The Best Parents Can Do

You know the very best parents can do? Three things.

1. Keep children alive long enough for them to get good & mad at you.

If your offspring is railing against you by their teenage years, you’re right on time — and so are they.

Developmentally, teenagers have to rebel. Becoming angry at their parents, believing you’ve ruined their life and done absolutely everything wrong—is necessary for them to discover themselves as separate beings and find their footing in their own life.

When my kids became teenagers, I half-expected they’d turn into militant Young Republicans — judgmental, righteous, and devout. And for a while, it kind of went that way. I embraced it. I engaged it. I explored it alongside them. I let them tell me how wrong I was about everything. I asked questions out of sincere curiosity. I tuned in to what they were tuning in to, without an ounce of judgment or disdain for their necessary rebellion and separation. (Well, maybe three ounces of judgment, but I managed the disdain.)

I learned a lot. They did too. And as they found their own feet, they returned to kinder, gentler, more open ways — their.

Your children are going to rebel and spit venom because it’s necessary for their capacity to become themselves — separate from you, who is everything to them. It’s not disrespect. It’s not even about you, except for this: what did you make so wrong that they’re now sprinting toward it?

It’s brain chemistry. It’s social and emotional development.

And here’s the thing: their capacity to be angry with you exists because they feel safe with you. If they’re angry with everyone — if they’re lashing out in every direction, disengaged from you entirely (and remember: anger is engagement) — that’s a different story.

If they’re disrespectful in their anger, ask yourself: are they being heard? Do they have space to be different from you? Have you modeled disrespect in your own anger, with them or with others?

If you choose not to support your “demon spawn” through their anger and rebellion — if you don’t act as a safe container for their necessary storm — they’ll push harder, raise the stakes, and eventually, they’ll go away.

2. Don’t pass on your own pain.

If you’ve been able not to pass on the pain from your own childhood. Wow. That’s good parenting.

If you see your childhood pain reflected in your children, and you recognize your part in it, ask yourself: where have I avoided my own healing?

3. End the lineage of suffering, if you can.

If the generational pain and suffering you’ve carried ends with your children — at any age — BRAVO. Isn’t that what creating life is for?

If you’ve learned to love the parts of yourself you were once shamed or judged for, through your children, isn’t that the greatest gift of all?

Here’s the good news: even if you see your pain living on in your grown children—even if the generational suffering continued in ways you never intended — it’s never too late. Not for you. Not for them.

But you are the decisive factor. Your courageous healing of that awful thing you see in them—that thing seeded by you (though you didn’t start that fire, so go easy on yourself)—heals in your child with each layer of healing you uncover in yourself.

It takes time. It’s not for the weak.

The Inevitable “Basket of Bad”

Here’s the bad news: even if you hit all three good-parenting points, rest assured… pain and hardship will still exist. The “basket of not-so-good” just becomes different.

It’s a new basket, one you may not recognize and might even resent because they had it so much better than you.

But hopefully, what they inherited was a better basket of bad — a set of “quality problems” that your family system can use to find relief and forward momentum. You’ve shown them how to be accountable to life on life’s terms. And that means there’s a good chance every generation forward will be happier, healthier, and more connected.

All because you were a kind, courageous, badass parent.

Parenting is a crapshoot. Nobody knows what they’re doing. We play roulette with genes and hearts. And everyone points fingers.

A good rule, no matter your child’s age: they’re your mirror and your greatest teacher.

Parenting is the best mess I know.