Think About Being a Parent Before You Are One

Do you have the right stuff to be a good parent?

Some would-be mothers and fathers watch the families around them, listen to the talk shows, read the parenting books and wonder: Will there ever be enough time? Enough money? Enough patience? Do they have what it takes to overcome a legacy of bad parenting or to raise a vulnerable child in a perilous world?

Parent educators report increasingly anxious queries from people wondering if they should proceed with parenthood. They say they are right to worry. Raising children has never been easy, and it appears even more daunting with every new report on child abuse and neglect, children’s drug use, sexual activity or declining academic and emotional skills. Compounding the difficulty, the adults come from the generations that championed self-interest and the pursuit of pleasure.

No one can ever fully prepare for parenthood, but according to a group of parent educators, there are some questions that might be helpful to consider as you face the unknown:

Are you able to follow through on a commitment? A long-term commitment?

Are you able to put your own needs on the back burner?

Do you understand that it is not possible to be a good parent and continue to live as if you were still childless?

Are you willing to devote resources to your children’s needs? Would you be willing to work more than one job, cut back on expenses for yourself to meet the expenses of the children?

Because children need more than just their immediate family, do you know, or are you willing to learn, how to ask for help and support?

Are you willing to go the extra mile for someone you don’t know yet, someone who’s not going to go away, and who will bring you a new challenge just as you’ve mastered the last one?

Are you willing to play and have fun?

Are you willing to identify and respond to the needs of the children you have, not just the ones you imagined you would have?

Are you aware that you will need to find time to nurture yourself so that you will not respond to your children from emptiness?

Do you know your limitations, so that when you yell over spilled milk, you understand something else is bothering you? Or when your teenager yells obscenities in your face, you will react in a serious way and not go numb and avoid her?

Are you ready to take on a meaningful, painful and rewarding relationship for the rest of your life?

Are you aware there is no way to be a perfect parent?

Don Elium, a parent educator and author from Walnut Creek, Calif., says it’s impossible to address these issues before the child comes. “It’s the presence of the child that triggers these emotional issues in the parent that even makes the parent be aware and address them.”

Likewise, therapist Ron Taffel of New York says he’s been surprised by how parenthood transforms some people into much better parents than they thought they would be. “They find in themselves an ability not to think of themselves first. . . . It can be extremely humanizing in a way people don’t really expect,” he says.

Even if parents have had other children, it’s hard to predict how they will react to the next child because every child’s personality is different, Taffel says.

Consequently, it’s important to know how important predictability is to you, says Candelaria Silva, a parent educator at Families First in Cambridge, Mass. “Some people plan to the last degree. But all the organizational skills in the world aren’t necessarily going to matter to a 2-year-old.

“The most important thing is commitment to the parenting role,” she says. “Then I think everything else falls into place.”

* Lynn Smith’s column appears on Sundays. Readers may write to her at the Los Angeles Times, Life & Style, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053 or via e-mail at [email protected]. Please include a telephone number.