Learning Our Parenting Style

I believe our parenting styles are informed by how we were and were not parented, and sometimes by what we saw happening in our childhood friends’ homes that appealed to us.

I believe that we parent from a place of memory, from childhood record keeping. Sometimes we are aware of these records as we actively parent our kids and sometimes we parent on autopilot pulling from how our parents raised us.

I’ve written about how my parents divorced when I was about four or five years old and my mother, a ceiling-breaking tenacious Black woman who rarely takes no for an answer, raised me with the help of her girlfriends until she remarried when I was 15 or so. I’ve also written about the fact that she was focused on her career as a television anchor and on-air personality during these same years, which meant she was working different hours than many parents. She did not live a 9-5 life. This meant she could take me to school every morning and pick me up on most days. It also meant that I would have to tag along with her to an afternoon gig at a television studio across town on some days after pick up.

Her professional lifestyle did not leave a ton of time for her to be involved in the internal workings of my school.

By the end of elementary school I was more aware of the parents, mostly moms, who were always at my school helping with different school initiatives.

I attended an independent school in DC from kindergarten until the end of ninth grade save the two years when I attended the school my church ran.

The scene from Ila, Zadie, and soon to be Nico's school last Sunday where six of us parents gathered in their cafegymatorium to assemble swag for the guest bags at the school's Gala, which took place this past Thursday.

It was a small community. There was a lower school on one campus and an upper school on a different campus across town. Each grade had no more than 45 kids and a good number of them had attended the school from preschool. If a family had multiple kids, all the siblings attended the school, too. You knew everyone’s names and their parents’ names as well.

It was the kind of school where you brought your own lunch and if you weren’t old enough to eat off campus or outside on campus, you ate it in the cafegymatorium—the flexible multipurpose space that housed lunch, gym class, and school assemblies by day and student plays by night.

On Wednesdays and Fridays we had special hot lunches. The active school moms would fire up the grill on Wednesdays and sell grilled chicken breasts, hot dogs, and hamburgers to students and staff. On Fridays they’d buy cheese pizzas from the local Italian pizzeria and sell slices during lunch period. On these days, I remember eating my food outdoors if the weather permitted.

I was so in awe of these moms. They came twice a week every week to lead this effort, which, I believe, was a parent-led fundraising activity for the school. All lunch proceeds went back to the school and I wouldn’t be surprised if they foot the bill for the food each week. Of course, the school had larger fundraising initiatives that they led but this was just one example of how parents were involved in the community.

I’m not so different from my mom when it comes to my professional pursuits. There are things that I want to accomplish and I am motivated to achieve them. But, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that these lunch lady moms didn’t make an impression on me.

Their ability to be there each week without fail communicated “time freedom.” They could be there when most parents were working. They could support their kids and pour into their school with time and money in ways that most parents either could not or did not want to.

These memories have stayed with me all of these years and I believe I call on them when I make decisions to involve myself in our kids’ school communities.

I think I always wanted to be the mom who could have professional focus and vision like mom but who could also help her kids’ school through volunteering like the lunch lady moms.

I, along with my fellow Gala Co-Chairs, welcomed guests on Thursday's Gala. Here, I'm reminding people how to use their auction paddles😆 to bid on all the exciting live auction items, which included a dinner for 18 prepared by Bill Telepan.

We all parent from a record of memories.

So, this week, I’m writing to prompt reflection on what records you are referencing as you parent. What parenting models inspired you as a child? Which memories force you to parent differently? Ask yourself what about these records feels important and why they are important.

What parts of these memories align with your values as a person and a parent? What parts of these memories are allowing you to live the life that you want to live?

Answering these questions allows us to intentionally parent and not parent on auto-pilot. Everything may not be aligned at this moment with parenting from our positive childhood records. But, awareness alone will move us to where we want to be.

As you start this next week, I hope you’ll meditate on these questions.

Have a great week.

Petrushka