Most recently I have been receiving feedback from my children about my parenting and overall it seems I am lacking. I was taking it very personally until it hit me that I am not perfect. I feel like what my children are dealing with from me is a total upgrade from where I came from and if it is not good enough, I guess they will have to rein it in and work towards becoming a better parent than me.
I am very much over beating myself up because one of my children cannot make a decision. I have a habit (good or bad) of placing options in front of my children about outfit ideas, destination ideas, friendship issues and more and once they have settled on an idea, I ask "Are you sure that is what you want to do? Perhaps, blah blah blah (insert issue or outfit here) might be better." While I agree that I am the wing woman on my children second guessing themselves, if they recognize it as a problem then they are the ones that need to fix it. Keeping in mind that I apparently have a problem with this, is it necessary to beat me up over it? Obviously, they are way more together then I am and they have caught on to my issue so instead of holding me accountable I think it is time to turn the tables and say "Hey, if you think it is a problem and you are aware of it then by all means fix it!"
This parenting gig of mine started out small with only one person's life in my hands, and then over time two more moldable children came along. With each addition my style has changed. With my oldest I was aware of what she was wearing, how other people were seeing us, because I was a divorced single Mom who worried about the stigma and never wanted people to think that Ashleigh went without or was unloved. Along came Aly eleven years later, and I continued my concern over other people and clothing plus many other type A things that haunt me now. Once Avery joined us two years later I ran out of time and energy to care as much about all the other people, the clothes or whether people knew that my children were loved. I just had to keep plugging away as best I could, as I made parenting mistakes and wrecked havoc on my poor children.
Now each of my children has enough issues to keep a good therapist in business. The thing is that I love them all and wanted nothing but for them to have better lives then what I had and I believe I accomplished that part…at least so far. The remainder of issues that my children face will have to be on them to fix, because I am still sorting out the mess in my own head and that job is a real dozy!
I guess the best advice I can give on parenting today is, if you think you can do it better than give it your best shot. Everything looks easy from the outside, it is when you climb in the trenches that you really find out what people are made of. The one thing that matters the most is I love my kids. If it means that they have a few glitches when they head out on their own, that's OK. Once they have kids of their own their kids will help them get those glitches all straightened out.
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