Deregulating Parenting

Our parish’s pastor, Father Snow, is about my height. Which means that he’s far shorter than an NBA prospect, though some students at his former parish - Creighton University - were indeed NBA prospects.

Today at mass, our Father Snow gave a homily on Matthew 11: 21-25 which was today’s Gospel reading. To start, he shared an anecdote from his experience at Creighton.

An angry parishioner was lecturing Father Snow about an annulment that she thought the Church shouldn't have given. She was fuming over this application of rules. So much so that one of his giant basketball-playing parishioners stepped in. Putting his elbow on Father Snow’s shoulder, he facetiously asked, “Want me to take her down, Father?”

Father Snow could tell the story better than me, but his point was that too much focus on rules and compliance can be overwhelming. When we fixate on rules they place a heavy burden upon us, chaining us to a slew of anger and stress.

Today’s Gospel reminds us, he said, that Jesus really only had two rules, the first and second greatest commandments: Love God and Love thy neighbor. That’s it. Just two.

In contrast to the 600+ laws imposed upon the Jewish people by the Pharisees, following just two laws is a significantly lighter burden. While this lesson and Gospel reading hold theological and spiritual implications, my immediate takeaway was secular: I impose too many laws on my children.

I have so many rules that underly my parenting. I say “no” all the time, for every little thing it seems, some days at least. If I put myself into the shoes of our sons, I would feel heavy, suffocated even by the grind of the complex, nagging structure of laws I’m imposing.

Surely, a house needs rules about things like not eating ice cream three times a day or not running around naked. But if I’m saying no a hundred times a day, which I think I do sometimes, probably means I’ve gone over the top.

My secular reflection exercise from this biblical lesson - to lighten the burden of rules and laws - was to see if I could simplify my regime of parental law. I wondered, could I get my parenting principles down to two or even just three?

These three are what I came up with. These three principles - be honest, be kind, and learn from your mistakes - can govern every standard I set as a parent.

I’m not trying to advocate for these three rules to become yours if you’re a parent or caregiver, though they fit terrifically for me as a parent. If you like them, steal them.

The more important point I’d advocate is for you to try the exercise. If you’re a parent, caregiver, or even a manager to a team at work, what are the 2-3 principles that you expect others to follow that will govern every standard you set?

It’s not as important what the principles are, as long as they're thoughtful and intentional. What matters the most is that we simplify the burden of our household law to a few principles rather than hundreds.

Even just today, reducing my laws to these three principles has been liberating for me. Instead of trying to regulate every of our sons’ behaviors, I could focus on honesty, kindness, and learning from mistakes.

For example, instead of saying, “stop calling your brother stupid dummy,” I could let this question hang in the air: “It’s important to be kind. Is that language kind?” Instead of having mistakes feel like failure, I could reinforce something they learned. Today it was about how to be kind when sharing food. Tomorrow it can be something else.

I understand that changing my parenting approach will be challenging. After relying on processes and rules for 5 years to establish standards, transforming my behavior will not happen overnight. While every parent is different, I’m confident I’m not the only one who struggles with this.

We can focus on essential principles and free ourselves and our children from a long list of rules by de-regulating parenting. I know I should.

If you try to get your parenting down to a few principles, I’d love to compare notes with you. Please leave a comment or contact me if you give it a go.

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For those interested, here’s some context for the three principles I’ve been playing with. Again, the point is not to copy the principles exactly, the point is to think about what our, unique, individual ones will be. I wanted to share for two reasons: putting my thoughts into writing helps me, and, I always find it helpful to see an example so I assume others may also find it helpful.

Boys, I have been meditating on it and I don’t want to be a parent that’s obsessed with rules and policing your behavior. One, it won’t work. Two, policing your behavior will not allow you to learn to think for yourself. Three, the level of stress, anger, arguing, and effort required - for me and for you all - having a highly regulated house will be a heavy burden.

I think I’ve come up with three principles that encapsulate the standard of what I expect from myself as a member of this family and community. These are the guiding principles I will use to raise and mentor you. I hope that by centering on three principles that get to the core, we can avoid having dozens upon dozens of rules in our house. Here is what they are.

Be honest.

Honesty is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Because if you are honest, you can have trust and confidence in your own beliefs. And that confidence that your own beliefs and observations about reality are true prevents your soul from questioning itself on what is real. There are no small lies - the uncertainty and pain that lies cause is predictable and omnipresent. One principle between me and you all is to be honest.

Be kind.

Kindness is the greatest gift, perhaps, that you can give to the world. Because if you are kind, you can have trusting relationships with other people. If you are kind, your actions are a ripple effect, making it safer for other people to be kind - and a kind world is a much more pleasant one to live in. Finally, by being kind to others, you can also learn to be kind to yourself. One principle between me and you all is to be kind.

Learn from your mistakes.

Mistakes are part of the plan. They aren’t bad. Quite the opposite - if you’re not making mistakes doing things that are hard enough to learn from or that make an impactful contribution to the world. Mistakes are a feature, not a bug. If we have this posture, it’s essential to learn from your mistakes. Because if you make mistakes and never learn from them, you’ll hurt yourself and others. If you don’t learn from smaller mistakes, you’ll eventually make catastrophic, irreversible mistakes. One principle between me and you all is to learn from your mistakes.

These three principles: be honest, be kind, and learn from your mistakes are our compact. I promise to put in tremendous effort and emotional labor to live by these words that I expect of you. I will hold you to these principles as a standard, but I also promise to help you grow, learn, and develop into them over the course of your life.

Our word is our bond, and these words, my words, are a bond between us.