I hate impossible “should” parenting advice: well-meaning tidbits of knowledge which every parent can agree upon but cannot put into practice because of structural factors that prevent such action, or conflict with another piece of “should” advice.
Parents, you can name some examples, like:
- Kids should eat better, but the price of McDonald’s is cheaper than a homemade meal.
- Families should sit down to eat together, but baseball practice begins at 6 pm.
- We should have our teens volunteer, but most organizations have under 18 age restrictions.
- Teen should be involved with school activities, but those options are limited to the best of the best by high school.
I’m over it.
The only task more difficult than raising these little, lovely drainers of financial, physical, and mental parenting resources is wading through the impossible should parenting advice that is supposed to help. Unfortunately, this advice often leaves me feeling like I’m doing an awful job.
That’s how I felt sitting in the bleachers of my 16-year-old son, Yosef’s, last wrestling meet. You see, I had just read the Washington Post explain the importance of sleeping 8 to 10 hours per night for a teen’s mental health and social well-being. Ah-oh, it is 9 pm on a Wednesday. As I sat there, I realized the recommended snoozing math was (again) not in my favor tonight.
With a 20-minute bus ride home, a pickup from school upon arrival, and a snack looming ahead of a 7:15 am starting bell the following day, it was impossible for Yosef (and his siblings at the meet to cheer him on) to get an adequate night’s sleep – at least according to the WaPost, CDC, and most research experts. Thank God Yosef does not have much homework!
Have I failed (again)?
Rather than wallow in my parenting ineptitude, I am trying to figure out what to do.
Do I pull him out of activities early? That won’t work.
Do I start a petition to change the school’s start time, or run for school board, or call the Superintendent personally? I could, but given the tight budgets and disincentives to change, the effort will do little to help my high school sophomore or make me feel any better. The last time this topic was discussed openly in my area (suburban Tampa, Florida), a compromise of a 20-minute later start times was made with promises of future studies to follow. Still waiting….
Knowing what to do is exhausting. Frankly, I’m tired of feeling bad about choosing between good aspects of my kids’ life to ensure a proper balance of mental health – between participation in sports and getting adequate rest; between demanding that Yosef exercise versus unintentionally creating body issues; between limiting social media while arming him with knowledge of living in the world dominated by it.
It is not the impossible “should” parenting advice that I should be mad at – statistics are just numbers. Instead, I am starting to direct my frustrations at the systems that willfully consume the same data and insist on protecting the status quo in its wake.
You don’t have to sit on the school board to have common sense about the unintended consequences of crappy rules that do not provide avenues for teens to do what, we all acknowledge, they need to be contributing member of our communities.
Until those systems change, parents are left picking between our options for who and what advice to listen to. And, by definition, ignoring key aspects of what science tells us are the building blocks of well-rounded adults.
Maybe the only should advice that I’m interested in is that parents should be trying to raise good, kind people. Kids who should be able to participate in anything without a parenting worrying that do so will break mentally, physically, or financially.
Maybe I should come to the realization that I’ll be 50% of the parent these experts want me to be and I should hope that yields a 100% decent human in the end.
Or maybe I should end this rant into this echo chamber.
I should, certainly, grab a beer.
