A friend of mine recently made a post called "On Parenting". She goes through a list of things that she reminds herself when she see parents Parenting in a way that she wouldn't. She has a lot of good thoughts. It brought a number of thoughts to my mind. It also reminded me of an e-article I read a couple months ago, "Apologies to the Parents I judged Four Years Ago". In this article, the lady talks about how she use to judge and realized, now that she's a parent, that she judged unfairly.
Both my friend and this article, remind me at how much we judge each other as parents, but also judge ourselves. With my husband being deployed I am very much not the parent I want to be. I know that right now I am being a single parent but I don't know how single parents do it. I don't go to work all day, I don't have to balance a career and my children. I am still a stay at home mom, and I can hardly have time to keep up with my laundry, clean up my house, and do a bunch of other things I can't seem to manage all I want to do.
I have a hard time trying to be the type of parent I want to be. I have ideals of how I want our home to run. However I fall short.
Yes every household is different. Yes there is no one right way to raise our children. Yes there are always circumstances in other peoples lives that we don't know. Yes all of us have things that we want to change about how we parent. Why are we so judgmental of ourselves and others on how they raise their children? I think the operative part is "children". We see children who grow up with no discipline, with no respect for authority, with bad manors, with bad habits, and these are people. They grow up to be part of society. So often disrespectful, rude, bad, people reflect the parenting or lack of that receive. As parents or perspective parents, non of us want to be reflected poorly on because of our children's actions. In the bigger picture, we want to know that we can stand blameless before God and know that we did the best we possibly could in raising our children to love God and follow His commandments.
Is how quickly and well I clean up from dinner going to reflect on how righteous my son is? Probably not. Is whether I have a decorated house worthy of posting pictures of on pinterest going to keep my girls from getting married in the Temple? I serious doubt it.
Some things are essentials to our eternal salvation and to our children's. Every thing else is just- everything else. Yes those things make life nicer, possibly easier, less stressful, or more stressful, but they are not essential. The next time I wake up in the morning and realize I left the leftovers still sitting on the kitchen counter, I need to remind myself that its not essential to our salvation and not beat myself up on it.
Both my friend and this article, remind me at how much we judge each other as parents, but also judge ourselves. With my husband being deployed I am very much not the parent I want to be. I know that right now I am being a single parent but I don't know how single parents do it. I don't go to work all day, I don't have to balance a career and my children. I am still a stay at home mom, and I can hardly have time to keep up with my laundry, clean up my house, and do a bunch of other things I can't seem to manage all I want to do.
I have a hard time trying to be the type of parent I want to be. I have ideals of how I want our home to run. However I fall short.
Yes every household is different. Yes there is no one right way to raise our children. Yes there are always circumstances in other peoples lives that we don't know. Yes all of us have things that we want to change about how we parent. Why are we so judgmental of ourselves and others on how they raise their children? I think the operative part is "children". We see children who grow up with no discipline, with no respect for authority, with bad manors, with bad habits, and these are people. They grow up to be part of society. So often disrespectful, rude, bad, people reflect the parenting or lack of that receive. As parents or perspective parents, non of us want to be reflected poorly on because of our children's actions. In the bigger picture, we want to know that we can stand blameless before God and know that we did the best we possibly could in raising our children to love God and follow His commandments.
Is how quickly and well I clean up from dinner going to reflect on how righteous my son is? Probably not. Is whether I have a decorated house worthy of posting pictures of on pinterest going to keep my girls from getting married in the Temple? I serious doubt it.
Some things are essentials to our eternal salvation and to our children's. Every thing else is just- everything else. Yes those things make life nicer, possibly easier, less stressful, or more stressful, but they are not essential. The next time I wake up in the morning and realize I left the leftovers still sitting on the kitchen counter, I need to remind myself that its not essential to our salvation and not beat myself up on it.
My mom had a saying up in our house called Poem for a 5th Child. It goes, "Cleaning and scrubbing can wait til tomorrow. For babies grow up, we've learned to our sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep." I try and remember that when I feel like I have a ton to do and my kids are interfering with my to-do list.
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