Parental Authority – You Don’t Have to be Perfect

OK, back from vacation, and back to our series on Parental Authority. Right now, it looks like two more posts plus a wrap-up. A comment made by Kate on an earlier post in the series serves an inspiration for this article. She said this: “I want my kids to know that I don’t know everything. Not that they are smarter than I am, but learning goes on and on.” So, today I want to talk about Vulnerability with our children and how that impacts our Authority as parents.

Too often, parents fall into the trap of felling like they need to be perfect in front of their children. This comes out in different ways at different times for different people. Let’s talk about three of those ways, the potential problems of each, and how being vulnerable can help avert those problems.

“I Don’t Know”

I’ll start here, because my kids are full of questions. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find it difficult to say, “I don’t know,” when I’m asked a question. My tendency is to confidently fake an educated guess. After all, Daddy must have all the answers. Why else would they keep asking… over… and over… and over.

I see two potential problems with this. First, it can set the expectation that they, too, must know all the answers. Well, what happens when they discover they don’t know everything? Or what happens when they start arriving at different answers than us? Any way you slice it, the stage is set for a crisis.

The second problem is sort of the reverse: We know all the answers, so our children are always inferior to us. Again a crisis is brewing. Either their maturation is stunted, and they remain dependent on us for answers and direction in life. Or rebellion blooms when the child lashes out to find the independence and value stifled by their “all-knowing” parents. Furthermore, it’s bound to come out eventually that we really don’t know all the answers. What happens then?

Fortunately, I’m learning how to say, “I don’t know.” In fact, I think non knowing is in many cases even better than knowing. Not knowing means our kids and we have something to learn about and explore together. As they get older, our not knowing all the answers gives them the opportunity to grow and develop independence while not yet on their own in the world.

“Stay Strong For The Kids”

Others fall into the Perfection Trap during tragedy. You’ve heard it or heard it before: Disaster strikes, and Mom or Dad put on a brave face in order to be strong for the kids. Can’t let them see me lose it. Can’t let them see me cry. I’ve got to be strong for their sake.

This is a good intention carried too far. Yes, as parents we must show our kids that life goes on after tragedy, but by hiding our own pain and brokenness we do them a great disservice. We fail to affirm their own feelings of sorrow and confusion. Remember: behavior is caught more than it is taught. If children do not see us grieve, we deny them the opportunity to own their own grief.

This only gets worse as kids get older and more fully experience the initial tragedy. At a time when relationships are already tested, the discontinuity between the pain they feel and the apparent absence of pain experienced by their parent only serves to further strain fragile relationships. Being honest with our pain frees our children to experience their own pain and in turn develop the skills necessary to cope with it.

“I Made a Mistake

In my opinion, this one’s the hardest… but possibly the most important. This is the ability to admit we have made a mistake, not just in a general sense, but specifically in the realm of parenting. Every parent has done it. We’ve lost our cool and overreacted. Or we’ve misunderstood the facts and circumstances. None of us is perfect, so a parenting mistake is inevitable. The real question is: Do we admit that mistake to our children?

Not admitting a mistake in parenting sets up the same potential problems mentioned in the first point – an expectation of perfection, stifled independence and the potential for rebellion – but it also adds the very real possibility of broken trust. Here’s a fact: Our children already know when we’ve made the mistake. By not admitting it, we only betray their trust. We lie to them, and from that lie everything else may be called into question.

Vulnerability & Authority

So, what do we get by being vulnerable and admitting mistakes? I think we get a relationship built on a strong foundation of trust. Being vulnerable is not the same as handing the reigns of authority over to our children. We remain the parents. But we also remain human, and we give our children the freedom to grow into their own humanity.