The Parenting Paradox: When Stepping Back Is the Hardest Step Forward.

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You know, it's crazy that you think that once your kids become older, they become adults. They start families and they move out of the house, go to college. Even. You think your life gets easier as a parent, that you're going to stop stressing and you're just going to relax and breathe some now? Wrong. Absolutely wrong. If anything, it gets a little more worrisome because now they're out there doing big people things, adulting well, doltish kind of things are driving out in the freeway.

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I got one kid who goes to college and she has her own car, so she drives herself up and down during the holidays. Last year it was actually really, really stressful because there was a storm that was coming right before she was supposed to return back to college during the winter, and if she didn't leave right in the morning on a Saturday, I believe she was going to get caught.

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So she had to leave. And watching her little car on, on my device was tracking her, watching her little car try to stay ahead of the storm that was supposed to be really massive was absolutely terrifying. So no, the fear, the worry as a parent never ends. And I'm here to tell you guys, prepare for it. I, I, I thought it would be easier.

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And I'm not going to lie. I'm really proud of my girls. They're really big girls are. They're 22 and 20 pretty good adults. Pretty good humans. I'm extremely proud of the job I did Pat myself on the back. There I did it, and I love them dearly. But the thing is that life doesn't care about you. The world doesn't care about you, and life is going to lights.

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Things are going to happen that are out of their control. So as an example, I'm going back to my daughter who was driving, whether weather doesn't care that things can happen. And it was in her face, but she had to get to the other side. She had to get back to school, or else she's going to be stuck here till Tuesday, Wednesday and she's going to miss school.

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Bad things are going to happen whether you like it or not. And I now know that I just it's never going. And that's probably the biggest lesson that I like to impart on you. You parents who have younger children. And maybe I'm naive and you're, you're doing better. Maybe you're smarter than me, but, Yeah, it's never ending.

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That realization just came true recently. I, I know that they're managing as best they can and that they have tools and they have support system and all these things that I'm very proud of. Right. But they're getting hurt. They're getting their feelings hurt. They're getting slapped in the face. Not literally, I hope, because that would be abuse and that calls for a lawsuit.

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But figuratively speaking, the world is going to smack them in the face. They're going to lose jobs or get their heart broken. Relationships are going to end. They're going to fail the paper. They're going to get fired and as a parent, my role now isn't to tell them what to do. And that's something that I've really been working on really hard, really, just to make sure I say really three times in a sentence and be redundant.

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I'm just trying to, at this point in my parenting development as a father, I'm more than a I'm not parenting them per se. I'm coaching them. I'm mentoring them. I feel that a lot of what needed to be learned, I have learned. I can't teach them anything brand new per se, but I can obviously give them some insight.

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I can be here to support. I can be a mentor. If they have questions, they can come to me. It is the absolute hardest thing in the world and feel free to chime in in the comments if you run into this, but it's the absolute hardest thing in the world to watch them stumble, knowing that if they just did the thing that I would do, or they would just listen to me, that they would figure that they wouldn't have this problem.

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But the problems are there because they don't know the path yet. The roadblocks are in their way. The obstacles even are in their way because they don't know the path. And in fact, the path, the obstacles, the way. Shout out to the Ryan Holiday. I love that, from his book The Obstacle Is the Way. The learning is through the obstacle.

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There is no getting around it until you go through it, or maybe you get around it. That's part of the lesson. The point is, the obstacle is the way. Sometimes the slap in the face and the heartbreak is the lesson it was for me. So I have to just sit back. I cannot just jump in and try to fix it.

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I can't chime in. Or at least for me. I know that there's other parenting strategies. Mine isn't to show up every time and remind them of what they should be doing, or what I would do when with any reasonable person will do. My job is to consult, to be their their coach, to be their mentor. Are you tired of burning through your marketing budget faster than you can say ROI?

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I'm video content and as a stop your audience from scrolling faster than they stop for a baby panda video. Yeah, we do that. So if you don't setting your marketing dollars on fire, there's a rockstar marketing. And let's turn those crickets into cash. My job is to consult to be their their coach, to be their mentor. And I think of this as as it relates to children, the best metaphor I have for this is sometimes I just have to touch the hot stove.

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Some of the best learning doesn't really happen until you actually do the thing this experiential that where it always gets me. You have to touch the stove before you actually learn Bobby process toe that the stove is really fucking hot. Don't touch it or else you're going to get burnt. And now there you go, you got burned. And now they'll probably never touch it again and they'll be burned for life.

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But the lesson has been learned, right? That but this, this right here has been the hardest thing for me as their father. Because I know that in some cases, I don't. I do have the answer. But it's it's not. I learned the lesson the hard way. So when I can, I share. But other than that, I just have to let them be.

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It never ends. And here's here's another level to this, and it will never end. I mentioned it earlier, but here's where I got this realization. My older daughter is 22. She has a son, so I have a grandson and my grandfather. By the way, my father insists that he looks just like me, which is crazy. So there's this little human running around out there that's another generation removed.

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I am his grandfather and I'm worried sick about him. I'm worried about where he's at, what he's doing, what he's getting into. And but once again, trying to let him fall, let him stumble, let him hopefully never burn his hand. Because that metaphor I used earlier was horrible. But it's applicable. But now I have another human that I'm worried for, so this worry doesn't end.

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If anything, it just continues. And hopefully it's less intense with the next grandchild or the next grandchild, the next grandchild. But the worry never ends. I have to fall back. And I think about this all the time is something that I, I haven't mentioned here on the channel, but something I think about all the time. I heard this from a boxer years ago that said, and I don't know who it is, and I'm sure I'm misquoting him in some way.

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I know I'm misquoting him in some way, but essentially the message is this by the time this boxer gets in the ring, he has already won or lost the fight because the work is actually done out of the ring. All the mental and physical training that needs to be done is done outside the ring in preparation for it.

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So when they he shows up there, if he didn't do that work and have a good strategy for that moment, for that session, for that bout, then he's already lost or won. So how does this relate to my girls and to parenting? And a lot of the things in my approach to everything. If they're throwing a tantrum, I mean, that's it.

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They're throwing a tantrum. There's nothing you can do in that moment necessarily to keep them from throwing the tantrum. The playing field is it's already too late. That work is done before you get there. As it relates to my girls, now that they have the tools, they are pretty smart cookies and they have the internet and they have all the world's information in front of them, and they have good people.

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They have a community of people that love them, ready to answer their phone call, ready to help in and show up in whatever way possible. But they have to show up. All the work has been done, and now it's up to them to figure out how to navigate it. And they will. They will lose some, but they'll win some as well.

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And for that I will hang my hat, hat, hat, hang my hat high. I think that's a cowboy metaphor. I'm very proud of that. And it's foolish of me to think that they can walk around life and not get hurt. Not that or worse yet even hurt others. They're going to hurt people because that's just life, right?

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But it's foolish of me to think that they're going to walk around and I get hurt. I've tried to minimize it. I try to encourage them as much as I could and do everything imaginable, as I'm sure you guys are doing. But the worry never ends, and I'll leave you with that. If you enjoyed this video, then I'm sure I have another fantastic video for you to watch right here.

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I forgot what it's about. I'm sure it's fantastic. Feel free to click on that. My name is Teevee. Thank you for tuning in. Have a great day. Bye bye.