Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain

One of the prime goals of parenting is to become utterly dispensable—to end up with kids who are independent and confident and who fearlessly question authority, including yours.  And an inevitable step on this path involves having your own kids realize your utter fallibility---the terrible truth that you are sometimes (may chance oftimes) dead wrong.

I’ve been thinking again (with love) about my own father, a strong personality and a man who did not easily admit error.  When he got an idea in his head it was almost impossible to change his thinking.  Even in my thirties I still avoided crossing him and put up with various eccentric and ill-advised behaviors from him rather than take that one giant step.

 

I’ve also been thinking about my ongoing battle with the voice in my head that relentlessly reminds me I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m an impostor, a failure, yada yada yada.  I recall the day when I proudly told my father I’d been promoted to director at work.  His initial reaction was undisguised disbelief.  He could not accept that I had managed to get this promotion or that I would be able to do the job without failing.

Now, many years later, it occurs to me that the voice in my head questioning the validity of every move I make is my father’s voice:  The Great and Powerful Oz.  And the terrible truth is that there was only a man behind the curtain, a man who was sometimes dead wrong himself, and man who was insecure in his own life and work, damaged by his own father’s disappointments and held back also by the culture of his time which had no room for the idea of a woman like me rising to such a role.

It’s a shock for a kid to finally admit that the parents are human.  Much as it was a shock for Dorothy and her companions to discover that the Wizard of Oz was not so great and powerful after all and they were going to have to find their own solutions to their various problems.  Here's hoping I applied some of what I learned to my own parenting role and to some decent degree restrained myself from excessive hovering, questioning, doubting and dominating.  I hope I’m doing a good job of letting my kids go, letting them rise to their individual occasions, allowing them to seize their autonomy and independence sooner rather than later.  We're not in Kansas anymore.