My generation of parents, we struggle. We’re worried that we’re over-involved or that we’re not involved enough. The media demonizes us either as thoughtless and materialistic abandoning our kids to disinterested “other care” providers or else as helicopter parents who are cutting our kids’ meat into their teens. People debate whether we should take our kids to the park and leave them there or not let them play outside in the front yard without supervision.
I lean to the benign neglect side of things with a dash of hovering, like homeschooling my kids to keep ‘em close but sending them out to play where they won’t give me a headache. It’s true that I didn’t wean Noah until he was just about ready for kindergarten but it’s also true that by nine I was sending him to the neighborhood corner store to get me a Diet Coke.
So far the balance hasn’t been all that tricky. The kids kinda lead the way and what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for the other and I’ve felt pretty good at our ad hoc planning.
I have been thinking about this as my son has begun his journey through the teen years and I’ve been searching harder than ever for examples and encouragement from parents who have been there and who are there now. But I know that really I won’t know until my kids get there and they’re sure not there yet.
Katie Granju’s unfathomable loss is tragic and it is terrifying. It’s tempting to say “There but for the grace of God” but let’s face it, God’s grace has nothing to do with it. The truth is, that could be any of us and it could be any of our kids. (I think about Julia who has wryly observed that hers is the family that makes other parents feel safe, as if her kids’ incredibly bad kidney luck somehow protects the rest of us from ending up in the ICU, holding the hands of a son or daughter who might die. “There but for the grace of God go I,” we think, full of compassion and horror, nevermind that what we’re saying is that God’s grace is keeping us safe but has left another family out in the cold.) I dread the Monday morning quarterbacking that was already inching along when she first wrote about his addiction, assault and overdose and is sure to get worse now even though I understand it. We want to comb through her story to reassure ourselves that it will never be our story, that our children are stronger or smarter or that we have relationships that will defy whatever tragedies threaten our families.
Honestly, it’s not bad parenting and it’s not the inattention of God that sends some of our children away from us. Bad things happen. They happen in strict, religious families. They happen in open-minded, open communication families. They happen when parents stay married and when they divorce. They happen whether our kids are troublemakers or the ones who sit still and listen. THEY HAPPEN. It’s horrifying. It’s almost too scary to contemplate. But even the best advice is looking at families in hindsight and there are no crystal balls when it comes to raising kids. For every family whose child is proof that THIS is the way or THAT is a mistake, there’s another family ready to prove just the opposite.
“I talked to MY kids about drugs!” says the parent whose kid is card-carrying straightedge. And at the same time another parent of a child in rehab says, “Yeah, well I did, too.”
So how do we go on? How do we let our kids get on the school bus or bike to the community pool or go away to college or overnight camp? How do we let go when there are no guarantees that we can keep them safe? How will we live with ourselves if something awful happens and all we have is a rearview mirror? God, I don’t know. I don’t know. And I hope I never have to know.
Last month I interviewed Dick Hoyt for Support for Special Needs. I know you’ve seen his YouTubes; he’s the guy who pushes his disabled son through marathon after marathon. He’s a pretty unassuming guy and frankly, it was a tough interview. Not because he wasn’t lovely and friendly and happy to talk but because he’s a man of few words and most of those words are the ones he’s used to saying in interviews. It was hard to get him past the soundbites I’d already heard in other interviews and in reading his ghostwritten memoir. But the guy, he is terrific and very very kind. I interviewed him to be the inaugural guest in a series of articles we’re calling Future Glimpse, which are articles from parents who have raised their kids with special needs to adulthood to give some much needed perspective and encouragement. So my questions centered on Dick managed to let Rick be a kid. How did he let him head off into the neighborhood in the day before cell phones? How did he let him live in the college dorms without full-time care? Especially when Rick started partying too hard or when he had a caretaker who didn’t bother to show up on time leaving Rick to nearly suffocate. (Note: Rick began drinking heavily in college but he quit when he realized he was risking his life. Why he could quit and Henry couldn’t is not something we can ever really know.)
I’ll tell you, Dick was stymied at my questions. He didn’t understand why people might not understand. The way he saw it, his son had a right to a life that he, Rick, wanted to live and as the dad, his job was to help him get it. So Dick and his wife, Judy, stifled their fears and they fought for their son’s right to be independent.
I look at Dick, 70 years old today, still pushing Rick in their racing wheelchair and I look at the pictures of beautiful Henry, lost forever to the world and I think you just can’t know. You just can’t know. Some of our children will succeed beyond our wildest dreams because we let them fly and others, oh god, others will fall and our hearts will fall with them.
I can’t make sense of it. But I do know that I don’t look at Katie and wonder where she failed because the undertoad haunts all of us. I asked my mother, “Is there ever a time where you can say, ‘Oh I got them there! My children are finally in the place called Safe and I no longer have to worry!’” And my mom said never because life is unpredictable and it keeps on happening.
On the email list I was on way back when where I first met Katie, we’d have .sig lines, you know, in our emails. And one of my favorites was that quote from Elizabeth Stone, “Having a child is like letting your heart walk around outside of your body.” I thought it was hard watching my baby toddle away from me. I thought the worst was the sleepless nights when I worried about SIDS and unseen chokeables. My mom is right; it never ends. You just learn to live with it, that awful fear but it’s always there waiting to bubble up when your kid climbs a tree or goes on his first date or gets caught smoking cigarettes.
I will take Katie’s advice to heart, to never brush off drug experimentation as nothing serious but I will also be inspired by Dick Hoyt who refused to let fear guide his parenting. And I will accept that my heart will forever be walking outside my body, carried loosely in the hands of these two kids I’ve been blessed to parent. May the world be kind to them!
This is beautiful, Dawn. Maybe I was lucky that my first parenting experiences included spending a fitful night on the couch while “our” teen was on the run somewhere since I’m sure you’re right that the hard parts and the worry and the (necessary!) helplessness don’t end. I’m so glad you were able to balance these stories. I’m thinking about Katie and Henry a lot right now and I appreciate these thoughts.
My condolences to your friend on the loss of her son (her blog is telling me account suspended likely due to flood of traffic). Her story, your post, resonate deeply with me. I am reminded of the book “A Beautiful Boy” by David Sheff, reminded of my two siblings who are recovering addicts (and used since high school and I knew but my parents did not), and finally my own sons and how I will (or will not?) protect them.
I too, will take Katie’s instruction to heart. My family history, social pressures, and more make my children prime targets. Thank you for sharing and peace to Katie and her family.
Dawn,
Thanks for sharing this! Wick and I spoke of this exact thing yesterday on the way home from a park with a lake. I had woken up that morning from a dream where I ran out to find Felix and Violet on the bottom of a pool and I dove in to save them but couldn’t pry them out from under a metal girder ( LOST reference I am sure) . I woke up determined to get them swimming by the end of the month. Then later that day we found ourselves at a park with a lake. I hovered them and rehearsed how I was going to save them when they fell in. Later Wick asked me: ” Do you think God is cradling our children right now” and I said “yes and no”! In my eyes it is often due to parent neglect that accidents happen.
Daymares haunt me everyday…. the real fear is that I don’t think I would survive the loss or injury of my child. I know people go on but it is hard to imagine.
We can only do what we can do….Dick story is an interesting one. I survived and came out of heavy college drinking phase that easily could have killed me many times. There is no neat bow to package all this: the reason why some survive and why others don’t.
As I work my my faith and let go of the fear, I have to let go of the thought that not everything is in my control. (.In my eyes could have always done more or better)
Thanks again, Karoline
Karoline, my mom always said that those daymares are to keep us on our toes. The trick is staying alert without becoming consumed by ‘em. I get like that sometimes when Noah is off on his bike somewhere and all of a sudden I’m SURE he’s going to get hit by a car and I’m so sure I’m ready to take off running and stop him from leaving. I’m a physically very fearful person, too (I couldn’t even watch that video of you and Wick with the whales — I’m terrified of deep water!!!), which makes it so hard not to project onto my kids.
Wick’s take on things — about God cradling the kids — that never works for me. Because I think about all those kids who did get lost. But one day at a time thinking DOES work for me because I think — I only need to get through RIGHT NOW. I don’t need to fret too much about tomorrow just yet and if I pay attention to RIGHT NOW, chances are I’ll be paying attention tomorrow, too.
This parenting gig, she is a tough one.
Ugh. So, okay, yesterday, I let my 12 year old son walk, alone, in broad daylight, in our very nice town/neighborhood a 1/4 of a mile to our local Walgreens. I was an anxious convulsing Mama unti he got back.
I have it kinda double whammied (and I am only JUST beginning to truly accept this and the severity of my paranoia) being that I surrendered a child to adoption and I live in double, triple, quadruple fear of ever losing another to anything..including fresh air or peaceful happy alone time or fun.
Gosh, it is so hard. Believing that the first step is awareness (to the problem) I am working on my parenting after adoption loss anxiety as much as I can. Really I am. No need for my sons to suffer anymore than they have already.
Ugh Suz, I was thinking that Elizabeth Stone quote is even more apt when it comes to losing a child to adoption. Love to you. You’ve been in my thoughts a lot lately because of the new WONDERFULNESS that I’m sure is coming your way career/life-wise!!!!
Ugh. Yeah Still churning on that front. Thought one chapter will officially close on the 15th. No idea, yet, when and where the next one will open. Cross your fingers.
Repeating myself, I know, but when I whip myself into a frenzy of teenager-parenting anxiety, I remind myself to stop and look at the teenagers I know–and I know a lot–the great majority of whom, whatever their quirks and troubles, are basically fine. (I’m sure you remember me saying that most kids turn out fine…and I still think they do.) This is not AT ALL to minimize or dismiss the Granjus’ tragedy, over which you know I am heartbroken, but to say that it’s easy to look at the terrible things, because they are so visible and compelling and dramatic and speak to our fears, but it’s important to remember the ordinariness of everyday success stories, of which there are, really, so many more.
Becca, I think about you saying that a lot, actually. It’s hard to find that space of humility (where you’re not sticking your head in the sand) and commonsense optimism. Most of us (all of us if we count our adult kids) have children who will stumble. Thank goodness most of them will survive it, which is why it’s so so shocking that Henry didn’t.
Dawn, you’re so good at putting these paralyzing, confusing thoughts into something that, God help us, makes us feel, well, if not better, at least a little more heard — even if the voices are in our own head. I have had every thought you expressed, and gone back over dozens you didn’t but that were implied. The undertoad does indeed haunt all of us.
I love this. Love it. I’ve been thinking about this lately when reading Lenore Skenazy’s stuff…how there just IS no point at which we can say “We did it! They are Safe.” Maybe the 7-year-old alone on the playground is at risk. On the other hand, maybe he’s learning the skills needed to keep him safe later in life. On the other other hand, throw chance and genes and unpredictable factors into the mix and he’ll either do fine now AND later or…maybe he won’t. Usually he will, though, and that’s what I hold on to as much as I can, while wondering, as I posted about on my blog today, how any mother who has lost a child can actually continue to live. Because I just can’t imagine how I could, even though I know I would because I would have to for the rest.
There’s no good answer. We can help, but in so many ways we are just helpless.
I suppose we can see that as either terrifying or freeing, or maybe both.
Each time I think about Henry I have to stuff t back down. It is almost too much for me to acknowledge that this did/could happen. I am really good at denial and minimizing and it is coming in handy for me today. I can’t even consider what my future holds when I think of Katie’s story. It is so true that it’s all a crap shoot–it could be my kid or maybe not. The choices we make come with no guarantees. Knowing this takes some pressure off, but when I start worrying about what I have no control over–which is more and more as they drive away with friends– I slip into my denial safety net “it’s fine.”
Kristen, I’ve been reading some of the books that people recommended to Katie because I feel like the more prepared I am the less scared I have to feel. I don’t think any of them are a cure-all but it does make me feel like I have some tools. And I’ve also been talking to the kids about Henry a lot. I hope that it helps.
Dawn, could you pass on or post some of those book titles? Her site is getting so much traffic I can never access it, and I would love to feel like I had more tools. I had my first conversation with my girls about it tonight, but I know it won’t be the last.
Oh, this just breaks my heart. I have great paralyzing anxiety about my kids too, of course, and I kept telling them yesterday that they have to live in a bubble with me to the end of their days (this fantasy also involves me living to be 100, apparently). I did tell Clara, who is nine, the story of Henry, before I knew he had died. I reminded her that Daddy is a recovered addict, and has taken all the drugs Katie mentions that Henry took, and that Daddy is very lucky, and what would the world be like if he hadn’t made it? And she should never take drugs, because they can kill you. And she said she would never take drugs, and Tom and I said people will offer and it might seem like a good idea at the time. We didn’t mention that she is genetically probably susceptible to addiction; we left that for an older age. Anyway, I don’t know how we are expected to survive after the loss of a loved one. I mean, I do it myself (my mom died tragicaly twelve years ago), but God, life can be so hard.
I am glad Henry isn’t suffering any more. That last part sounded agonizing both to experience and watch.
Oh, Dawn, this is so beautiful and heartbreaking. And so very right on. I just love that Elizabeth Stone quote. All day I’ve been just grabbing my kids and squeezing them.
This is great – exactly on point. I can’t even say anything other than a big deep sigh.
Another request for the titles.
Thank you for this, Dawn. I’ve been thinking of them- and all this- a lot.
[...] This post by Dawn is also a must read for many reasons. Go, read, and read the links. I keep trying to write about Henry Granju and I just can’t. It’s devastatingly sad. You know when you look at your kids and you imagine their future, all bright and shiny? I think about what a wonderful partner and parent Jamie will be some day, how loving and tender he can be, how funny and stubborn and I imagine him as an adult and it makes my heart sing. I sometimes imagine the what if as well – what if he takes after his great uncle and becomes an alcoholic? What if he takes after my mom and spends 20 years of his life smoking pot and going no where? What if he follows in my mom’s footsteps in other ways? The Granju family is living that what if and my heart breaks for them. [...]
[...] has written a beautiful post about how hard it is to be a parent these days. And it is. It’s challenging and wonderful and rewarding and difficult and the [...]
I think right here you are speaking such truth. And the ordinariness of successes too, that’s such an important part of the picture. It is such a tender balancing act & then there’s luck & things beyond us.
As we find our way into the parenting of teen/tween so far there is a lot of humor–it’s so very grounding along with the annoyances & the worries (which of course exist too, in spades).
Thanks for this.
[...] I just read in another blog about bad things happening to people “Bad things happen. They happen in strict, religious [...]