he began to progress more quickly, take pride, and most importantly gain confidence. H (8 year-old) and I now have an agreement that I’ll only practice with him every other day and this has worked very well for us. Maybe Kat would do better to practice on her own some? She and I will have two weeks on our own this summer and I’m hoping that we can get into a routine without the distraction of our usual daily chaos…..

I’m sure every parent has an area of experience they think they might be able to influence, prepare, or protect their child from. The reality is that human nature forces us to operate from a place of experience and no matter how hard we try we cannot instill true experience in our children – we can do our best to share our experience but until they experience and organically grow through and get to where it is we want them to be, we will have to let them take their own path. That path is a little bit longer than the one we may feel they need to take and sitting back and sitting on my hands, smiling and watching this is the hardest part of parenting for me.

Do you have an area of experience that you feel benefits your kids? How do you work with them to share that experience?

The hardest part of parenting for me is letting go. Letting my kids travel a path I know has an easier route is incredibly frustrating. I’ve been a parent for 11 years to one, 8 years to another, and 5 to the youngest. All three are their own unique brand of “Bryan” and I’ve learned that there is no one formula for loving each of them. Children are miraculous and frustrating every moment of their lives. Until I became a parent I didn’t know true love, I didn’t know true frustration, true anger, true admiration, true wonder, true shame-I didn’t know the true feeling of desperation and fear. Nothing prepares you to be a parent-to experience such deep and raw emotion.

Learning to let go is a daily challenge for me but it is a challenge that I have realized I must purposely practice each day. I find it difficult to observe the “helicopter parenting” that seems to pervade our culture and while I feel confident in many of the choices we’ve made for our kids, I still have to remind myself to stand back and allow them the freedom to make their own choices and to experience the consequences of those choices, good or bad.

One of the areas of greatest tension with our kidlets is their instrument practice. In our house, my husband and I have decided that music is an important part of our children’s overall education and they would each take lessons on an instrument of their choice. Those of you who know me well know that I studied violin from a young age and have both bachelor and master’s degrees in music. I no longer play or teach professionally but I feel very strongly that music and music education are an important part of the greater academic picture for our children. In fact, while we require they play an instrument, I secretly hope that none of them is seduced into the profession because it is an incredibly challenging life, one that was not ultimately for me. They fight practice, as most children do, but each time they perform or have a good lesson the pride and confidence in their smiles reassures me that this is important and will be with them for a lifetime.

In any case, here we are, over a week into summer break and the boys are actually quite independent in practicing their violins every morning, then checking in to show me what they worked on before heading off to enjoy freedom. Since pulling myself out of the daily practice sessions they have actually done very well on their own. Proof in my argument that children gain more self confidence and a sense of responsibility when they are actually handed the responsibility and held accountable for the things we ask them to do.

On the other hand, my 5 year old is still dependent on me to help her practice piano.  Oh, how painful it is for a parent to watch their child so agreeable and brilliant in front of their teacher, only to pull out the drama during practice sessions at home. She turns into a silly child that refuses to focus and doesn’t even seem to try. The tears and drama from this child could be award winning!

Three years ago they all loved the violin.

… I’ve gone through this phase with 3 kidlets now. Friends will tell me how jealous they are that I am able to practice and help my kids with their musical instruments but honestly, I think my kids would be happier if I didn’t know anything about what they were doing. From the time they started I search for the best teachers, the teachers that engage me as part of the process and enable me to help them practice at home…..my kids are able to practice more efficiently because they don’t pick up bad habits, and I know all of the best practice techniques to get ‘er done. They hate it though-they have all fought me and I know that it is common but as soon as my oldest was given direction from his teacher to practice on his own, without me,  he began to progress more quickly, take pride, and most importantly gain confidence. H (8 year-old) and I now have an agreement that I’ll only practice with him every other day and this has worked very well for us. Maybe Kat would do better to practice on her own some? She and I will have two weeks on our own this summer and I’m hoping that we can get into a routine without the distraction of our usual daily chaos…..

I’m sure every parent has an area of experience they think they might be able to influence, prepare, or protect their child from. The reality is that human nature forces us to operate from a place of experience and no matter how hard we try we cannot instill true experience in our children – we can do our best to share our experience but until they experience and organically grow through and get to where it is we want them to be, we will have to let them take their own path. That path is a little bit longer than the one we may feel they need to take and sitting back and sitting on my hands, smiling and watching this is the hardest part of parenting for me.

Do you have an area of experience that you feel benefits your kids? How do you work with them to share that experience?

If marriage is a partnership, does that make family a “business”? 

If I were to be reviewed by an independent party (not by my partner because he knows better) in my “business” right now, I think they’d recommend that I be fired. There are many many reasons I could be fired, but let’s just take timeliness under consideration today.

We are late everywhere. We are becoming that LATE family.  I know I’m not alone, but I am not willing to continue in this direction.  It makes our family look inconsiderate and it makes me look bad.  And I’m not bad, I’m just temporarily (for about the next 15 years) discombobulated.

I’ve been blogging for about three and a half months now and I really haven’t talked about poop yet, other than the poopy toilet water that was flooding my laundry room a few months back. I was thinking earlier today that, as a pseudo “mommyblogger”, I should probably get my feet wet soon, so to speak. I really want to talk about boobs but my hubby isn’t there yet. I figure if I can embarrass him in a hundred other ways he’ll be numb to the pain and I’ll be talking boobs by my six month bloggoversary, and perhaps be able to mention the “V” word by the time I’m nine months in.

I live in an older neighborhood where they are scraping many of the homes in order to build newer ones. My block is in transition and we have yet to have a family with children move in. The house next door to us has just been completed and my children are desperately seeking neighbors of the kidlette kind. Each time someone comes to look at the house they look out the window trying to determine whether the buyers have children. Truth be told, I also look out the window and size them up. Do they have kids? Preferably between the ages of 3 and 10 or better yet of the babysitting age?

In the spirit of informative neighboring I thought I’d compose a letter to prospective home buyers so that they might better understand what they would be getting into by purchasing a home next door to us.

Dear Prospective Home Buyers,
Welcome to our fantastic family neighborhood. If you have children this is the perfect place for you and you will undoubtedly be forever thankful to have us as neighbors. If you don’t have children I’m not sure this is the place for you. We will love you, but you may not love us.

We have three children and, while they are adorable they do make a little bit of noise. You may notice that your bedroom window overlooks our backyard where our detached garage is located just off the alley. (This is the city after all). On the weekdays you may hear me screaming “get in the car”, “we are late”, “get off the swing”, “get in the car”, “GET IN THE FREAKIN’ CAR”, about fifty times, but school starts at 8 and so this process rarely takes more than 5 minutes.

Every Saturday and Sunday at 7am you can expect the repetitive sounds of our sons practicing basketball (again the detached garage is turned sideways so we have a driveway/sport court thing that your kids will love.) I apologize in advance if a ball ends up on your roof or a frisbee through your open window. Don’t mind the screaming three year old, she just likes to get her brothers’ attention and will pitch a fit until she gets her way. Both boys do tend to beat on each other but unless there is blood or broken bones involved, please do not call 911.

As for my darling husband and I, we are fun loving people. If you are a mom you will adore the Happy Hour Playdates that I often host with moms from other blocks. These gatherings can often get a bit loud but we have a fence and as long as they are all contained us moms are happy to let them enjoy one another. When the dads get home from work our Happy Hour often leads into Dinner Hour. This is so much fun …. if you have kids, that is.

You will LOVE being my neighbor. I will always run out of eggs or sugar, etc. and you’ll be able to get to know me really well when I ask to borrow some! I grow tomatoes in the summer and will be dropping them on your front porch by the bucketful. I promise not to let my dog poop in your yard and I’ll pick up your mail when you go on vacation. How fun will all this be?!! … if you have kids, that is.

Summer is coming and we have a really cool backyard, if you have kids you will definitely want to be moved in by then. I hope that this letter will prove to be helpful in your decision to buy this house.. if you have kids, that is.

Sincerely,
Bantering Blonde