Parenthood is thrilling, painful, anxiety-filled, challenging, and the most rewarding experience . . . often all within the same hour. The task of raising other human beings from scratch is difficult, because they come with minds and personalities of their own. Sometimes you have to deal with “nature” and “nurture” battling it out. What society now deems as “good” parenting has evolved. At the risk of dating myself, when I was growing up we didn’t use car seats or even seat belts, spanking was still acceptable, cigarette-shaped gum was cool, and my eight-year old friends and I could roam the streets to the playground or store without any adult supervision. These days, the rules have changed and all these things that I did growing up are now reasons a neighbor with good intentions would report me to Child Protective Services. Today’s parents have to be on their toes because we cannot, or do not want to, use many aspects of our own childhood upbringing as a guide to good parenting. We raise our kids in this hyper aware environment where the internet and social media, at any unexpected and vulnerable moment, can call us out for raising entitled and teacup-fragile, snowflake children. Furthermore, we have to raise our kids, not for today’s work environment, but for tomorrow’s. The cliche is apt: parenthood does not come with a manual. As with most parents, I have had to muddle through, figuring it out as I went along, writing three manuals for three different children.
So what to do when you don’t have the definitive manual for child-rearing? Well, if you are a Type-A planner and organizer like me, you raise your kids with a lot of intentionality. I read books and articles on raising kids. I attended Love-and-Logic workshops and attended day-long conferences on gifted children. Am I Tiger Mom? Free-range Mom? Authoritative Mom? And then I learned some things worked, some things were failures, and some things were wretchedly difficult to implement. Often, I had to go back to the drawing board or my efforts fell short of my intentions. Occasionally, I surrendered . . . and my kids are still okay (at least I think so, crossing my fingers here).
Over time, my husband and I came up with a child-rearing philosophy. I call it, “World Ready Kids.” Essentially there are three goals to the World Ready Kids philosophy. First, I want to raise children who are decent, kind, and compassionate. No idiots, jerks, or buffoons, please, God! Second, I aim to raise kids who are responsible, independent, and self-sufficient. This means that they should be able to cook, do laundry, keep house, handle finances, advocate for themselves, and solve their own problems by the time they leave for college. They might still have to come live at home after college to pay off their student debt, but they will actually pay it off in full and help with the housekeeping. Third, I endeavor to prepare my children to succeed and thrive in a world that looks very different from what it is now, a world that is fast-changing and full of innovation.
The last goal of World Ready Kids, preparing them for a fast-changing world, needs some elaboration. Technology, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, will change every aspect of our lives in the future. In addition, despite our country’s current pursuit of isolationist policies, globalization is a reality. Even if our country wants to put blinders on and believe that globalization will stop if the US doesn’t participate, globalization will continue and it will just leave the US behind. Therefore, to be prepared for a technology-filled, global workplace, World Ready Kids need both the hard skills and the soft skills to succeed. I believe that the soft skills, such as the flexibility to handle change, creativity, a problem-solving mentality, being proactive, and resourcefulness, are the skills that will be most helpful to future-proofing my kids.
So this blog documents my research, as well as my trials and tribulations implementing my ideas about raising kids. One thing I know for sure is that there is no one “right way” to child rearing. I talk about the things that worked and didn’t work for our family. What works for your family will depend on your kids, your needs, your history, and your values. I share my ideas so you can pick and choose if something might work for your family. I hope you can find some value from my journey.