headphones

A lot of people my age with kids are hover parents. A hover parent is a parent who is always up in their child’s grill, out of protection or lack of anything better to do.

When I said a lot of them, I meant *cough* “all of the ones I know” *cough.*

OK, that’s not true. There is one that isn’t. We used to organize play dates. My sons and her sons are only a couple of months apart. When her son would crawl toward the fire place, I would want to reach out and  grab him, but I didn’t out of respect for a mother’s space and rights (later blog post).

She would get up and walk to the kitchen when her six month old was on the floor. I thought, oh damn, can we do that? 

The answer is yes we can.  

This woman was great for shattering my narrow view of what parenting was. I thought it had to be what everyone else did. But it doesn’t. A parent has the right and even responsibility to make parenting her (allow me the female pronoun, but know this can also apply to males) own. To tailor it to what works for herself and her children.

I do not subscribe to any parenting philosophies. In fact, I don’t even know what they are or how to define them, most of the time. That’s because I don’t read parenting books with the rare exception that gives a parent allowances rather than restrictions (Bringing up Bebe gave me great peace, learning that I could leave my child to cry for minute at night).

The reason for this is because I believe parenting is mostly intuitive. We operate based on instinct. We know our kids and what will and will not work for them. Kids are not all the same. Some are emotional, some are physical, some are introverts, some are extroverts, some like to build things, some like to destroy them. So when I read in a book that I should discipline my child by taking away TV, I just think, “ha. He doesn’t even like TV. Joke’s on you.”

I once was, but no longer am, a hover parent.

I am a convert.

Part of this is necessity. I do not have a babysitter (terrible strategy I wouldn’t recommend, later post on that). But I write. I write and edit for money and also for school. Both have hard and fast deadlines. Neither one allows me to be all up in my children’s grills (not that I want to be anyway). So I leave them to their own devices, with my ears open for hunger, bickering, and emergencies.

The other part was contained in my parenthesis. I do not want to be all up in my kids’ grills. I believe kids need freedoms. Kids need to be kids. There is a sense of community within children: they learn not only independence, but also how to take care of each other in the absence of adults. I’m not saying I’m never around. I’m always around. I’m just not sharing their breaths, recycling their air. That’s their air. And I need my own air (more on that later).

All of my favorite childhood memories were in the absence of adults. It was playing roller hockey in the cul-de-sac, building a fort, biking around on recycling day and taking Pepsi points. It was reading and writing and drawing dopey little catalogs that advertised clothes. It was sleepovers with my sister where we stayed up too late listening to Point of Grace and playing M*A*S*H. It wasn’t my mom saying, “be careful” or my dad following me on my paper route.

It was when I was free to be me. It was the space between people that allowed me to become my own person.

We need parents to teach us responsibility and respect. Parents provide for their children: a home, food, clothing, education. But I don’t think a parent needs to be an extension of her child. Let the child do their own thing and the let the parent do her’s. Allow each other to be. I don’t ever want to be so wrapped up in my kids that I forget who I am. And I don’t want them to be so attached to me that they can’t go to school, have a babysitter watch them, or cut up their own food. Fuck that.

Mama needs her sanity. You know that DMX song:

Y’all gon’ make me lose my mind
Up in here, up in here
Y’all gon’ make me go all out
Up in here, up in here
Y’all gon’ make me act a FOOL
Up in here, up in here
Y’all gon’ make me lose my cool
Up in here, up in here

That’s a mom about her kids. That’s when it’s time to let them run around outside and sit down with a good book, a cup of coffee, and–yes, I’m going to say it–headphones set on low.