The VOID

The VOID

There seems to be this void, an empty space that occurs between parent and kid. Typically this void appears somewhere around the kids fourteenth birthday. Just about the time you are tired of telling them to pick up their room. This is the point of transition between controlling and leading children.

My wife and I started parenting the same as other clueless parents, we controlled everything.

Controlling is a management style often used by low level managers too insure that simple repetitive tasks are completed according to instructions. 

Tell me that doesn't sound like parenting!

This is required our children will master certain jobs like brushing their teeth, bathing, changing their dirty clothes and putting those  dirty clothes in the laundry, feeding themselves, talking on the phone, completing chores; you get the idea, the list is endless. If we didn't do this our children would be dirty toothless naked beggars. Yes. I have met a few dirty, toothless, naked beggars. I partially responsible for three of them. Parenting is extreme management.

Management styles are characteristic ways of making decisions and relating to those you’re in charge of; our kids. Management styles come in two contrasting flavors, autocratic and permissive.

On the far end of the management yardstick is the autocrat. This is the bossy, dominating, high-and-mighty, magisterial. This person is gonna call the shots. If you listen carefully to the  murmuring you'll hear, "If you want something done right ..." Just a real fun person to be around. 

On the other end there is the permissive. This person is not going to call the shot, even when you beg them to "Just please make up your mind." Permissive is indulgent, lenient, lax, . They too are fun people to be around for the opposite reason.

These two flavors come with two options,  those are paternalistic, and democratic. With paternal, imagine a father dealing benevolently and often intrusively with his children. My daughter recalls the latter, not so much the benevolence. The other is of course the principle of social equality. Democracy in the family, maybe in principle. The movie Yours, Mind and Ours pokes fun at these two.

I am a paternalistic autocrat (PA), and yes, I am a fungi.

If you are wondering how you are doing on the parenting front, don't despair, your kids will let you know someday.

Our seventeen-year-old volunteered that my wife and I are soft on her younger siblings. I would have to agree with her. We have become more permissive with age. This is not a case of mellowing with age but exhaustion. Parenting requires sincere thought and attention, there is no casual in parenting. Unfortunately, we live in a world that values casual.

The secret to being an effective PA is love. Benevolence is a true desire to do well to others, including your spouse. No one is an effective parent if they are not an effective spouse, but that’s a blog for another day.

I am in the middle of a struggle with my 14-year-old son who is ready to bridge the gap between control and lead. As a PA, I trained my son for this day.

It was my job to teach him the function of certain tasks and the importance of these tasks. I showed how he did them, when he did them, and explain why he did them the way he did. You guessed it, he is tired of being instructed on when, where and why. 

It seems that he is on the edge of this void between control and lead. He wants to be in the lead and I truly want him to take the lead, but there is this void that we both can feel.

Three years ago my daughter began the trek across the void to the other side. It was my wife who felt the anxiety as she let my daughter take more of a lead.

So there it is; a void, a space between the child who is taught and the young adult who is ready to lead.

This is what terrifies me: Will they stick to the path or be distracted? Will they adapt when the journey is tough? Will they persevere?

This is the metaphor of parenting.

When I let go: Will they stick to the path? Will they pedal harder uphill? Will they persevere?