Rebecca Farley is a New Orleans native and mother of two—one newborn and one bonus child. She is the author of the new musical The Schmidt Sisters: A Revolutionary Situation.
A Recipe for Good Parenting
When you like a dish, you ask the cook for the recipe. As a new mom, I applied the same logic to parenting: I asked the mothers of my friends—my oh-so-delectable friends!—for their best parenting advice. My criteria here for interviewees were parents who had active and communicative relationships with their kids. Because I have never heard someone say: “My mother was a great parent, but we don’t speak to each other anymore.”
I recently gave birth to a baby girl named Lena, and as I muddle through diapers, feeding, and sleep training, I keep thinking: I hope she will forgive me my trespasses. Like any mother, I have many—accidentally getting the bathwater too hot, forgetting how long my nails are, etc. So how does one go about ensuring this forever bond? Making sure my tiny-toed baby always wants to have a relationship with me? I spoke to six mothers for their best advice, and this is what they said. (All mothers quoted in the story have multiple children. I have elected not to name them all.)
A few caveats, the first being that I don’t think parenting is a science. This is not a game of input equals output. The second is that my opinions on my friends are totally my own. Someday, perhaps, dear reader, you will meet one of the friends name-dropped in this column and decide they must be the result of lackluster parenting. That is fine. (I promise!)
Mold Them
Lisa, mother to Elena, told me that parenting is “always changing… Just when you sort of feel like you got the hang of it, then something else happens,” she said excitedly. That is to say, once you have figured out how to get your child to sleep through the night, you will be confronted with potty training. (Lisa admitted this part was not her favorite.)
Lisa told me that parenting is a lot like art. “The Renaissance sculptors believed that the statue was already in the marble, and it was the job of the artist to get the statue out of the marble, but it was already there,” she said. “I feel like that’s how it is with kids. It’s your job to mold them, but you can’t change their essence.”
Know Them
My Aunt Stacey, mother to Micah, confided that she worried her kids would never “know” her. She said: “As you start being a mom, it’s really easy to pick them up from school, you cook them dinner, you get these routines, and the next thing you know, you realize they don’t really know who you are.” She added, “I really wanted them to know who I was—that I wasn’t just a robot that was picking them up at school.”
Lisa (mentioned above) shared similar concerns, saying, “A lot of parents treat their kids like dry cleaning. They bring them, they drop them off. They want them clean and pressed.” Humans—parents and kids alike—are messier than the dry cleaning, and far more interesting than a robot. Don’t be JARVIS; be yourself.
Leave The House
My own mother, Alice, gave me permission to leave the dishes in the sink. I admitted to her that I had yet to fold a pile of laundry. “Well, it’ll get done,” she said. “But it doesn’t have to get done. You can just drag it out of [the hamper] and wear it.” In other words: Use your creative problem solving.
My mother also highlighted a rule I like to think I already use when I parent myself: Leave the house. Leave the house. Leave the house. Go to the library. Go to the zoo. “You go crazy if you just stay in the house all day long,” she pointed out.
Don’t Judge Them
OK, but what about big kids? What happens when they start, say, experimenting with alcohol? When they encounter heartbreak? When they forget about a project until the night before it’s due?
Dana, mother to Raven, said judgement has no place in parenthood. “If you can’t be close with nobody else, you’re supposed to be close with your parents or your mama, you’re supposed to tell them everything with no judgement, so they can help you out with things and guide you.” To achieve that, you may have to share your own war chest of stories. “I’m your mama, but, for me to get to this place, I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. I’m flawed.”
Teach Them
Chaia, mother to Cerina, had this to say: “I feel like so many parents forget what it was like to be a teenager, and they’re just super hard about [mistakes].” Putting yourself back in their shoes can help you lead them down the path of learning to make their own decisions. She says, “I feel like I taught them to think about things rather than just following orders or rules.”
Find Your Zen
Parenting is boring. What is one to do when you’re watching the baby try to pick up a strawberry for the 40th time, desperate to grab your phone and chat with your friends? Kayla, mother to Jesse, said, “I would try and think to myself: OK, here’s the Zen of walking along. We’re just gonna stare at this little, teeny rock. Here’s a pebble on the street.” She added, “But it was sometimes, you know, kind of boring.”
Well, then, how do you make parenting interesting? Do you stare at the rock and hope you find peace? Or do you, as Lisa did, play “bus” with your stroller by allowing your kids to walk a few yards ahead and “wait” for their local? Do you play Wordle at breakfast? Twister at lunch?
The answer, reader, to all of these questions is that you do whatever you like. Between the Cheerios, the tears, and the diarrhea on the bathmat, you must become a person you would want to spend time with. Let parenthood fulfill you, however it can. During my phone calls with these moms, I realized I just wanted to spend time with these women. Simply put, I liked them. I did not think they were aspirationally perfect. So, I took all their advice to the data processing center in my brain and summarized it for you here.
How to be a Good Parent: A Recipe
- 1 cup of don’t worry about the laundry
- 1 teaspoon let yourself be bored at how boring it is
- 2 cups no judgement
- 2 kilograms of yourself, whoever that is, wherever you can find it, even if it’s hiding under the pile of laundry
- 1 tablespoon public transit propaganda
illustrations by Victoria Allen
