Here’s the problem with the parents of children older than your own:
Parents extrapolate. They assume that their experiences will be your experiences, even though almost every variable in their parenting equation is different than every variable in your own equation.
I hate this so very much. These doomsayers assume that their struggles will be your own. They think that their failures will be your failures. Their children’s troublemaking will be the same as your own children’s troublemaking.
I really, really hate this.
Years ago, before Elysha and I had children, I had friends whose daughter spent the first six years of her life sleeping in their bed.
Every night without exception.
When my friend told me this, I was shocked. I knew of parents whose children would often climb into their parents’ bed in the middle of the night, and I even knew parents who would spend a significant amount of time sleeping in their child’s bed until their kid fell asleep, but a child just flat-out sleeping in her parents’ bed every night?
I ‘d never heard of this, but I was absolutely certain that I didn’t want any part of it.
My friend assured me that I would suffer the same fate. “Everyone does it,” she said. “No one talks about it. You just wait and see.”
Thought I later discovered that this sleeping arrangement is more common than I once thought, I explained to my friend that I did not think this would happen to us.
My friend was visibly annoyed by my confidence.
But I was right. Other than the rare nightmare or excessively loud thunderstorm, my children have never slept in our bed. They may climb into our bed in the morning after I’ve departed to cuddle with Elysha for a while, but sleeping in our bed or even in our bedroom has never happened.
I’m not saying it was easy to sleep-train our children. It required the willingness to say no many times and even listen to them cry on those first few nights when we moved them from cradle to crib, but today my kids are outstanding sleepers who love their beds and the personal space it affords.
The same has been true about so many things. I’ve had parents assure me that when my kids are in high school, drinking alcohol will be so ubiquitous that we’ll be hosting parties in order to keep our kids safe, even though both Elysha and I never touched a drop of alcohol in high school.
If we managed to avoid drinking until after high school, isn’t it least possible that our kids will, too?
Can’t we at least entertain the possibility?
Parents have told me about how it would be impossible to avoid getting our child a cell phone once she’s in middle school, even though our middle school daughter does not currently have a phone and, at least for now, does not want a phone.
We were told that we wouldn’t see movies for the first 5-10 years of parenthood.
Not true. We saw 29 movies in the first two years of Clara’s life. Many at the drive-in while Clara quietly slept in the backseat.
We were told that it would be impossible to leave our infant with a babysitter and feel safe.
Not true. Our babysitters have become like family to us.
I was warned that my son would constantly pee on me while changing his diaper. While this occasionally happened to Elysha, he never once peed on me.
This is not to say that our children are perfect or easy in any way. It simply means that our variables are different than the variables of other parents, so our problems are different, too. Some of our struggles may be similar to the struggles of other parents, but I would never presume that this would be true in all cases.
I avoid extrapolation at all costs. I never assume that my son’s annoying habits will be the same for you. I would never tell the parent of a child who is younger than mine to expect the same things that I have experienced, yet so many parents so this all the time.
They extrapolate.
They assume that their variables and the resulting conditions of those variables will be the variables and resulting conditions of every other parent.
This is ridiculous, and it annoys me.
It causes parents to say things like, “Oh, you just wait…” and “You think it’s hard now…”
Please don’t do this. If you’re already doing it, stop.
Not only is your persistent negativity and extrapolated assumptions unwarranted, unnecessary, and cruel, but you’re often wrong.
Your predictions suck.
If a parent asks you for advice, offer it.
If a parent looks like they need help, offer assistance.
Be helpful, positive, and kind. Please?
