The Lesson Parenting Taught Me About Humility

No one talks about a certain part of being a parent.

That's not the first step. Not the first words.

You look into the mirror for the first time and see a tiny image of yourself. You don't know what to say.

That happened to me on a wet afternoon. The kind of afternoon when the sky feels too heavy and things move more slowly.

My son was having a hard time with his homework. He looked irritated, with his eyes raised and his pencil tapping too quickly against the table.

He slammed the pencil down and said,

"I'm just stupid! I am not able to do this!"

I felt like something inside me broke open wide.

Because I could remember

I could remember being eight years old and standing in front of my dad with my hands shaking over a math book.

I didn't understand.

The numbers kept moving around in my head like bees, no matter how hard I tried to stop them.

He sighed when I told him,

"I don't get it."

A big, sigh of pain. The kind that makes a space feel full even when no one is there.

He wasn't mean. He didn't scream. But his sadness was like a thick fog in the air.

And the way he looked at me made me think something terrible, that I should feel bad about not knowing.

That hard work made you small.

Even though it had been decades, the old feeling came over me so quickly that it almost made me gasp for air.

I could do something else.

I could give it to someone else.

I could also break it.

I got down on my knees next to him, my heart racing, and I said,

"Hey. Pay attention. You're smart even if you don't know something. Just know that it means you're still learning. Every day I still learn something new. It's all right."

His eyes were filled with tears as he looked at me.

He said in a whisper,

"But you always know stuff."

I shook my head and smiled in a sad way.

"I promise, I don't. It became really easy for me to pretend”

He let out a small laugh. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and picked up the pencil again. This time it was a little lighter than before.

I couldn't stop thinking about it that night

It's so simple to teach fear without trying to.

It's so easy to make a wall when you only want to build a bridge.

Being humble as a parent is weird.

It's not the kind you post on Instagram.

Not the "look at how patient and smart I am" kind.

It's real. It's hot. It's being ready to say, "I messed up when I was your age too," even though you want to be the star.

Another memory came back to me quickly

I went to school with someone. Her parents were never mean or loud, which was the exact opposite of mine.

She tried to sneak a comic book into math class one time and was caught. It scared her to tell her parents.

When she did, her mom just said,

"Now we know you love reading. Let's do it at a better time."

Not get angry. Not disappointed.

Love only.

After many years, she told me that moment changed the way she thought about what it means to forgive.

I learned that we don't just talk about eye color and family recipes.

We teach others how to deal with mistakes.

How we deal with shame.

The things we teach our loved ones about being people

These days, we say "I don't know" out loud at my house.

We get better at saying sorry when we're wrong, even if it makes us feel bad. We practice laughing at the messy parts, and sitting quietly with the hard ones.

Because kids don't need parents who are perfect.

They need real ones.

They are the ones who aren't embarrassed to say they're still learning too.

Someone who is wrong doesn't mean the end of the world, it means you're taking another step toward being better.

Being humble fixed a part of me I didn't even know was broken. And if that’s the only thing I pass down, maybe it’s enough.

Maybe it’s everything.