Who grades our parenting?

Many are often preoccupied with how their friends and peers consider them as parents. The more compliant and polite our children are, especially in these social circles, the better we feel about ourselves. Like the house, the career, the car, the children in the best school, and many accruements society uses as signs of success, our children and our relationship with them have become one more. 

The same can be said of our families, parents, siblings, and wider families. We covertly feel that they evaluate us as people and include our children to measure how “together” we have turned out. 

The truth, though, is, ultimately, our children “grade” our parenting. That grading is often spoken about three or four decades later, but it does come. The “grades” can be spoken, articulated, or acted out when we are included or excluded, welcome or otherwise. 

Reflecting on our parent's mistakes can be an intimidating activity. It can be challenging to confront the fact that our parents, whom we may have looked up to and relied on, may have made mistakes or had shortcomings. However, it is important to acknowledge that our parents are human and may have made mistakes, just like we all do.

Confronting our parents' failures and shortcomings can be psychologically threatening for several reasons.

Firstly, our parents are often our primary caregivers and the most significant authority figures in our lives during our formative years. As children, we rely on our parents for safety, security, and emotional support, and our relationship with them can profoundly impact our sense of self-worth and well-being. As a result, acknowledging that our parents may have made mistakes or failed to meet our needs can be emotionally challenging and may require us to reassess our core beliefs and values.

Secondly, confronting our parents' failures may challenge our sense of loyalty and obligation to them. Many people feel a strong sense of duty and responsibility towards their parents and may struggle to reconcile their parents' shortcomings with their love and respect for them. This can lead to feelings of guilt, shame, and ambivalence, which can be difficult to process and resolve.

Confronting our parents' failures may also involve acknowledging our own feelings of anger, disappointment, and sadness towards them. These emotions can be challenging to navigate, especially if we have been socialised to repress or deny our negative feelings towards our parents.

Confronting our parents' failures and shortcomings can be psychologically threatening because it requires us to challenge deeply ingrained beliefs and emotions and confront the complex and often conflicted nature of our relationships with our parents. However, with the help of therapy or support from trusted individuals, we can work through these challenges and come to a more nuanced and realistic understanding of our parents and ourselves.

At the same time, it is essential to recognise that we, too, may make mistakes as parents. Realising that our children will judge our parenting can be uncomfortable and threatening. However, this realisation can also be a powerful motivator to improve parenting skills and strive to be our best parents.

To sit with these two discomforting realisations can help practice self-reflection and self-awareness. Acknowledging our mistakes and shortcomings opens us up to learning and leaning on our community for the areas we need help. We can also strive to be more mindful and intentional in our parenting, seeking to understand our children's needs and perspectives.

It is also important to recognise that what we do in the present, during our children's formative years, can have a lasting impact on how they view us as parents. 

This can be challenging and humbling, as we may need to confront brutal truths about our parenting and acknowledge our actions' impact on our children in the same way as we do with “grading” our parents’ parenting. 

It is crucial to work on healing emotional wounds and fostering healthy relationships with our children, even if this means facing uncomfortable truths about our past behaviour. Similarly, looking back at our parents' mistakes, we approach the situation with empathy and understanding. We can understand the reasons behind their actions and consider the challenges and pressures they may have faced. This can help us to address the injuries and move forward positively.

While our children's evaluations of our parenting may be subjective and occur many years later, we can take steps in the present to ensure that we are acting in our children's best interests and creating positive relationships with them. This requires a willingness to be self-reflective and address areas where we may need to improve as parents.

Ultimately, it is essential to approach these discomforting realisations with compassion, empathy, and a growth mindset. By doing so, we can learn from the mistakes of our parents and strive to be the best parents we can be for our children.

NB: This article does not seek to gloss over, downplay, or minimise childhood abuse and cruelty in any way.