The other night my best friend came over with her son who is close in age with Elliott. I had changed into pj pants about an hour before she came over (as I do every evening after my work day is over) because really, if you can't wear your ok pants around your bestie, who can you wear them around?? I had just I finished cleaning up the bathroom and was about to clean our mirrored closet doors (and yes, they are impossible to keep clean with a toddler and I'm not sure why I even try) As I was getting these things done I had turned on the tv for Elliott. She walked in and the first words out of my mouth were to explain that the tv was only on so I could keep Elliott distracted while I cleaned a few things up.
I haven't seen the woman for 2 months and instead of giving her a giant hug or greeting her warmly, I made an excuse for my parenting. In my own home. I'm comfortable enough for her to walk in to see me cleaning up my home in my pj pants, but not to see my kid watch Paw Patrol? What the heck?
I'm a little sick of reading about parenting. Even more sick of talking about it. All I hear (whether I agree or not) is "You're doing it wrong. You should do it this way."
I think a big part of the problem is the insecurity I feel about my parenting, but it's a catch 22, because I don't think I would feel nearly as insecure if I wasn't being bombarded with everyone else's opinion of "the right way."
I have a theory that our parents and our parents parents weren't nearly as concerned with doing it "right" and they certainly didn't care if they did it like everyone else. (They also had no idea what everyone else was doing because there was no internet!)
When Elliott was really little and not yet crawling I spent so much of my day on the floor with him, playing, reading, talking to him. One day I was at my grandma's house and as I sat on her living room floor she made a comment to my mom about how they never did that- sat down on the floor with their kids. My mom's response was "of course you didn't! You were too busy on the farm" It really stuck with me. Sometimes I wonder if we're all a little too obsessed with parenting because we have too much time on our hands. That's probably a whole blog post in itself (and dangerously close to turning this into a post about parenting) so I'll leave that one alone.
All I'm saying is that becoming a parent has humbled me quite a bit. I think that might be why I've been posting less - I have thoughts that I want to share but then I stop and think about how it might make someone feel insecure about their own choices and stop myself. We're all struggling in this parenting journey, and we don't need another person claiming they know how to do it right.
Oh, and just to be really real with you guys- Elliott watches TV everyday. Yup. The dreaded screen time before the age of 25. *gasp*
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Thanks for stopping by :)
Thanks for stopping by :)
-M
