Your kids are the best!
Don't let other parents tell you you're bragging
The KidsLearn Substack is written by Suki Wessling, known as “Prof.” Suki to her students. Scroll to the bottom for links to Suki’s work and more information.
I really disliked and never understood the “mommy bragging” thing. And now that I’m on the other side of parenting I can tell you this: You should brag.
No, don’t brag in a way that would be obnoxious to anyone with half a brain. But people who fixate on “mommy bragging” tend to react defensively to anything positive another parent says about their child. People who think you’re bragging when you’re just sharing something you care about probably aren’t the people you need in your life.
So what’s the difference between bragging and sharing news?
It’s about intent and context: If your intent is to make someone admire you, or to make them feel like they’re less than you, it’s definitely bragging. And if the context is, for example, when a friend has shared a difficult parenting moment with you, then anything you share about the good stuff that’s happening in your family will come across as bragging.
It’s also about frequency: Do you talk about your kids constantly? Does your talk about your kids drown out other conversations? Do you ever ask your fellow parents questions about their children? Do you ever express interest in them as individual people outside of their parenting life? If you just talk about your kids and don’t express interest in the lives of others, it will certainly come across as bragging.
The difficult problem of lopsided achievement
I had a looming difficult situation. I had set up a reunion of some moms who had gone through a lot together when we were parenting our young children. Our children at the time ranged from tweens to adult. And I knew ahead of time that some of the kids weren’t thriving. Fortunately, mine were (and are) thriving, so ahead of the get-together I thought of some ways to avoid entering the mommybrag.
I should have known that one of my friends would save me (and the other potential mommybraggers). After we’d gotten our tea and discussed traffic and weather (required chitchat), we got down to business. One of the moms said, “We haven’t been together in so long! Let’s talk about what our kids are up to.”
Uh-oh, I thought, here we go. But no, one of the moms started with a phrase that defused it all: “I’ll start, since the news can only get better after I talk about what my kids have been up to!” She said it with good cheer. We all know her to be a great person, a great mom, who had some big challenges in her family.
I was thankful not to be the only mom whose kids were thriving, and her introduction really set the tone for all of us to share with honesty and appreciation for each other. And frankly, that ability to share without fear of mommybragging was why I liked these women in the first place. When you have kids, as I did, who are “high achievers” (aka good at standardized tests), you have to seek out fellow parents who won’t react defensively to your kids’ achievements. And when you have a kid, as I did, whose behavior is off-the-charts difficult, you definitely have to seek out understanding adults to share with.
Your kids really are the best!
You haven’t just heard this from me, I’m sure, but it’s so important: Kids do best when they receive unconditional love from the adults closest to them. Unconditional love is not helicopter parenting. It’s just simply making it clear that no matter how they screw up, you’ve got their back because you love them, care for them, and believe without a shred of a doubt that they will eventually find their way in this life.
This belief has to be strong and it has to be clear. It can’t just be said in words; it must also be modeled in deeds. It can’t only be said inside your house; it must be modeled in front of others. Believe me, I’ve been in some difficult conversations with adults about things my kids did. (Not that any child of mine would ever dial 911 on a lark!) So I know that there are situations where it’s really hard to model unconditional love. But it can be done.
Your kids need to know they are the best
They need to know that you don’t regret having them. They need to know that no matter what awful thing they do (“Sorry, officer, I completely understand why this is a problem”), you don’t love them less for it. Your kids are the best because they are. We don’t choose our children and that’s a good thing. When I read about people trying to genetically engineer the perfect children, I already know the end of that plotline: No child will ever be perfect, because all children are human. Those parents will have an extra-hard time modeling unconditional love.
We must love our little humans and make it clear that we think they are awesome. Even if we’re dismal at every other aspect of parenting, the knowledge that the people who raised them believe in them is the best gift we can give our kids as they go forth into their adult lives.
