The greatest impact my parents had on my childhood, was their presence. It is a huge thing to know that someone will be with you, no matter what you attempt.
More than that, in these days of social media parents, we are being told that nothing we do is “enough”. There are always more healthy foods we could serve, a better routine we could create or more exciting activities we could promote.
No longer is being a parent something you can individualise to fit your children and your family. It has become more than a competition; it has become an impossible standard.
However, one of the most crucial parts of a parent’s job is to “be there”. This does not mean making every school event or every dinner time. There are parents that work full-time, part-time, and all the time (especially single parents).
No matter the work/ life balance, there are still ways to be a prevalent fixture in a child’s life. Being present will communicate some very specific ideas. Research shows that children whose parents show up at their school events perform exceedingly better than those whose parents don't.
School parental engagements will be frequent, they will be horribly cheesy and they will be aggravatingly long. However, your child feels like a rock star on stage. When you make viewing an event a priority, it can show them that they matter to you. This does not mandate you to be at every performance or even be there to see it live. It can be videoed and viewed with the child later.
When you take something insignificant and insist on giving it recognition, it will make a difference. We often measure the love someone has for us by their willingness to be inconvenienced for our benefit. Willing to be inconvenienced for our children communicates that they matter.
There is a mother who had four kids. She would carpool all of them and they were all very verbal children. How can you make each kid a priority? You give them one-on-one time. This mother instituted “show and tell”. They would sit with her at the table and unload their backpacks. They would show her graded papers, activities they completed and paperwork that was sent home.
Each piece of paper represented a sliver of their time that they wanted to share. More important than their desire to share, they felt as though she wanted to listen. They knew that they mattered more than getting dinner on the table or folding laundry. She did those things, but they knew that at that moment, they were the only thing on her agenda.
When you are sitting on the bench at a basketball game and never get onto the court, but your parents are sitting in the stands anyway, it makes a difference. Being a support when your child is in the periphery, matters. This tells them that they do not always have to be the star. They have value no matter how they perform and no matter what others think of their talents.
It communicates that who they are is not determined by their achievements. You cannot replace parental love with school grades. In a society where every parent has the “honour student” bumper sticker, and parents compete to elevate their children, this message is worth sharing. Your attendance says that your child being anywhere makes something a worthwhile event and it sets an example.
The way we recognise love is often how we have experienced it. Many parents know ways of being a parent and loving their kids, because of how it was modelled. Being present is not easy. It is not glamorous and it does not come with a medal. Most children will roll their eyes when entering adolescence and beg you not to “show up” so much. However, as loving parents, we ignore that demand.
Because when it is all over, when they have moved on and become adults, they will remember. They will look over their memories and meditate on their childhoods. They will barely see the faces of friendships past, or costumes worn or baskets made, they will see the fingerprints of your presence in their world. Your impact will be moments at a time, easily forgotten as a single event, but instead remembered as the landscape of their childhood.
Sometimes all we have to offer is our time. Sometimes time is even a stretch and a sacrifice. However, when we feel inadequate and overwhelmed by the standards of “Instagram” parents, remember that your attendance is what is important. Your attention and your presence communicate and teach more than any activity you could create. Be you and just keep showing up.
Doctorate student in Project Planning and Management at UoN