Remember being a teen and having your first job? What was the job? What were your hours and your wages? Were your co-workers memorable? Do you remember being trained, commended or let go? Chances are good that, depending on your age, that job was twenty, thirty, forty years ago, and those little details have long since left the nest of your brain. But one thing that I think most of us will recall of our teen-worker mind is that feeling of, "Well, I'll try this job, but if I don't like it, I can always find another." So if there was a tough boss or a co-worker who rubbed us the wrong way, we knew it was an interim job that we could easily leave in order to find other gainful employment.
Over the course of remote learning, it became a fun and common social media practice to refer to your children as co-workers, and report what your "co-workers" were doing at any given time. Some quips were cute: "My co-worker is asking for candy. It's 8am." Others were funny: "My co-worker is hiding under his blanket because he doesn't want to go on his Zoom meeting." And for me, each co-worker report was a reminder that parenting is a non-stop, non-quittable and always memorable state of work.
Yes, parenting is a job...but even more-so, parenting is a verb; an action word. You see, if it were a job in the true sense of the word, you would get paid, you would get time off, and you would have the option to quit at any time in order to look for other gainful employment. Ever wish you could quit your job as parent? Hell, some days I even wish I would get fired! However, that is not the reality. The reality is that we can totally screw this up today, but tomorrow we will need to wake up and get right back into it, figuring out the way to make things right and better and livable.
As funny and endearing as the co-worker stories were intended to be, and as much as they were not a reflection of our true position as parent, here is one aspect that I do think works well in describing our current adult role. Just as when you were younger, or even in your present employment position, you could not and should not take the blame or the credit for the actions of your co-workers. Might you be the mentor and the teacher they have to help them learn this thing called living? Yes, of course. That is in your job description. But nowhere does it say that while they are honing their humanity skills, when they fail or succeed, you get the consequence or the bonus. The repercussions and the glory belong solely to your co-workers for the job they are doing. So let go...in all ways...and watch them take what you've taught, apply it and learn from it.
You see, whenever your journey with your co-workers began, whether 2 months, 2 years, or 20 years ago, you were strapped in for the good and the treacherous. You were signed on to work this position for the rest of your life. You were also chosen especially for this task with each co-worker with whom you are blessed to share this life. You were not given pre-service training. You were not given a manual with answers to apply at each new turn. You were not given wages or a vacation schedule. You were given a title, Mother or Father. You were given a gift. And you were given a heart which is endless in its capacity to love through the toughest of times. We cannot decide how our co-workers will apply what we have to share and we cannot predict the outcomes of their actions. We must go about this job with integrity and unconditional love, hoping we are doing things correctly and not screwing up too much. We have co-workers who rely on us for every need in the beginning and then those needs change as time goes on. There is no set formula or rules and regulations. We are not called to perfection of parenting, but perfection of love. Our co-workers need us, and so we parent.
