“I read all the parenting books, took all the classes. But my kids still have serious problems”

Q:

I’ve read every parenting book. I’ve taken all the classes. I’ve always taken my task as a mother very seriously. My kids are all older now: Some of them are doing fine (two marrieds are fine; the third is divorced) and some are breaking my heart (the divorced one and one who has gone off the derech). Two have had their share of academic challenges (ADHD and severe behavior problems) and my youngest is just a normal kid. I don’t know if I’m being punished for my youthful arrogance — I used to judge all my relatives and peers who didn’t study parenting, wondering how they had the audacity to try to raise human beings. I was openly critical of the parenting practices of some of my relatives, whose kids today are highly accomplished, successful adults, unlike my own struggling crew who’ve had so many difficulties along the way. What I want to know is this: What is the point of taking parenting classes and trying so hard to be the perfect parent? I did everything “right,” but my kids aren’t model human beings and worse than that, some have serious issues.

A:

Your question is born of pain. You’ve put your heart and soul into parenting, doing everything you can to be the best possible mother. You’ve been led to believe by experts that if you did all the right and good things, you’d produce “excellent” human beings. Unfortunately, you were misled.

In my own book, Raise Your Kids without Raising Your Voice, I put the truth right up front on page six: There are things you can and cannot do when it comes to raising children. The subsequent two lengthy lists of each are differentiated by the fact that the “can-do” items are those that are in the parents’ realm of control (what the parent models, teaches, reinforces, and discourages — everything that parents say and do) and the “can’t-do” items have to do with outcomes such as a child being successful, healthy, happy, well-adjusted, socially skilled, spiritually and morally evolved, and so on. Having clarified the task of parenting, the remainder of the book helps the parent do what he or she can do.

But of course, this raises the question: If the parents’ actions have little to do with outcomes, then why should the parent work so hard at child-rearing? Why not just feed the kids, daven for them, and sit back and relax? The answer applies not only to parenting but to any human undertaking: We have to do the best we can in all areas of our life. The outcome of our efforts is outside of our control. Hashem determines whether our garden will grow, but we have to plant the seeds and remove the weeds. Hashem has given each of our children free will along with a unique set of inborn characteristics and external life circumstances, all of which shape developmental outcome.

Parents raise human beings; they don’t make them. They have their realm of influence; they don’t have control.

Knowing that you have influence is important and can be the impetus for doing the very best you can on your end of things. When you study and implement parenting skills, pray, and study some more, you’ve done the best you can in parenting. How your child turns out isn’t up to you. There are normal, healthy, good parents whose children become addicts and/or criminals. Very nice people have children who cause serious harm to others. Anybody can have a child with severe mental illness or a personality disorder. Community leaders, educators, mental health professionals, doctors, rabbis — anyone and everyone — can have children who live distorted, troubled, awful lives. Our Sages and Forefathers were among those who were severely disappointed in their children.

That being said, every parent must do the best she can with the job of parenting. You have certainly done this. Of course you were hoping for nachas (which we can define here as the joy of seeing your child grow into the kind of person you wanted him or her to become; nachas is not the pride a person has of creating a model human being since, as we saw, parents don’t have the power to create people and in any event, pride is out of place in the lineup of Jewish middos). Instead of nachas, you got humility — the most prized of human characteristics. You have learned, the hard way, that we’re not in control of anything except our own behavior. You know that Hashem runs the world and that He is the one shouldering your children’s burdens and challenges, there to help them continue to evolve on their own personal spiritual journeys.

But keep in mind that the good parenting you’ve done is also having its impact and will continue to influence your children throughout their entire lives. Whether you see its effects or not, know that your part reverberates forever, nurturing your children in the special way that only good parenting can. You’ve done a good job.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 971)