Aiming For Zero

The other day, my college early-childhood/early-elementary senior education major had a sub job at a school not far from her campus. She’d already met all of her substitute teaching requirements for her major: she was only doing the job to get her last few required observation hours.

On account of Covid and the fact that observing anything in person had become a hundred times trickier, I’d joked to her that she’d been trying to accumulate those hours since fifth grade.

“Feels like it," she told me.

The morning of her job, when I sent her a text to encourage her for the day, I told her, "You're on your way to zero!"

Normally, in our family, we are big on better than zero: aiming for anything more than a flat-out goose egg. But I told my daughter that, in this case, achieving the day’s goal would be even better than better than zero.

Which got me to thinking that there are some other things in life I'm aiming for zero on.

Zero days when my family goes to bed at night not having felt loved during the day.

Zero words from me that create a wound that never quite heals up.

Zero unforgiveness I think is making someone else sorry for what they did but is, in fact, only making me my own prisoner.

Zero chances to show love that I don’t take.

Zero would’ve, could’ve, or should’ve when I’m going after a good goal whose outcome I cannot control but whose input I can.

Zero settling for lukewarm faith.

Zero assumptions another day on this earth is guaranteed to me.

Zero taking my health for granted.

Zero missed opportunities to encourage someone or make their life a little easier.

Of course, “aiming” is the crux of the matter here. I’m going to miss on these sometimes...more than likely, a LOT of times. I’m going to hit one or 100.

But a wise friend of mine says, “If you aim at nothing, you’re sure to hit it.” I’m not really aiming at nothing here. I’m aiming at something that looks like zero, but would, in fact, be everything.

I’ll Keep Doing Things For My Kids They Can Do For Themselves

The other night, my teenager asked me, “I was wondering—and it’s totally fine if you say no—but I was wondering if maybe you could make me those oatmeal pancakes for breakfast tomorrow?”

I could. And I did.

Of course she could have made her own breakfast. She does, in fact, make her own breakfast other mornings when I can’t and don’t.

She didn’t actually need me to make her breakfast that day, but doing it for her smoothed out the edges of a morning that was headed toward rough.

And after I made those pancakes, I also packed her a lunch and threw in a load of her dance laundry.

I did some things for her that she can do for herself.

I made life a little easier for her.

Before anyone reminds me, I know I’m supposed to teach my kids to fend for themselves, to be independent, and, most of all, to not need me (much) anymore. According to a lot of articles I see out there in parent media land, I’m not “supposed” to do things for them they can do for themselves.

And I understand. I get it. I even agree, mostly. We have these children to hold them, but we raise them to release them—and we need to equip and prepare them for that releasing.

My teen does fend for herself. She is independent. She rarely needs me anymore. She runs a solid 90% of her own life and does it so well, I joke she should run for president someday. (Hello, First Mother?)

But when she asked if I’d make her those pancakes, I did it, and gladly. And I’ll do it again, as often as possible.

I’ll keep doing things for her she can do for herself. I’ll make her breakfast and pack her lunch and do her laundry. She knows full well how to do these things. She does do these things. But I’ll keep doing them for her a lot of the time while she does so many things I can’t and shouldn’t do for her.

I can’t—and wouldn’t—go to school and navigate the minefield of high school friendships.

I can’t deal with peer pressure and annoying classmates and incomprehensible geometry and public displays of affection and cringe-inducing dress code violations, all before 9 a.m.
 

I can’t decide what she wants to be when she grows up when the push to already have figured that out AND to have job-shadowed in that area AND to have decided where she'll go to grad school so she can be competitive in that field is coming from almost every direction.

I can’t run after her dreams and do what has to be done to make them a reality.

I can’t practice patience and kindness and self-control when teenage stress, exhaustion, and hormones—so many hormones—are bearing down hard.

I can’t balance 14 hours most weekdays of academics and extracurriculars and relationships with friends and family, all of them requiring dedication and determination.

My teenager is the only one who can do these things that matter now and matter for her future.

But I can make pancakes for her. And so, that morning, I did. Not because she wouldn't, but because I was willing. Not because she couldn't, but because I could. Not because making breakfast is some grand, magnanimous gesture, but because this is how we do family. I do things all the time for my husband that he can do for himself, as he does for me. My own parents still do many things for me that I can do for myself. This isn't a scorecard we're keeping here; it's just love. 

Of course, love wants the best for those it holds dear, and so I want my teenager to be able to take care of herself when I'm not around to do it. That's what's best for her. 

But when the time comes, this child who will always be a little bit my baby won’t be any less ready for life without me on a daily basis just because I made her a few breakfasts or washed a few dance leotards for her.

On the other hand, though, maybe I'll be a little readier for life without her at my kitchen table every morning if I do for her what I can do—even if she can do it for herself—while I still have the chance.

A version of this article first appeared on Your Teen For Parents.

Looking For My Children . . . And Being Found By Them

One morning several summers ago, my then-college daughter was backing her car out of our driveway just as I was turning in on foot. I’d left the house for my daily walk up and down our country road without seeing her or telling her goodbye before she left for her nannying job, so when I saw her heading to her car from my vantage point a little ways down the street, I circled back to send her off.

As we met at the end of our drive, she put her window down and told me, "I was coming to look for you!"

My daughter didn’t need anything from me. Nothing was wrong. She didn’t have anything she had to tell me. She just wanted to say goodbye, just for the day. So she was coming to look for me.

As parents, we look for our children their whole lives.

We look for those telltale lines on a pregnancy test or for a phone call from the adoption agency. We look for our babies to be born. We look to make sure they’re breathing in their cribs. We look for them when we play peekaboo or hide-and-seek. We look for them “hiding” in plain sight with their hands over their eyes, thinking that because they can’t see us, we can’t see them. They don’t know yet that we always see them, even when it’s just in our mind’s eye.

We look, frantically, for our children when they sometimes wander off at the grocery store or the library or the playground — in that one split second when we aren’t looking.

We look for them when they come out of school or get off the bus, trying to gauge what kind of day they’ve had by what we see on their faces…hoping for some advance notice of whether we’re going to need to commiserate or congratulate.

If they are dancers, we look for them in recitals and try to pick them out of all the other ballerinas wearing the same costume and doing the same moves (parents of little boy dancers may have an easier time of this). If they are athletes, we look for them on playing fields and try to find them among the uniforms that are aptly named because they all blend together. If they are musicians or actors, we look for them to emerge from the wings and take their place on stage.

When our teenagers learn to drive, we look for “I’m here” texts and for headlights turning into the driveway at night, and we breathe a sigh of relief every time.

We look for them, eventually, in a long line of gowned graduates processing into a stadium or gymnasium at a high school commencement.

We look for them when they come home from college or jobs or their own homes. We look for them coming up the sidewalk or through the arrival gate at the airport.

It is a privilege, this looking.

It speaks of relationship and connection and of our place in our children’s lives that no one else occupies. But at some point—usually on some ordinary day when we’re doing ordinary things, like taking a morning walk—our big kids start looking for us, too.

They look for us in the crowd at their ceremonies and celebrations. They look for us when we’re away and they’re the ones at home, waiting for us. They look, sometimes, for our advice. They look for our confirmation that they’ve done the right thing. They look for our reassurance that we still love them even when they’ve done the wrong thing. They look for our comfort and our presence.

And when this happens—when the children we’ve sought their whole lives start seeking us—we know we’ve found something new and wonderful. Something we were looking for, all along.

A version of this post originally appeared on CollegiateParent.