Some years ago I worked for someone who approached parenting like running a business. I always found this laughable, because despite supervising people for half of my professional life, kids are just not the same. Not even a little.
For one thing, when you start the process, the stakes are very different. If you don't feed them, they die. If you don't change their diapers, they wallow in their own shit. The relationship is totally different. Employees are there to feed your company and clean up your shit, while parenting is the other way around.
But the biggest, fundamental difference is that you can't fire your kid. If they don't do their laundry or clean their room, they're still on the "payroll," so to speak. This is what's so hard about parenting, at least for me. At work, you define outcomes, and try to build people around the execution of reaching those outcomes. At home, the only outcomes that ultimately matter is that they get an education and end up self-sufficient enough that they can exist in the world without you. I can't think of any endeavors more different from each other.
I happen to be in overlapping "seasons" of stress in parenting and at work. The stuff at work will settle down, as it does, and even if it didn't, the company could disappear tomorrow and I'd just have to move on to another job. Parenting, especially for a teenager, involves a relatively short window to help build all the life skills that make independent survival possible. For real, think about that. I've never been more scared of failure at anything in my life. You can't just exact consequences, because the human can be indifferent about consequences, and you can't fire them. And that doesn't even get to the love and feelings that (should) come with being a parent. It's daunting.
I've often wondered why some people turn out one way, and other another way. I attribute a lot of that to environment, but I don't know what percentage could be assigned to that. Brain function, teachers, social interaction, intrinsic motivation, etc., all play a part. I can't accept that parenting isn't the most important part. That's a lot of pressure.
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