Raising Kids is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

“I can’t get anything done with the kids home. I’ve got to watch them every minute.” I’m sure I said this more than a thousand times when my kids were little. Most little kids — especially toddlers — are pint-sized wrecking crews. They empty cabinets, dump buckets of toys all over the floor, and seize unattended pens as they add a modern art twist to your couches. Ambitious tots search for more dangerous quarry, climbing on chairs to see what will happen when they reach for the crystal vase filled with flowers on the dining room table. Yes, watching over the young and the curious requires vigilance.  Multitaskers beware.

When we supervise, feed, dress, read to, play with, talk to, and cheer the achievements of our little ones, we are fostering their emotional health. 

But even when I’d gripe that I wasn’t “getting anything done” (no doubt echoing the sentiments of millions of other parents), I knew it wasn’t true. Caring for children is the most important job in the world. When we supervise, feed, dress, read to, play with, talk to, and cheer the achievements of our little ones, we are fostering their emotional health.  When they shout, “Watch me, Mommy!” as they climb the jungle gym at the park for the tenth time and we keep smiling and cheering as if we’ve never seen anything so stupendous, we build that child’s sense of self-reliance, competence, and security. This endless cycle of encouragement and love must also include consistent, thoughtful, and loving discipline. These are as vital to building a child’s healthy inner world as food is to maintaining their physical life. Kids who are tragically deprived of this nurturing become lonely, disaffected, insecure, and sometimes dangerous individuals.  

Raising our kids taught us a level of patience and emunah (sustained faith in God) that I believe would have been impossible outside of parenthood. When the kids became teens and the going got tough, Rabbi Moshe Cohen of The Community Shul would reassure us. Counseling patience, he said encouragingly, “This is a marathon, not a sprint.” We nodded, and it became a mantra of sorts. “Think long-term,” my husband reminded me during certain white-knuckle moments that are familiar to nearly all parents. We sought guidance from our wise friends and our wise rabbi. We prayed to God for clarity, stamina, and to guide our children’s steps.  

Now our kids have little kids of their own — lots of them. They drive minivans; their car seats runneth over. Now they are the ones who sometimes say, “I can’t get anything done!” while caring for their children, my grandchildren. But they are. Oh, how they are.

We are blessed that our kids all matured into fantastic, caring, purpose-driven adults. They are dedicated to living the Jewish values we taught them (three of them are professional Jewish educators) and passing them along to their own children. They are devoted husbands and wives and accomplished professionals. These alone are bounteous reasons to be proud of them. But watching them in action as they take care of their own children, reading stories, mediating sibling tiffs, soothing hurts, lavishing praise for a child sharing or for earning a good grade, I am awed. They work hard to be the best parents their children need them to be. Watching them now, I remember our own years of investment in their upbringing. Would these years never end, I wondered? I am overwhelmed with gratitude that we have reaped such incredible dividends, with God’s help.  

We raised our kids in an environment that strongly promoted marriage and family, but we had no guarantee that they would all have chosen it — or been blessed with terrific spouses and healthy children. In contrast, so many young secular adults today push off marriage till around thirty or older. Some dismiss it entirely. Many in Gen Y are sacrificing themselves on the altar of career progress, working grueling hours, leaving little time for relationships. Some now believe that having kids isn’t a climate-friendly choice. But if they stop having kids, who are they saving the planet for? In forgoing marriage and family, I fear they are missing out terribly on life’s greatest opportunities for creativity, growth, challenge — and joy.   

While raising our kids, I always understood that we couldn’t quantify the importance of our sacrifices — I only knew that they were vital. Now I see that it may take until the next generation to fully appreciate the return on the investment.

Judy Gruen’s latest book is “The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love with Faith.”