Patience in Parenting

Navigating the challenges with wisdom and discernment is imperative.

As the mother of four young adult children, I can look back on many of the stages and struggles of their early years now with laughter and lightheartedness. As we were navigating through those stages, they were not the least bit funny. I had one child who sucked his thumb and I envisioned him standing at the altar waiting for his bride with his thumb in his mouth. The experts said I needed to take drastic measures to break him of the habit. One of my children was a tippy-toe walker and I thought I would have to shop for her shoes wherever Barbie found hers. The experts said surgery might be necessary. Another one of my little ones relied on a pacifier which all of the experts warned me about. They were adamant it would ruin his teeth and he would become dependent on it forever. I also had a bedwetter in the mix. I was pretty sure he was going to live with us and sleep on plastic sheets well into adulthood. 

I can reflect on these struggles now and smile because they are all distant memories and my children are happy, healthy, and well-adjusted young adults. Over the years, and as we faced other difficult stages and struggles, I was able to use the wisdom gained from these situations to temper my responses and reactions. One of the biggest lessons I learned on my parenting journey is that most of the issues that cause anxiety, worry, and sleepless nights  never come to fruition, and those that do tend to resolve themselves in time. While that is not a universal truth, it is at least a very common trend.

This time of personal reflection is a result of what I am witnessing among parents who are journeying through childhood and early adolescence with their children now. Some of them are in the midst of a difficult stage and it likely feels overwhelming, terrifying, and confusing. The person they love more than life itself, their child, is suffering from feelings of depression, loneliness, uncertainty, and doubt. Sadly, some “experts” today are offering “solutions” that are incredibly invasive and life-altering. Those who recommend the wise course of allowing time, patience, and counseling to fulfill their role are often labeled as uncompassionate or dismissive. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

While I’ve never experienced a child with a gender identity issue, after raising four children, I have waded into a lot of unknown parenting waters. I am thankful that, in most cases, I did not allow my fear to take over but instead trusted facts, knowledge, and wise discernment when seeking solutions. I would implore any parent struggling to know how best to support their child who has been impacted by our society’s infatuation with gender identity and sexuality to practice patience and restraint. As the wise Frederick Douglass once said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” We must focus on raising strong children so we do not have a generation of “broken” men and women.