Chapter #3 Keeping Parenting Perpective

• Conventional wisdom:  Raising children is all in a day’s work.
•  Reality:   A day that never ends!

This a large subject, but we can narrow it down some.  Many if not most families are very busy, and lead high stress lives, in fact it is sadly surprising to hear youngsters parroting their parents busy lives with comments about being over booked, extended, too much on my plate, or always on the go, etc.  That last string of comments may seem normal to hear from a busy mom, not from her second grader.  When a child makes those comments, they are repeating the parent line and suggests the entire family is running at high speed through daily life.  Parenting and life is more than getting the work load finished, and then repeating the pattern day after day. That’s not parenting, and it is probably debatable if that kind of life is even living, existing may be a more apt description.  Parents should enjoy the process of raising a baby all the way, until finished.  If you are not having fun and enjoying parenting, chances are your child is not having fun being your child.  No one can argue that an unhappy child is a healthy child.  Researchers in the headlines periodically report of unhappy childhoods being responsible for substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and serious illness in later life.  One must strive for some happiness during the daily struggles of parenting.  If you don’t, you have lost parenting perspective and risk bad parenting.

  

Parenting comes first, not second, and certainly not after everything else is taken care of.  Why? because everything else is never finished, and kids grow faster than you are prepared for.  When parents work non-stop, pursue careers ceaselessly, or indulge in damaging behavior, they are shortchanging themselves and their kids. It is easy for an overworked highly stressed parent to believe that it is important that they succeed for the good of the family, and therefore they knowingly sacrifice their children while they achieve great things. Sacrifice is a strong term to use, would it sound better to say those parents neglect their children? How about, abuse their children? Another word for those parents sure to get hackles up is, irresponsible.  Yes, those parents that choose work and other choices first, and their kids second, are irresponsible parents.  

Ok, now that some of us are thoroughly in defensive mode, and thinking of their personal situations as being an exception, lets get back to “parenting perspective.” and add the word balance to the mix.  Perfect parenting may be impossible, but balanced parenting is not.  Going to the work mill for the next twenty four hours may be what you have to do, but going for the next twenty four days is absent parenting, or no parenting at all.  If you see yourself not parenting, you need to find a solution for the good of your child.  A child that is raised without someone firmly in the parent role is like a ship without a rudder, we really don’t know where the ship is headed, but it will wander aimlessly and then eventually  run aground.  Let’s hope it doesn’t sink.