Letter to three future parents

What would you tell your kids about what you've learned from raising them? Check out Stie's great letter to her three children at Letters to a Parent. I love her insights and the reminder that we are raising our grandchildren's parents.

Have you been thinking about your own letter?
We have some more great ones coming up in future weeks but it would be wonderful to add your parenting insights to the mix. Here are some hints for writing one.

New week, new letter

The newest Letter to a Parent comes from the inspiring Gabi. Always a wonderful spokesmom for the profession of parenting, Gabi wrote a wise and lovely Letter to an Adoptive Mom. Prepare to be inspired and informed.

If you are toying with the idea of writing a letter yourself, go ahead--do it! If you're looking for a little nudge, there are hints for writing one here.

Show me who you are

If you are a parent of a teenager (or plan on allowing your children to reach their teens), head on over to Letters to a Parent for a wonderful letter on raising teens. I love this concept of parenting: show me who you are. I just might have to tattoo it on my arm or engrave it over our fireplace.

Clap your hands if you believe in parents...

A professor in one of my developmental psych classes once commented that one of the things that separates us from other species is our ability to tell stories, to learn vicariously from each other without going through the exact experience ourselves. Huh. I'd never thought of it that way before.

But it makes sense. When I was a girl, I loved hovering near the grown-ups at gatherings at the cabin, soaking up their stories about life and, especially, families.

I've been thinking a lot about that lately.

I'm especially intrigued by parenting stories--in hearing the different ways we make it work in all of our vivid uniquenesses and uniting similarities. I love reading about how others approach their relationships with their kids & the lessons learned in raising them. I started asking other parents how they did it, collecting their answers and using them to recharge when my child-raising battery was low. In that spirit, I've hatched an idea.

Here it is:

A new site {inspired by both This I Believe and the poet Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet} centered around parenting beliefs, where parents can post a letter/essay about a lesson learned or belief or philosophy they've gained about parenting: just a brief sliver of perspective to share with others who are also traveling-trudging-skipping-strolling on the parenting path. These will be published online weekly or so, depending on when letters come in.

So {ta-da!} here's the link:

<<Letters to a Parent>>

The first letter is the one that got this whole idea cooking: actually, it's a transcript of a talk given by my great-grandmother Brockbank about parenting. I think you'll love it.

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p.s. If you'd like to write a letter/essay for this project (please do!), e-mail me at basic.annie@gmail.com. It doesn't have to be anything long or grand, just a real and honest piece of your wisdom (can be inspiring, funny, irreverent, moving...whatever you feel) that you're interested in sharing. In addition, if you know anyone that you would like to nominate to write a letter about their approach to parenting that would be wonderful, too. Feedback, ideas, and suggestions highly welcome. And, pssst. Spread the word.

The notebook

The tween/teen years are tricky parenting geography, especially with your oldest child. How much permission to grant, what are the kids ready for (and you! what are you ready for?), how to balance freedom + protection???

So here's an idea we tried: Years ago when Lauren was around 9, we started a notebook conversation between us. At the time we were in a rut where I seemed to be finding much more negative than positive things to say to her (of course now I can't remember the reasons or the issues or why they seemed so important to me...) and she was getting moodier in that hint-of-adolescence way. I had a bunch of blank books so one day I grabbed one, wrote her a note in it, and left it under her pillow. Then she wrote back.

It's been a crucial thing for our relationship. Recently I got it back out again on an evening when neither of us could really understand where the other was coming from. We both sound better in writing at those times. Friendlier and more calm.

Our guidelines are that we can say anything or ask anything, we won't correct or critique, and (my personal commitment to myself as the purported adult in this whole thing) I try to say positive things each time.

And confidentiality, of course. I won't quote our exchanges here but I'm sure you can imagine them. Sometimes she just asked what a word meant, sometimes I simply praised her efforts at trying new things. Other times we passionately defended our points of view or begged for understanding (or forgiveness!).

As a bonus, we have a terrific chronicle of our relationship. I look back and realize how ridiculous my expectations were at times. Lighten up, Annie, I remind myself. Most often, though, a re-read of the notebook increases my compassion for us both + shows what I've hoped all along: we're both doing the best we know how to do.