“Is it bad for it to rain on Halloween?”

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“Is it bad for it to rain on Halloween?

My daughter asked this quite innocently.  She didn’t know.  She has never experienced a Halloween with rain.  Without a story about it, how would she know if it is good or bad?  She’s been hearing over and over how much we need rain, and suddenly, rain is finally coming on Friday. That’s good, right? But on Halloween?  Is that still good? She looked to me to tell her if this is a good thing or bad thing.

I had a moment of awe – awe that she was still innocent and open enough to even ask the question – that she wasn’t so jaded at the ripe old age of eight to automatically assume rain on Halloween was just plain bad.

And then I felt this tremendous responsibility.  This wasn’t a new responsibility to me in my role as her mother, but it is one that has never lost its weight and seriousness.  So many times as a parent we share “our spin”, our story about something (an event, a person, an idea, etc), and the child – with their blind trust in us – believes it.   They take it on as “the truth” and they may never again look with open eyes at that thing again.

So, I gave her “my spin” on the experience called “rain on Halloween”.  Looking back, even though I think I did a pretty decent job with the spin, I realized that maybe I could have done an even better job as a parent by having her inquire on her own about what makes rain on Halloween good or bad.  And so I fell into another common pitfall of parenting – giving an answer when it might be better to simply support the child in finding their own.

Yes, growing as a parent never ends. Yet although I continue to learn and develop as a parent, I’ve finally come to my own spin on my parenting; “I’m doing well enough.”  And perhaps it’s not a spin.  Perhaps it is simply true.  And in trusting this simple truth, I can relax and enjoy the experience of parenting, rain or no rain.