Happy Birthday!

To have kids or not is a very personal reality, whether it's a decision or a life circumstance. I don't believe that either having or not having children is harder, better, morally superior, more fun, leads to a fuller life, etc. So that's not what this post is about. It's about the single biggest point which my having a child has driven home to me.

Donald Miller writes in "Blue Like Jazz" about how his life at one point was basically like a play in which he was the lead role. Any time anyone else came onto his "stage" with a request or need or just wanting to be present, Miller felt like his great story was being infringed upon. I think, if we're honest, that's how many of us live, whether we are aware of it or not. We simply *are* the stars of our own show, and often other people *do* get in the way of where we were going in a "scene."

Sixteen years ago today (almost half a day ago, at this point), I started upon a journey that would be a constant attempt to remind me that it's not all about me. Sure, I'd seen this in other relationships in my life. But since I have never lived with anyone else for all of sixteen years, I've never had to face the fact over and over again that I tend to make every single thing about me, on some level.

Kid sleeps through the night? Is quiet and well-behaved at restaurants? Is at ease with strangers? Is smart? Is talented? Is empathetic? Well, yeah, I'm proud of my child, in that case. But some of that pride spills over onto me. I'm a pretty good parent. I'm disciplined. I am fairly clever myself. I model good things.

And no matter how often I realize this and try to recalibrate, it still usually slips back as a default.

It works on the negative, too.

Kid has severe anxiety? Is super introverted? Has no apparent need for close relationships? Doesn't pick up on social signals? Can be accidentally (really really) rude when triggered? That's probably on me, too. What if I hadn't broken up the family of origin? What if I hadn't blanched so much at signs of neediness? What if I had better modeled self-control?

Anecdotally, I know that all parents struggle with blaming challenging things in their children on themselves. I have a friend whose child is about D's age and also has anxiety, and though their family is intact, she questions whether her being so depressed when pregnant caused this.

But there is also actual evidence that, aside from drinking and smoking, what parents do doesn't really affect their children, who mostly just remember whether the parents were kind or not.

(Incidentally, that link includes a statistic that people with children ARE actually measurably less happy than childless couples, if my friends who don't have kids ever want to stick that in someone's pipe and let them smoke it when they're serving garbage.)

The biggest crime around making my child's triumphs or struggles about me is that it renders me less capable of seeing them as their own fully-fledged human and either purely celebrating or altruistically helping them, as the situation demands.

And so I readjust. Often. Sometimes daily. Sometimes multiple times daily.

There were so many things I couldn't have foreseen when I first became a parent and was overwhelmed with the minutiae of having an infant: What do they want? Another diaper?! Why aren't they eating? Is that jaundice? Why aren't they sleeping? Why are they sleeping so much? What am I supposed to do about hiccups?!

The most uncomfortable challenge my elder child has presented to me has been a years-long look at my beliefs about God and the nature of the world. It started with simpler questions, which, over the years, simple answers no longer satisfied. As the questions, to which I responded with sincerity, but often using pat doctrinal scripts, intensified and I realized the answers were unsatisfactory, I had to really take a look at my own faith. Was is mature faith and I just needed to wait for this kid to catch up with me? Or were there depths I was missing?

Honestly, one of the tensions I face daily is the fact that I'm an open book and D covets privacy. So while I can't say anything too specific or share too much, I just want to note on this, the sixteenth anniversary of a life-altering birth, that I am grateful to be making this often-surprising life journey with my young adult and all-around amazing person. Happy birthday, D.