Amanda Lamb: Let go of the wheel

I think one of the things that amazes me about parenting today is that while we are more involved with our children than our parents were, the expectations that society has for young people are so much greater today.

The extracurriculars that I chose at school and outside of school were not for my resume, but for my enjoyment and interest. I participated in theater, chorus, and wrote for the school literary magazine.

But these days, we expect our children to do all these things, set themselves up through internships and activities, and angle their young lives at an early age towards an intended career.

I have one of both—a college student who is still trying to figure out her direction, and a rising college student who knows exactly what she wants to do. But I would argue that these situations arose by chance, not by any manufacturing on my part or my husband’s part to encourage or dissuade our girls from certain careers.

If anything, I have urged my youngest daughter to have fun, be a teenager, savor her senior year even though the pandemic has tainted it beyond recognition. My older daughter is bright, mature, poised, capable in many different areas, and academically strong. She will find her way, her passion, her career in due time. I am not worried. What I am worried about is that we as parents inflict our expectations on our children instead of letting them follow their own journeys, wherever they may lead—to a tiny apartment in New York City or a small village in a developing country. I want them to be free to choose their own direction, and to be free to change their minds when things don’t work out as they had planned.

One of the hardest things to do as a parent is to take our hands off the wheel and let our children take over. It’s scary. We’ve been driving a lot longer than they have. We think we have all the answers. But they will surprise us, amaze us, and yes, sometimes disappoint us, and sometimes disappoint themselves. But at the end of the day, they too will learn how to drive through the potholes of life and arrive at their destination safely, happily and with their own hands planted firmly on the wheel.