When Have Parents Failed in Raising a Child?

Published November 20, 1986. Susan and I returned from Denver last weekend. I was asked to speak there on marriage and family relations. We enjoyed looking around the city and soon learned after arriving there were 16  major shopping malls in the area. Upon hearing that, Susan immediately set a goal for the next day.

We were not able to meet the goal together, since we only made it to something like 10 of the 16. On such occasions she has a motto, “Shop ‘til you drop,” which I did about the middle of the afternoon. I returned to the motel to rest, but Susan plodded on, trying to hit the other six malls before sundown.

After one of my speeches in the evening, a mother approached me and asked if we could talk a moment. She said she felt she had failed as a mother. Her husband had similar feelings in his role as a father. They had a son in his late teens who was involved in some activities of which they disapproved. She wanted to know how to get over the feelings of failure.

I told her that something like 98 percent of teenagers eventually turn out to be mature, functioning adults. The problem is they don’t all mature at the same time. She suggested her son was probably running around with the other two percent. We joked a little about the common concern most parents have about how their children will “turn out.”

But I could tell she was not in the mood for levity, and once again she voiced her concern about her feelings of failure as a mother. I really didn’t know what to say in the few minutes we had to talk. So I asked her a question.

“At what point in the development of a child do you declare that parent or parents a failure? Or a success, for that matter?” She said she really had never thought about it but thought the time the child was in the home was the determining factor. Since her son was about to leave home, and was not presently meeting her expectations, she thought she had failed.

I shared with her the insight that we can never really judge how we ultimately do as parents because we are not around during the last 20 years of the child’s life. The problem is that parents eventually die. So how are we to know what our children turn out to be?

She said she never thought of either her or her husband doing anything significant with their children once they left home. I countered that some of the best things parents do for children occur after they jump the nest. Things like tolerance and patience during the prodigal son or daughter’s ventures. We agreed that we all are very judgmental of young people between 15 and say 22 or 23 years of age. We often believe their life and behavior is fixed during that time span.

But I have seen many young men and women do erratic, anti-social and yes, even sinful things during that seven or eight year period. And still, 98 percent eventually “turn out” to be decent, productive, responsible, and even loving human beings.

That being the case, I suggested to the woman that perhaps she was being a bit hasty in her judgment of both her son and herself as a mother. I felt there was still hope for her wayward son and suggested she would only fail as a parent when she quit trying.

And once again, I reminded her that neither she nor her husband would be around for the ultimate test  . . . the last 20 or so years of his life.

So how would they really know if and when they have failed as parents?