Parents' Committee

I spent an hour of my day as part of the Parents' Committee at my daughters' theater group. While the teens are singing and dancing, a small group of parents meets monthly to figure out raising money and handling logistics so that the kids can sing and dance more. I suppose it's like a teeny-tiny PTA (though with my kids in multiple schools, I have rarely worked out time to spend at PTA meetings).

What's interesting about this committee, however, is that just as my kids are getting to the point of doing things on their own--traveling on their own, keeping track of their schedules on their own, making sure they have lunch money or food on their own--I am suddenly involved in making sure they are not really "on their own" in the endeavor.

When the hour was over, I found myself thinking a lot about the "on their own" phenomenon. While it is true that we teach our kids to be independent, and while it is certainly true that in our family, many opportunities have opened up only when the kids could pursue them on their own (without complex babysitting and transportation plans), the reality is that "on their own" still requires support. The lunch or lunch money is still about my fishing out a $5 or my making sure there are lunch supplies in the house. The getting to and from still requires the filling of metrocards and the discussion of daytime and nighttime logistics. And above all, the endeavors, whatever they are, still call for discussion (and more discussion, and more), kind of like a committee meeting, or a series of subcommittee meetings.

I went to a Parents' Committee meeting today, and I would like to think that I made some contribution to my kids' activities, and along the way, a contribution to other kids' endeavors too. Because, in parenting, "on their own" is a relative term. Often, it takes a committee to make sure "on their own" is a success, and to make sure "on their own" doesn't just mean "alone" in life's decisions. It's a tricky balance, especially when you thought that your "committee" work was a thing of the past and that your management of kids' lives was a piece from yesterday. Turns out that there's plenty of room for parenting, by committee or otherwise, even at the point of "on their own."