My Biggest Parenting Fail

My wife is a natural parent. She is like a baby whisperer with newborns while I get nervous just thinking about their fragile dependence on the care of someone like myself. Once babies move past 3-4 months old and begin to do something besides eat, sleep, and poop I start to relax a bit. Still, parenting is seriously difficult work for me. I have had mishaps and parenting fails at every stage of my parenting career and in ways that my wife will never duplicate. Actually it is usually my wife who points out that "that wasn't a good idea".

There is the time (which I don't remember but Erica swears by) when I let my not-yet-two year old daughter join me on the roof when I was cleaning the gutters. Don't worry. We all survived. Miriam survived the 8 foot climb up a ladder and I survived my wife's wrath.

Then there is the time I locked myself out of the house when that same daughter was taking a nap during the same summer as the "let's go on the roof" incident. Her delight at waking up to see me pushing the air conditioner out of her window and crawling in was great to see. This happened twice.

Another parenting fail was when I road my bike across a college campus while holding/carrying our three-week-old daughter in an infant car seat. I thought the stares were the "wow, that's impressive" sort but my wife explained to me that they were "wow, that's stupid" stares.

And then there are the repeated failures at figuring out how to do my daughters hair. It's not that I don't care or don't try. It's just that the bedraggled, I-slept-through-a-tornado look comes into style at precisely the moment my wife leaves the house.

In more recent parent fail history, I thought it would be a good idea to take our oldest daughter to get her ears pierced. Without telling her mother. Didn't even ask the question. Oops.

Seeing this all written together is kind of embarrassing but remember that these were spread out over several years. Except the roof and locked-myself-out-again incidents. But still. Cut me some slack.

But my biggest parenting fail of all isn't nearly so funny or embarrassing. Early on in my older daughter's life I was really struggling with the anxiety that often comes with parenting. I woke each day very aware of the responsibility that comes with being a parent and of the reality hat I was unlikely to perfectly fulfill that responsibility. With desires to see my daughter growing, prospering and most importantly, walking with the Lord, I carried the huge burden of thinking that I really needed to get everything right as a parent. The weight of that burden and my obvious inability to perfectly protect, provide for, and nurture my daughter's faith were a recipe for all sorts of struggles for me. 

My failure was that I wasn't giving myself room for failure. Obviously we should strive to do our best as parents but I was simply not being fair with myself in acknowledging that I am both finite and fallen. It can be a crushing weight to carry someone else's future in your hands when you don't even carry your own future in your own hands. So I had to bring that burden to the Lord. I'm not a perfect person so it was a failure to think that I could be a perfect parent. 

Admitting my failures, limitations and brokenness has really helped transform my parenting. I am freed to be myself which is great in and of itself (most of the time). More importantly it has helped me look to the Lord with fervent prayer and utter dependence. I don't have to be perfect as a parent just like I don't have to be perfect before God. Jesus gets to be my perfection before God just as God gets to be the perfect Father for my children! My job is simply to point my children towards God. 

No pretense. No acting like I have it all together. Freedom to confess and apologize and seek forgiveness from my kids. No burden of being a perfect parent. An ability to laugh at mistakes and even share them with others. 

Being a walking, talking parenting failure is not such a bad thing when you see how it drives you toward dependence on God.

An 'expecting' friend recently asked for insight on parenting. My advice as a parenting failure was perhaps unexpected and looked a bit like the following:

• "Admit defeat" early in the game. You aren't going to be perfect so before the failure ever happens let yourself off the hook and resolve to be ok with falling short. 
• Learn from failure but don't burden yourself with trying to be a perfect parent. 
• Laugh at yourself and don't take parenting so seriously. Have fun with the journey.
• And finally, ask for help, mostly from the Lord.  

I'd love to hear some other parenting fails. Or some ways you've struggled as you watch your own imperfections passed on to your kids. Most of all, I'd love to know how you've been able to watch God work in your kids lives in ways you never could have worked.