I Still Don’t Know If I’m Picking What’s Best For My Kid—Here’s How I’m Winging It
Last Tuesday I stood in the sticky, old rubber-and-hot-popcorn-scented parking lot of our town community center, staring at two crumpled sign-up sheets taped to the glass door. My 4-year-old Leo was perched on my hip, chewing on the end of my ponytail, one hand sticky from the fruit snack I’d given him to keep him quiet while I ran errands. One sheet was for the 3-4 year old soccer clinic. All the other parents from his playgroup had already signed up. The other was for the weekly messy art play I’d seen advertised at the open house last month.
Sarah, whose kid is the same age as Leo, walked up behind me to drop off her son’s cleat bag, and nudged my arm. “You signing up for soccer, right? It’s so good for gross motor skills, gets them used to team stuff before kindergarten. I heard the coach is great.” I felt that little flip in my stomach, the one I get when I’m pretty sure I’m about to make the wrong choice in front of someone else. I almost said yeah right then, just to fit in, just to not be the mom who’s doing it wrong. I even pulled my phone out to pay before I remembered: three weeks ago, we went to the park, and there was a pickup soccer game for little kids, and Leo spent the whole hour standing at the edge of the field picking dandelions and blowing the fluff into the wind. He didn’t touch the ball once. He didn’t even care that the other kids got goldfish after. He just wanted the dandelions. And for two weeks after that open house, he wouldn’t stop talking about the glitter rock he painted, how the art lady let him use three whole jars of glitter, how he got to play with clay that didn’t dry out in five minutes like the cheap stuff we have at home.
I signed him up for art. I walked back to the car, Leo already screaming because he wanted to stop for ice cream, and I spent the whole drive home overthinking it. Am I coddling him? Am I letting him avoid being social just because he’s shy? What if he never learns to be on a team, and that messes him up for middle school, for college, for whatever? That’s the thing about being a parent, right? Every tiny choice feels like it’s going to echo forever. I used to have this whole list of what was best for Leo when he was a baby, you know? I was gonna make all my own organic baby food, no screen time ever, we were gonna hike every weekend, he was gonna love books before he turned two. Turns out he hated the smooth sweet potato puree I spent an hour steaming and mashing, but he goes crazy for the store-bought sweet potato puffs that have way more salt than the parenting books say is okay. We do 20 minutes of Bluey every Wednesday night while I fold laundry and answer work emails, and no one’s brain has rotted yet.
That hike thing? Last month I planned a whole three-mile trip to the state park, bought him cute little secondhand hiking boots, packed all his favorite snacks, and he cried the entire first half mile because he just wanted to go back to the playground by the entrance and swing. I got so mad at first, dragged him along, thinking this is good for him, fresh air, exercise, building resilience. Then he sat down on a rock and refused to move, so I sat down with him, and we spent 45 minutes watching ants carry crumbs of his goldfish back to their hill. He was way more interested in those ants than any view from the top I was trying to get him to see. I drove back to the playground on the way out, pushed him on the swing for 20 minutes, and he went home grinning and fell asleep in the car before we even got to the highway. That day I realized most of the “best” things I plan for him are actually just the things I think I’m supposed to want for him, not what he actually wants.
It’s not that simple, though. People say just follow your kid, that’s how you know what’s best. But what about when he wants to eat three popsicles for dinner and nothing else? What about when he’s scared of the dark, and I used to force him to sleep with his door closed, because all the sleep training books said that builds independence, that if I give in he’ll never learn to do it on his own. Then one night he woke up sobbing, screaming that the shadows were eating his toes, and I crawled into his tiny bed with him and held him until he stopped shaking, and after that I just left the hall light on and the door cracked. I still worry sometimes that I messed up his independence, that he’ll be 10 and still sleeping with the light on. But he sleeps through the night now, and I do too. That’s got to count for something, right?
My mom came over for dinner last weekend, saw the glitter rock and the lopsided clay snake Leo brought home from his first art class, sitting on our kitchen shelf getting glitter everywhere, and she laughed. She said when I was Leo’s age, she made me take piano lessons for three years that I hated, every Saturday morning, because everyone said learning an instrument was good for your brain, good for discipline. She said she still feels bad about it, that she wasted all that money and all that my time just because she thought it was what was best. I told her it’s fine, I don’t even remember hating it that much. But it stuck with me. My mom was doing the best she could with what she knew back then. I’m doing the best I can with what I know now. None of us get it perfect.
Last night, after I put Leo to bed, I ended up scrolling Instagram for 10 minutes like I do when I can’t fall asleep, and I saw a reel of a 4-year-old kid reading a whole chapter book out loud, and I felt that old panic creep in. Am I not teaching him enough letters? Am I wasting his early years on glitter and clay and dandelions when I should be doing flash cards? Then I got up to get a glass of water, and walked past his room, and saw the dinosaur stickers he stuck all over his door, and remembered that yesterday he named all 17 different dinosaurs he has in his toy bin, from the T-Rex to the weird little Parasaurolophus that I can never remember the name of. He can go next door and bring the new baby a sticker when she cries, he knows that if I’m on a work call he has to be quiet for five minutes, he can blow the fluff off a dandelion better than anyone I know.
I still don’t know if what I’m picking is actually best for him long term. Maybe he’ll quit art after three classes because he gets bored of clay. Maybe next year he’ll beg me to sign him up for soccer. Maybe when he’s 20 he’ll call me and tell me I messed him up by not pushing him to do more team stuff when he was little. That’s okay. I don’t have the answer for 20 years from now. Right now, he comes home covered in glitter, can’t stop talking about his lopsided snake, and falls asleep grinning. That’s the best I can do today. (Word count: 1182)
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