Parenting experts

As parents, none of us know what we are doing. I know that I have written about this before. Just when we think that we have gotten a handle on one situation, another one pops up, and we are back to square one. I still remember thinking that after my boys were all toilet trained, I had survived the most challenging part of parenting. Ha, ha, ha — that’s so funny, right? But we do our best and hope for the best.

We go to lectures about parenting, we read books about parenting, there are podcasts about parenting (though, I am embarrassed to admit that I have never listened to a podcast about parenting or anything else for that matter. I don’t even know how to access a podcast. Please forgive me. I never claimed to be intellectual and that is okay). Because if we are listening to or reading about being parents, the person we are listening to or reading must know something that we don’t, right? They must be experts, and we should be honored to absorb their wisdom.

And then, with God’s help, we are blessed with the ability to watch our children become parents. I was fortunate enough to spend Shabbes with Son and DIL #1 and their girls. Without going into details, Son #1 told me about a study he had heard about. “If you do such and such, this and that will happen to your child.” I just started laughing, for many reasons. The most important one being that the thing he was talking about had affected my upbringing in the opposite way. But that is neither here nor there.

I had to explain to him that most of the “studies” are just words. There is always evidence to refute them. Not to say that some of these studies are not valid, but if you wait a few years, another study will come out saying the exact opposite — and then what do you do? Growing up with a father like mine, one whose mantra was “everything in moderation,” I learned at a young age that you have to take all of these experts with a grain of salt. (Which was another mantra of his…)

Though I don’t listen to podcasts, I fancy myself a professional social media stalker. Some of you have benefited from my stalking as I tend to occasionally send friends and loved ones screenshots of them from various weddings or fundraisers. It is a problem. I am the first to admit that I really need to get off of social media. I am just grateful that they didn’t have it when I was a teenager, but that is for another column.

I came across a reel on Instagram from thegrandparentdoula. It was basically a video of a parent telling her parent that everything she was saying to her child (the grandchild) was wrong. Instead of saying “I am so proud of you,” you should say “You should be so proud of you.” Instead of saying “Don’t hit your sister” you should say “Use gentle hands” and things of that nature. But the way the video was done was just really funny. Because, as the saying goes, “becoming a grandparent is a reward for not killing your children.”

Let me be clear, I never wanted to kill my children. I loved raising my boys. I love each of my boys the same. I have a favorite oldest, a favorite middle, and a favorite youngest. God had a reason for giving me only three Oreos. (Even though each of them thinks the other one is the favorite. IT ISN’T TRUE!!! The caps are for my Oreos who are reading this, I am not yelling at any of you.)

I really do love seeing my boys as parents. And I love seeing how much their little girls love them. And when I hear them say how tired they are, I think back to when their father would sleep through all of the nighttime feedings and diaper changes, and in the morning, he would say, “Wow, the babies did really well last night,” and I wanted to kill him….

And then I say something to my son, which defends the hard work that my daughters-in-law do. (Because even though I have always taught my sons “wife before mother,” I am keenly aware that they are their father’s sons….)

Wishing luck to parents at every stage of this amazing journey.

Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck is looking forward to wearing her Santa hat when she goes walking at night during the holiday season.