Controlled Chaos and Experimental Parenting

Our family has been watching some of the coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show because, although I have three teenagers in the house, I’ve successfully indoctrinated them to be 13 going on 57. Like our own little version of Househunters, we’ve enjoyed critiquing the gardens, imagining what we’d present there, and, most importantly, coming up with ideas for things we could implement at home.

Our house, and by extension, our yard, has always been a laboratory for everyone in our family to try out their ideas. We live in an area that is rapidly urbanizing which means that our little cottagey rambler will someday be torn down to build two McMansions in its place. As sad as that may seem, it’s actually been quite liberating: there is no resale value in the house – the land is far more than the structure. So we can paint our walls how we want, install the tile we want in the bathroom, and build and unbuild whatever backyard landscaping we desire.

This devil-may-care attitude gets combined with a commitment to giving our kids as much agency as we can. My youngest was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes early on and with that came many, many impositions on her. I spent many years downplaying them, but that’s a lie. It is much more onerous and burdensome than you can imagine.

So, because of all of those responsibilities, Forrest and I have done our very best to give our kids as much control as we can over literally everything else. They wear what they want (yes, always, and yes, that did mean that my daughter wore a bathrobe to school every day for five years). Their rooms look how they want (often messy but much more tasteful than I would have imagined). And we let them have a lot of leeway over what deciding what our backyard looks like.

I keep telling them that this is all an experiment and that we, as their parents, might be screwing it all up. But as they age, what I’ve realized is that with that power comes not responsibility, but consideration. They think deeply about what and how they want to use that space. Forrest is always on hand to help but he’s as bad as the rest of them: I left for a four day trip once and came home to a nearly-finished treehouse as well as a small catio.

I’m consistently impressed, but now I wonder why? Human beings, when given the freedom and resources to make their own choices, often make impulsive and extravagant choices at first (ask my kids about the giant hole they dug in the yard – twice). But eventually, the consequences of those choices become clear, and sanity reigns. They realize that as much fun as it is to play in the mud, it’s nicer to play in the grass. And while an elevated slide with a four foot drop onto the ground might seem like a blast, eventually someone gets hurt. (Yes, this did happen, and no, it did not require a visit to the ER).

The key, I think, is to let those consequences have time to become clear. This has been the hardest thing for me. It really is a bit like playing a game of chicken. One time, the twins decided that they wanted wash our deck. Seems good, yes? Except, knowing them, it involved pouring the better part of a bottle of dish soap on the deck, scrubbing for a while, and then getting bored and leaving soapy residue everywhere. It took maybe an hour in the hot sun to make it sticky and terrible, but I just walked right over it to make a cup of tea. It took two hours before they realized that it was sticky and terrible. It took three hours before they realized I was not going to clean it up for them. And, in their own way, with more scrubbing and a hose on full blast and, oh, so many wet towels, the deck got clean. Cleaner than it had been in years.

For some reason, that particular adventure has never been repeated. But my kids did clean the deck for me this spring, while I was in the front yard planting seeds. And this time, they used brooms like a normal person.

People have said that our family is “controlled chaos” before and I think they’re right. But slowly, over time, the control has moved from my hands into theirs. And while this is a grand experiment, I can’t think of any better result than that.