Parenthood

I often catch myself in the middle of the day looking at my kids and wondering how I got here. I mean, I KNOW how it all happened but the fact that I’m a parent, like, forever – that’s just crazy talk! Then I start to ask myself all of the hard questions that go along with parenting:

·         Am I teaching my kids the right things?

·         How will we handle the ‘hard’ conversations?

·         Will they make the right choices?

·         Will they be happy?

I know that these are the questions that every parent asks themselves and I know it will take a loooonnngg time to know the answers (if ever). I wonder if we will be able to measure incremental progress. At 4, 2, and 6 months we seem to be doing an okay job – they usually follow the rules, they say please and thank you (most of the time), they don’t talk back and they usually do as we ask. It’s not now that I really worry about, it’s when they start having to make choices that could really affect their lives (drugs, sex, etc). Once I had kids, I knew I would likely be at home with them during their middle school & high school times – just to be around if they needed me and to have a finger on the pulse of their activities to guide them through those difficult choices.

I’ve seen a lot of kids grow up despite their upbringing. I’ve also seen a lot of kids from privelage throw it all away. I wonder how these kids were raised and try to gleam lessons from their lives to translate into the raising of my kids. I’ve read a lot of parenting books and often take something from them (an article I read once talked about how telling a child that they were smart resulted in them not trying very hard. So instead of telling my kids how smart they are I try to tell them how proud I am for how hard they tried). I’m hopeful that I am reading the right things, shadowing the right behaviors and making the right parenting decisions. For now, I’ve decided that the most important things at this stage (and maybe as they get older too) are to be consistent when disciplining them, keep them out of harm’s way, be on the same page with hubby on how we approach every situation, hold them accountable for their choices, give them the appropriate level of responsibility and constantly make sure they know that they are loved .

Today’s difficult parenting decision was when L got to choose the pre-bedtime show. J did not agree with L’s choice and was very sad about it. I knew that L would watch about 90 seconds of the show and was tempted to let J get his way. But I knew that following through on my original decision would send messages to both L and J and hopefully one day they will understand that they don’t always get their way.

What I do know for sure is that my kids are happy, they get along with each other, and our babysitters come back – so we must be doing something right!

Lessons I learned today:

·       It takes about 4 months for a two year old to get comfortable in a new environment – I’m happy to report that yesterday L didn’t want to leave the gym because she was having so much fun (that’s a long way from sitting in front of the ladies working out crying out for me!)

·       Planning a weekend away without kids takes a lot of work (and notes!)

·       Parenting is hard work, keep your fingers crossed and hope you’re doing the right stuff!