Welcome to the Tscherpelinis. Today's Episode: „Letting Go“

My older son walks into the kitchen late in the morning to make himself a coffee, while my husband and I are right in the middle of a heated discussion.

Our dispute revolves around finding the right balance between control and letting go. It’s a topic that regularly resurfaces in our house whenever parenting is involved. This time, the trigger is our youngest, who started fifth grade a few weeks ago and is still struggling a little with the transition. The structure of the lessons and the much more tightly scheduled school day are tiring for him, and depending on the subject and the teacher, there are days when he simply doesn’t want to go to school.

“Can I stay home today?” he asks, in a voice designed to melt even the hardest parental heart.

I try not to make too much of it and hope that, given time, it will sort itself out.

My husband sees things differently. He worries that if we don’t intervene early enough, a small problem might turn into a big one. I, on the other hand, argue in favour of letting go. Trusting that our little one will find his way.

The phrase letting go, however, has roughly the opposite effect on my husband.

That’s when he likes to remind me of our old herding dog, who used to become completely distressed whenever her family pack split up and headed off in different directions. For her, this was serious business.

For my husband, apparently, it is too.

The more I want to let go, the more he feels he has to hold on, just to make sure that, in his eyes, everything doesn’t fall apart.

So he feels misunderstood and turns sarcastic.

Fine, then he might as well let go of everything. At least then he wouldn’t have any stress either.

I get annoyed and suggest the famous middle ground – that magical place where, in theory, everyone is happy and, in practice, nobody has the slightest idea where exactly it is.

At that moment, our older son walks in and remarks dryly:

“I feel like I’m in a sitcom, and today’s episode is called Letting Go.”

My husband and I need a second to process that.

We feel slightly exposed, because he has a point.

What makes a sitcom a sitcom? The same recurring characters, arguing about the same recurring issues, over and over again for the audience’s entertainment.

And apparently, after twenty years of having children, this is still our recurring theme.

How much control is necessary, and when should you let go?

I have no idea.

And the fact that each of our children is so completely different doesn’t exactly make things any easier. There is only one thing my husband and I agree on: as parents, we will always carry the original sin. Whatever we decide, our children will eventually blame us for having made exactly that decision.

Meanwhile, our youngest is sitting in the next room, playing Minecraft with his friends on his iPad.