Defining Parenting Success

 My kids, on occasion will let me know those areas of parenting where I have failed them. Usually along these lines:
"Hannah is angry that you never...."
"Abby thinks you should have..."
"Rachel says you didn't..."

I'll be honest those little zingers from my kids can have an impact. It hurts to be criticized, especially from creatures that you worked so hard to keep alive.

The other day, such an incident occurred and the item discussed revealed a particular time period in my life as a parent. I thought, "Man, if they only knew what I was dealing with at that time."

And then I thought about that. Without realizing it, they were revealing to me my greatest success as a parent: they didn't know. They had no idea the depth of what I had been going through.

They didn't know about my depression, how I fought most mornings to get out of bed. How, sometimes it was hour by hour that I struggled to not crawl back in once I was up. They didn't know that making pancakes for breakfast was an accomplishment. That all my "busy-ness" was because I feared that if I stopped, I would cease to exist.

They didn't know the true extent of our financial disaster. I turned not buying groceries into a game: let's see what we can make with what we already have in the house. Not buying oil for the furnace became lets use the woodstove for heat and hot water like it's Laura Ingalls' time. TV free week stretched into TV free year when there was no money for cable.

They never knew the brink at which my marriage sat precariously for so long, as two very flawed sinners tried to reconcile deep hurts.

I look at my girls, all of them so grown up. Yeah, I messed things up. I didn't do everything I should have, and sometimes I was selfish, or lazy, or exhausted, or sick, or just lost my way. My job as a parent was to protect and shield them from the nastiest parts of life in the grown-up world, and I apparently had done that, because they didn't know. 

My girls are strong. They each have a fearlessness that is unique to their own view of the world. They can tell you what they believe and why they believe it. They know they are loved and they know how to love others fiercely. They will rally together when the chips are down and nothing stands in their way when they are united and the goal is taking care of someone.

My wish for them as they move out, get married, and have children of their own, is that someday their children will tell them all the ways they screwed up. Not for some diabolical reason of revenge, but that maybe, just maybe, they would realize that they too did the best they could, with what they had, at that moment. And that is successful parenting.