Thread by @nittiaj

A thread for parents of young kids about something I learned this summer. Here goes… I’ve got a 10 yo boy. He’s a genuinely happy kid, which should be all you can ask for as a parent. But like most dads, that’s not enough for me, because like most dads, I’m kind of a dick. 1/x

It’s not enough for my boy to be happy; I want him to be strong. And brave. And tough. But here’s the thing: he’s still a little boy. He sleeps with his beloved monkeys. He’s scared to go upstairs in our house alone. Most days, it’s tough to get him to turn off SpongeBob. 2/x

And these things frustrate me. When is he going to grow out of those damn monkeys? What is there to be scared of upstairs? Why is he so lazy? 3/x

I live in one of the coolest mountain towns in America. I thought that alone ensured that my boy would be a badass. But my son never drags me out of bed to go skiing. He hates anything to do with climbing uphill, which is kind of a prerequisite for living out here. 4/x

And this frustrates me even more. I was adventurous as a kid. I was passionate. I didn't shy away from hard work. Why isn’t he more like me?

I promise this is going somewhere. 5/x

My kids spend every summer on the beach. This year, we signed him up for a lifeguard-in-training program with my old beach patrol. I was nervous about how it would go. They ask a lot of those kids, and at 10, my boy would be the youngest one. 6/x

On the first day, my worst fears became reality. We jumped in for a fairly long ocean swim, and my boy, despite being a capable swimmer and one who has always enjoyed playing in the surf, went into a full panic attack. Sobbing. Screaming. 7/x

I swam over to him, and we quietly left the session while the other kids were finishing up their swim. I assumed he would never go back. He wasn’t ready. Wasn’t , I quietly lamented, strong, or brave, or tough enough. 8/x

But then a funny thing happened. That night, he told my dad that he wanted to go back the next day. And he did. He was still scared, but he went. In fact, for the next 19 sessions, even though he was noticeably nervous –bordering on terrified—he went, and he tried. 9/x

And each time we did a big swim, he would panic, and I would talk him through it. And being the idiot and asshole I am, I would talk him through it by saying things like “What are you scared of? It’s just the ocean. There’s nothing to worry about here.” 10/x

And each time, he would finish the swim, but because I am indeed an idiot and an asshole, I would leave wondering, “Why was he so scared? Why isn’t he more brave?” 11/x

It wasn’t until his final day of LIT that it all came together for me. The kids had a tournament, and the surf was BIG. My boy was signed up to paddle, and the head judge said any kid that had fears about navigating the waves could drop out of the competition, and many did. 12/x

But my boy refused. He lined up at the start, ran towards the surf with his board, gave a smart and safe effort, and finished the race in one piece. 13/x

And that’s when it hit me: as parents, we want our kids to be strong and tough and brave because we think WE are strong and tough and brave, and thousands of years of evolution has brought us to a place where we want our kids to be exactly how we (think we) are. 14/x

But when we measure our kids against that standard, we make two fatal mistakes. First, we fail to accept that we aren’t as strong and tough and brave as we think we are. And more importantly, we forget that we sure as hell weren’t strong or tough and brave when we were kids. 15/x

When we compare our kids to ourselves, we choose to remember only our best moments. Our strongest, toughest, bravest moments. I know I do. I chide my boy for being lazy, but forget how happy I was at ten to waste a day away in front of the TV. 16/x

I get frustrated when he imagines monsters in our house, without the self-awareness to acknowledge that I was TERRIFIED of the basement of my childhood home. 17/x

I implore him to keep swimming by saying “it’s only the ocean; there’s nothing to be worried about,” while happily repressing the memory of just how scared I was to swim to the training buoy 500 feet off shore when I was a fully-trained lifeguard. 18/x

When I watched my little 10 yo boy paddling through waves that could inflict some serious pain, I realized that
I had spent so much time worrying about each singular struggle that I've failed to look at the totality of his summer and recognize just how far he had come...19/x

....and how over the past few years, I've been so busy fretting about all the ways he wasn't living up to the standard I had set for him, that had I looked closer, I'd have realized that he'd far surpassed anything I had accomplished as a kid. 20/x

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm no Little League father. I don't hurl empty whiskey bottles at the ump when my son strikes out. But is what I did this summer any less embarrassing? 21/x

Sure my boy finished LIT. But he might have been happier just collecting seashells. That's what makes being a parent so tricky; with one breath we beg our kids to stay small forever, but with the next we push them to grow up too fast in the name of character building. 22/x

As torn as we feel, it's nothing compared to what our kids go through. They want so badly to not let us down that they'll pursue things they care absolutely nothing about. They are constantly navigating a tightrope between OUR expectations and their desire to just be a kid. 23/x

So go easy on them. Don’t forget how big and scary the world can feel to a child. How many horrors lurk behind a closet door. How many creatures hunt you along your ocean swim. How a hill an adult can pedal up with minimal effort can feel like Everest to ten-year old legs. 24/x

Remind yourself of all the times as a kids you slept in, or chickened out, or came up short, and you'll realize that despite all your worry, your kids are braver, stronger, and tougher than you ever were, and that they probably need to be. Tell them that once in a while. 25/25