Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Free to Delegate
I just finished a great book that every parent should read: How To Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims. Basically, it’s a book about how all the helicopter parenting we are doing is not helping our children to become successful adults—or adults at all. To be honest, some parts of this book were very affirming for me, because certainly with my younger two I have been less helicopter, more sheepdog (I just bark and keep the herd together). Still, there is a lot my husband and I can do better.
As I was reading the book, thinking about letting my kids get themselves up in the morning, make their own lunches, not checking that their homework is complete, I kept hearing a little voice in my head saying, “Oh, the time I could save.” And then I thought of my clients, who are generally a little more helicopter-y than I am… and I thought, “then they would have time to file and to plan and not be scrambling trying to keep up”.
I remember my mother telling me, when I was twelve or so, that when she was young she had a boss who told her that she must learn to delegate. However, my mother was too invested in things being done “right.” Which meant—you guessed it—that she had to do it herself. I think my mother told me this because she saw that I was already a burgeoning perfectionist and control freak. She knew that her inability to let others do it wrong, or imperfectly, had held her back in business and made her feel resentful at home. I think one of the big lessons that I continually need to learn in new contexts is that not everything has to be done perfectly.
My older son is very clear that he has no desire to do something if I am just going to come along and redo it. He may not want to set the table, but if I am going to come straighten the napkins and put the knives on the right, please… I might as well do it myself. And he has a point.
Right now, I’ll bet some of you are thinking of your spouses. How many husbands (some wives too, I’m sure) have gotten out of doing their fair share of the housework because they don’t do it “right”?
Children, spouses, coworkers, employees: They can all take some of the burden off of us if we let them. Paradoxically, they will never have the chance to do it better if we never let them do it at all.
So whether you are a helicopter parent, a control-freak wife, a perfectionist husband or a micromanaging boss: Stop. Step back. Let them fail, or let them succeed but not to your standard. The sky won’t fall. And next time it’ll be easier. And look at that: You just bought yourself some time!