The best goal a parent can set is to be adaptable

From today's Briefing:

While I was growing up, I kept an unwritten list of the “things I will never do as a parent.” The bullet points were created from experience and sprinkled with naïveté and typical childish perceptions of the adult world.

At the top of the list was the biggest, most essential one: I will never be a single parent. Because when you live in a divorced family and you can remember what life was like with married parents (totally glossing over the fighting and tension), you tend to romanticize the idea of married life.

You also tend to live with the illusion of control. If the situation around you is chaotic or not what you expected, it’s comforting to imagine a future in which there is no chaos and everything turns out as you expect.

As it turned out, I did have an almost ideal married life. Single parenthood was never even a remote consideration until Steve’s diagnosis with an inoperable tumor. When those cells from his brain stem were identified as malignant, our lives were totally redefined.

During his illness, I often considered the irony of our situation.

We waited a few years to have children. For our first four years of marriage, we worked low-paying jobs. Steve worked full time while earning his master’s degree. We enjoyed our time as a couple and frequently discussed good reasons to wait for children.

For the next three years, Steve traveled every week as a consultant. Some of his colleagues had children, and he couldn’t shake a feeling of melancholy for his co-workers when they missed baseball games or recitals or bedtime stories.

We both wanted Steve to be an involved dad daily, not only on weekends. We wanted to share the everyday responsibilities and joy. We agreed that he would need a career change before we had children.

Everything continued as planned. Steve took a job requiring no travel. As a bonus, he and I actually loved going to work every day — important when you’re entrusting your baby boy to day care.

We eventually became a family of four — a son and a daughter, just like we’d wanted. We would talk about the old consulting days and give thanks for stability and Steve’s ability to go to doctor’s appointments and soccer practices and open houses.

We were proud of ourselves for making family a priority over potential financial gain and prestige. We were proud for taking control.

And then I became a single parent in a way I never imagined as a child.

If I could, I would trade all that stability and illusion of control. I would love to say that Steve is away for the week but will be home Friday night. That he’ll miss a school assembly but we can show him photos Saturday morning.

I would love to be one of the moms who complain about solo parenting during the week because dad is in New York or Chicago. Who can say, “Wait until your father gets home” — even if that’s days away. Who, after a particularly rough day of parenting, can call or text or email or Skype with an absent dad.

I would love to say that I met my biggest, most important parenting goal.

Of course, goals set when you’re 8 or 12 or 16 can change. Now that I’m actually a mom, I focus less on the things I said I’d never do and more on what I actually can do.

I’m learning that I can’t control every big or little circumstance or how my children react or what others think. That when life moves in a direction you didn’t anticipate, the best reaction is to adapt. And that what matters most is not how you avoid distress entirely, but how your children develop and grow in the middle of inevitable chaos.

Tyra Damm is a Briefing columnist. Email her at tyradamm@gmail.com.