PUT PARENTING FIRST

• Conventional wisdom:    Anyone can be a parent.
•   Reality:   Parenting may be in our genes, but good parenting, like bad parenting is learned.

Put parenting first – Of course, but what does that mean, and when does it end?  Ask any committed parent, and they will tell you that, parenting never ends,   but it does change as the kids grow into adults, and it changes you,  some say for the better.  A better title than “Put parenting first”  might be “Be the parent you are. ” or maybe “Be the best parent you can be.”

In the beginning, a teacher meets class on the first day of school and may have all sorts of curriculum and plans and enthusiasm.  However, what the teacher must have on day one, is the same as a new parent must have when the baby is born or comes home that first day.  They both need the tools, materials, equipment, and knowledge to get through the first day, that is all.  Neither teacher or parent needs anything for next year, or even next month or next week. Sometimes new parents are minimally armed with common sense and knowing what not to do, and yet they forge ahead and raise a family, one day, one minute at a time, simply by being a parent.

The purpose of the prior paragraph is to help put new parents, or parents to be, at ease over a truly overwhelming time that they may feel ill prepared to tackle.  Please understand that as your child grows, so do you. As a parent, all you need to do is be ahead of your child, one day at a time.  Of course this is simplified thinking, and there is a strong argument for planning for the future, but that is beyond this discussion.