As a young mom, I micromanaged my son because I cared too much about what people thought. I wish I had stopped sooner.

The author said she regrets worrying too much about what other people thought about her son and what that said about her parenting. Courtesy of Hope Denton. When I was a young mom, I craved others' approval, and that affected the way I parented. For years, I tried to micromanage my son. Then, it became too much, and I stopped. Trusting him to make choices independently has transformed our relationship and his growth. For years, I checked my son's grades as if they held a hidden message about my parenting. A missing assignment meant I should have been paying closer attention. A bad grade meant I needed to step in. If he wanted to wear sweatpants again, I pushed for jeans because, apparently, denim once felt like evidence that I was raising a respectable human being. I corrected the language. I worried about manners. I noticed everything.