Let It Be

Jul 9, 2023

Ever find yourself frustrated and angry, while those around you (usually your children) are terribly amused? According to Facebook memories, this happened to me about eight years ago while attending a family wedding. “One day we will look back at this and laugh,” I recall my wife telling me at the time. Apparently for me, today is the day.

Yes. It was a wedding, which meant we had to capture the moment with a nice family photo. However, “nice” was not the look my teens were going for. Though I was patient at first, I soon lost that virtue and slipped into dictator mode. My intentions were good, but the means to that end didn’t help the situation. At one point, I had four boys walking in four directions, all independently laughing uncontrollably. The phrase “herding cats at a picnic” might provide the best visual.

I’m certain candid photos are better than staged ones, but in the moment I had a hard time remembering that. As I have said on countless occasions, it is easy to see crazy when you aren’t the crazy one. If only I could have heeded the advice of Paul McCartney and just Let It Be.

Parents, your children will frustrate you. But as I have come to discover with the passage of time, a lot of the things we get worked up over on our parenting journey, aren’t as important as we make them out to be. Sometimes the best we can do is step back, take off our controlling cruise director hat, look for the humor, and find our place among the passengers.

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