It was during a snowstorm in January of 2019, when we left the hospital with Odin, that I came to understand this small being was completely dependent on us for all things.

I was feeling overwhelmed and wholly unprepared for the task.

In my life, I’d had to take courses and tests for licenses to operate a vehicle or hunt, but I was free to raise this human without much more than a “good luck” from a nurse.

It’s pretty heavy stuff.

Now, the world’s changed an awful lot since I was a kid. I am firmly in the generation that grew up in analog and graduated in digital.

I was among the last generations to freely ride my bike around until dark and remember what it was like without a phone in my pocket or a screen in my face.

Still, I’m young enough to have had friends who had cell phones in their senior year, and I grew up playing video games and using computers, rather than typewriters in high school.

I also grew up on a farm, which provided ample opportunity to learn life lessons.

Unfortunately, my boys aren’t growing up on a small family farm, and while we enjoy a spacious yard, I find myself missing the opportunities to teach what the farm presented.

At this point, I’ve not taken on the task of raising any sort of livestock, but I’m heavily invested in reforesting my yard, which has pitted me in an endless battle with wildlife.

My boys are allies in this war, and like most kids, we try to give them a sense of responsibility.

They help with trash and laundry as best they can manage. We also work to make sure they tidy up their previous messes before making new ones.

Despite all that, it can be hard to tell if you’re doing a good job as a parent, and I think most of us, most of the time, feel like we aren’t.

And while parents may think of themselves as the teachers, the truth is we are still students as well.

One thing I’ve been dealing with lately is the relationship between suffering and growth.

Watching your kids learn means watching your kids struggle and fail, even when you could easily intervene and save the day.

This spring, my son Odin decided he wanted to grow a maple tree. His grandmother gifted him a young sapling.

He’s named the tree “Leader” and tells me it will be the leader of all trees on the property once it grows.

While the wet spring allowed him to ease into the duties, the hot summer meant the tree needed an ample supply of water.

During the hotter weeks of the summer, he carried buckets of water out to the tree. Odin is a particularly small kid, weighing about 50 pounds, so a bucket of water is fairly heavy to him.

He often fills it three or more times to ensure the tree’s properly watered on the sunnier days.

I couldn’t be prouder of the effort he puts in, but I’ll be honest—it’s hard to watch him struggle with that bucket.

He strains a bit to carry it, and he often has to take several breaks on the trip.

I have to fight the urge to help him bear that burden, but I know he’ll be better off for it if I don’t.

Of course, it’s nice to work together, but when I see the accomplishment he feels as he runs back to the house with the empty bucket, smiling and sweating, I know I made the right choice.

On a particularly hot day, I told him one bucket would be enough and I’d help with the rest, but he told me that if Leader needed three buckets, he’d give Leader three buckets.

He wanted to do it himself.

The irony was that I was the one who had caved to the strain of watching him struggle, while he himself had grown strong enough to see the bigger picture.

I think we both grew a little from the burdens we were bearing that day.

A few days later, on a recent Saturday, we asked them if they wanted to go to the beach, the Nicandri Nature Center, Hawkins Visitor Center, the drive-in, the playground, or BBQ with their grandparents.

I thought for sure we’d end up with a list of activities rather than one, but to my surprise, and without any real hesitation, they both cast votes for a day with the grandparents.

So to all the parents out there just winging it, remember that just because you don’t know what you’re doing doesn’t mean you aren’t doing it well.

Jimmy Lawton is news editor of North Country This Week and NorthCountryNow.com.