Parents Who Think They Deserve Credit For Their Kid’s Success

I’m sorry, but I refuse to take a bow

Photo by Steve Douglas on Unsplash

Parenting is a mess of an endeavor, with emotions you don’t feel the full weight of until your kid becomes a young adult.

Many of us grow up alongside our kids.

For goodness sake, I’ll turn 50 next year and everyday I have to remind myself to — for example — not externalize, catastrophize, globalize, overreact, take things personally or call someone a poopy face because they did something I don’t like.

If you think you’re this fully-formed Gen X or baby boomer adult and that you navigate life meaningfully better than your “just starting out,” they’ll always be my little boy or girl, you’re probably wrong.

Maybe not, but probably.

All I’m doing here is speaking from my experience as a son and parent of a 21-year old young woman.

After Trump won, my daughter was very upset. Super sad, in fact. Like crying sad.

I don’t blame her.

And I didn’t tell her “everything is going to be okay,” because I don’t believe that.

But that’s not the point of the story. The point is that just a few years ago, she would have been so inconsolably sad in a situation like…