personal development

Extending a Bit of Empathy to a Fellow Parent

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
My older son when he was three and my younger son was an infant. (Alt-text: A young white boy in a red sweater, sitting on the floor playing with a toy fire truck)

“What age is she?” I asked the dad standing with a double stroller next to me in the elevator. The top seat had an older toddler in it; the bottom one was empty, but from the conversation between them, it sounded like there was a baby with the mom.

“Three,” he sighed, obviously exhausted.

“Oh, that’s a tough age,” I responded, trying to sound as sympathetic as possible. Three was by far the hardest for us, especially when our older kid was that age and our younger kid was an infant. “It gets easier – and more fun.”

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Why posts about shallow inclusivity make me cringe

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
A photo of me (a white woman with brown hair and glasses) in a Wonder Woman dress standing in front of a bookshelf with books and a plant on it

I know what it’s like to be the kid sitting alone in the cafeteria. I also know what it’s like to be the kid who befriends a kid sitting alone in the cafeteria.

In eighth grade, I was having a very rough year. At the beginning of the year, I was kicked off the swim team for the simple fact that I wasn’t very good, the one place I had a semblance of a social life. I had befriended a few folks at the beginning of the year, but wasn’t very close to them yet and didn’t have the same lunch as them. Most of the time, I ate lunch in the cafeteria alone and then moved on to the library to read or music room to practice my saxophone. I never got particularly good at the saxophone, but it was a heck of a lot better than sitting around by myself in the cafeteria.

Around that time, an advisor for a club I was in (who was also a guidance counselor) suggested that I befriend a classmate. I knew I was nowhere near popular. I was barely tolerated in class among the “smart popular” kids who were in honors classes but weren’t as weird.

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On the little failures in parenting

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
Photo of a bookshelf at our local library, filled with books, with a stuffed giraffe and a cardboard cutout of Madeline on top

I just realized that once again, I didn’t have my kids participate in the library’s summer reading program.

It’s not because I’m morally against it. Far from it! Sure, external motivation can overwhelm internal motivation if you overdo it. But my kids love reading on its own accord and a few prizes won’t change that. I was a voracious reader in elementary school and still enjoyed the Book-It prize pizzas and buttons. At least back when Pizza Hut still had the fake Tiffany lamps at each table and good pizza.

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The Anxiety of Screwing Up as a Parent

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
My kids (two white boys, one in a blue t-shirt and one in a black sweatshirt) walking on a maze printed on a giant carpet-like mat

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.” As a parent, that line from poet Philip Larkin strikes a lot differently than it used to.

Lived experience doesn’t help much on this front. With a “what are you going to do?” shrug, my mother-in-law informed me that you’ll do your best as a parent but there will still be things that your kids will disagree with your parenting or think are hurtful as an adult. Similarly, I hear people talk about how adults said small things to them – for both good and bad – that the adult probably doesn’t remember, but the person has carried with them their whole lives.

The fact is, doing something to screw up my kids is one of my biggest fears as a parent. Not that I’m perfect – far from it. I know I mess up and genuinely apologize to my kids to make up for it.

What I’m scared of is messing up in some major way and having no idea I did so.

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Building Character Whether We Want to or Not

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
Photo of a tiny orange newt on the bark of a fallen log with moss

“I swear, this hike felt a lot easier when I was 15,” I said to my kids, huffing as we hauled up what seemed like the endlessly steep mountain.

I had promised an “easy, fun, not that long” hike. I was right that it wasn’t that long. What I had forgotten was that it was nearly straight up, complete with patches of steep, smooth rock. It had rained the night before, making everything slippery as hell.

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On Making Cakes and Finding Your Strengths

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
A cake of a brick with big cartoon eyes and legs

I am terrible at making cakes. It involves both baking and decorating skills that I have never and are likely to never possess. Thankfully, I am not the designated cook or baker in our family. That’s all my husband.

My husband never planned to be a cook or stay at home dad. In college, he was a chemistry and then political science major. Frankly, he had no idea what he wanted to be.

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Finding Rest as a Parent Even When You Don’t Want To

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
Trees with orange and brown leaves lit by an unknown source of light, as there is a cloudy sky with gray clouds overhead

“You should be so available to play that your children never need to ask,” read the meme. Or least that’s how I read it. (Although it really was close to it.) But what if they always want more than I have to offer? I thought in desperation.

Other memes or oversimplified advice extolled the virtues of connection, especially when it came to getting your kids to do what you want or need them to do, like brush their teeth or come to the table for dinner. Some even made the connection explicit, saying that your kids will be cooperative if only you’re connected enough with them. Of course that message implies the opposite – that if they aren’t cooperative, it’s because you aren’t connected enough.

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Moving from watching to participating as a parent

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment
Photo of my kids (two white boys in t-shirts) in a carnival ride that has a bucket on an arm that spins around

“You aren’t supposed to lead play, just watch,” the parenting expert voice in the back of my head said. So I sat there on the living room floor and watched, keeping my mouth closed, lest I pass judgment on how my kid was playing.

Even though something felt ‘off’ about this statement, I couldn’t help but see it as the culmination of so much parenting advice – and more strikingly, parent shaming.

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