Confessions of an Enabler

I love my kids dearly, and would do anything for them.

And that is precisely how I am slowly preventing them from becoming all that they could be. I am stifling them, ensuring that they will not reach their full potential.

And there’s a good chance that you’re doing it, too.

Before you get your hackles up, please know that I believe you are a good mama. Here you are on a site for moms, written by moms. You’ve come here because you love being a mom – you want to be connected to others who feel the same. I applaud the job you’re doing each day.

And yet.

We are raising a generation of enabled children.

A generation of children who are going to walk out the door someday (that is, if they ever get it together enough to move out!), and have no idea how to live on their own.

I had an epiphany recently, as I once again helped my five year old son put on his shoes. Not just tie them, but actually PUT THEM ON HIS FEET. I looked over at his twin sister, who is one of those oddballs who is intrinsically motivated. She was not only putting on her own shoes, but also tying them as well.

But very few people are motivated to do things on their own naturally. Davis is happy to have me help him because I always do it for him. And I realized that the boy is going to be 18, and I’m still going to be putting on his sneakers if I don’t make some changes around here.

Now, I love my mother (truly, I’m so thankful for all the ways in which she parented me so well), but I need to give you a little background on why this is important to me.

I’ll never forget the time I forgot to do my report on Tennessee in 4th grade. As soon as I woke up the morning it was due, I realized my mistake. My mom called the school to say I’d be late, and helped me finish it before driving me there.

She didn’t want me to fail. And she believed she was helping me.

I didn’t have to clean my room when I was young. My mom made my bed everyday until I went to college. She picked the toys and clothes up off the floor for me, and did all my laundry.

She didn’t want me to live in a mess. And she believed she was helping me.

In college, I bounced checks left and right. My mom paid my overdraft fees again and again, each time telling me to be more careful.

She didn’t want me to have a poor credit score. And she believed she was helping me.

Except I learned that I would be bailed out over and over and over. I didn’t turn things in on time, I had the messiest room in the dorm, and budgeting was like a foreign language to me. I didn’t know how to do anything for myself. It took me marrying a man who, being the son of a single mom, did everything for himself as a kid, to figure out that I needed to get it together.

That I was responsible for my own life.

And now, here I am – doing the same thing for my kids. When I sat down to think about it, I realized why I’ve carried on the cycle.

1) It’s easier for me. We will get out the door faster if I put on Davis’ shoes. I won’t have to trip on their toys if I just pick them up. Everything will be done the way I like it if I just do it myself. But I am depriving them of the joy of learning, of achieving, when I do it for them. I am silently telling them that they cannot do what I can do when I don’t allow them to try.

2) I don’t want them to fail. It hurts to see your child stumble. To suffer the consequence because they left their homework at home. But I’d rather see Avery, at age 9, be knocked down a score than have it happen later in life because she never learned the lesson.

3) I like being needed. Though I may grumble about my long list of things to do to keep this house running smoothly, the caretaker in me thrives on swooping in. “You’re having a hard time cutting that meat? Here, I’ll do it for you.” If I was a mama bird, I’d still be chewing for them and spitting it in their mouths. But they can do far more than I give them credit for, if I’d only take the time to let them do it.

Enabling comes in many forms – it’s asking one more time if they’ve remembered to bring everything they need to school, it’s cleaning up the entire kitchen on your own so your kids can play after dinner, it’s telling the coach that your amazingly talented child deserves more playing time than the less amazingly talented other children on the team (and don’t get me started on the ‘everybody needs a ribbon for participating’ brand of enabling!). Whatever it looks like in your family, it’s likely that you are somehow holding your kids back from working harder to achieve more on their own.

I am so excited to see what my kids can do when I allow them to go for it – when I stop getting in the way of their growth. Because I love them, I need to start letting go.

It’s going to be a beautiful thing.