Things I want my kids to know

My mortgage is up for renewal, so there has been a lot of decision making to do. Lots of reading, pondering and maths. Working out what the various choices we could make mean for our family and our lives together.

There are moments like this sometimes where I am hit by this feeling that I am not grown up enough to be doing all this. I thought going bald might help me feel a bit older, but no.

We have a house with a mortgage, we have all the bills and decisions to make about what we do, which companies we go with and all of that fun stuff. We have three children who are all different from one another and who all need different things at different times. I am self-employed so there are all sorts of things to do there that sit entirely with me, including trying to make sure that enough works come through that we can be at ease, but not so much that I can’t see my family. Working out how VAT and pensions work and what the best thing is to do.

Most of the time, I’m busy doing the doing, so I don’t have time to think about it or be freaked out by it, but every now and then it hits me: I’m not grown up enough for this. Shouldn’t someone be checking what I am doing?

One moment that sticks in my memory which I think lots of people feel is the day that our eldest was born and we went to leave the hospital. We were told we were OK to go home and that the discharge paperwork was done, so then we just packed up our things and started walking out of the hospital. All the way to the exit I had this feeling that somebody would come and stop us, because we didn’t know what we were doing and we needed more instruction, or someone to come with us and make sure we were doing it right. Even when we got to the car, I remember physically looking back towards the exit, like someone would be chasing after us. That drive home and the first night at home was absolutely surreal.

These days it happens in moments when I am struck by the immensity of the responsibility we are carrying. The decisions that I make in my business affect my whole family and these three little people who rely upon us to keep them safe. Sometimes it hits me when one of the kids is ill or has a symptom and we are trying to decide whether it is serious or not, whether we need to take them to get it checked out or take it further.

It feels big and it feels scary. What if it is the wrong option? Shouldn’t someone more qualified be making these choices? In those times, I feel like a little boy.

Sometimes all this means that I go and seek opinions from other people, particularly people who I think are grown up or sensible. Sometimes that is very useful, but sometimes I come away feeling pretty much the same. They haven’t been able to give me an answer, or at least not one that is massively different from the arguments already in my mind, or not one that they made so strongly that I have no doubt in my mind about what the right option is.

I find it helpful that whenever I have expressed this feeling to other people, they have generally said that they don’t feel old enough either. And, more importantly I think, the people I respect and admire the most, the ones who I think do have a level head and a grown-up attitude to things, will tell me they are unsure too, and the advice or views they give me will be like that: not completely certain. The people I think of as less useful tend to be people who think they know everything for sure.

Part of being a grown-up (for want of a better word) in my eyes, is knowing that you don’t know everything and that you can’t control everything, even if you do your very best. You can make a decision that was a good one at the time and still have it work out badly.

Being a grown-up is not about getting to a point where you are an island on your own, either. No matter how knowledgeable and worldly-wise you might be, having some input and support from others is always helpful. Even if it’s not about getting new information, just knowing that you are not on your own is huge. Asking for and needing help doesn’t make you less of a grown-up.

In those moments where the immensity of the responsibility strikes me, it is helpful for me to understand that my grandparents still felt like they didn’t know what they were doing sometimes, and that they still felt like teenagers in their minds sometimes. It helps to speak to other people but to know that I might not get a clear-cut answer, but that I might feel reassured that other people worry about similar things and that there are people I can reach out to if I want to or need to.

Being a grown up includes being uncertain or afraid. It includes needing help and support. And so it should.

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Thanks for reading. Until next week,

Ted

P.S. To be fair there are certain ways in which I don't particularly want to grow up. I nearly made a typo recently for example which would have made the title of this blog "Thongs I want my kids to know" and I don't intend to ever stop laughing at things like that.