Parenting in the age of know-it-all parents

I skimmed Facebook as my little one finished his first bottle of the day. He sipped the last drops, and we jolted downstairs to get the big brothers dressed, fed, and ushered to the car to get to camp and daycare.

It was a stunning day – sunny and still cool in the early hours of the morning. Just the weather that makes morning traffic bearable. We breathed in the fresh morning air as we drove, music up and windows down.

But despite the beauty that was all around, something had me in a mood. What, though? The kids had actually been decent this morning. I had managed to get my newborn back to sleep fairly easily last night after his mid-night feeds. I had gulped down an entire cup of coffee before getting in the car, and I had even bathed recently enough to recall. So why was I irritable? I began scanning my memory for whatever it was that had brought me angst.

Finally it resonated. Facebook. Those posts.

After I dropped off my oldest, fought rush hour traffic back home, and fed my new born bottle number two, I braved Facebook again to see if I could find the post that left me feeling some kind of way. Oh yes, there it was. The judgey, haughty, know-it-all mom post.

The working moms feel their lives are impossible and the stay-at-home moms feel undervalued.

I was irritated for two reasons. First, that my bad-ass mom friend who seriously gives 200% of herself everyday to her kids was venting over someone commenting about how she “just” stays home. Minimizing the most important work that she gives herself to completely: her family.

I am a working mom, currently an at-home mom while on maternity leave, and I will be the first person to say that there is no job more constant, undervalued, and challenging than that of a stay-at-home parent. Hands down. I fail at it miserably on short-term trials, and I sure as hell wouldn’t do it justice on any long-term basis.

So don’t “just” my friend. There is no “just” to it, to constantly caring for others, to never having a break from your kids, to never being ‘off the clock,’ to never being paid overtime, to the constant and never-ending tidying-cooking-cleaning, tidying-cooking-cleaning that is bad enough for parents in general but is constant for the stay-at-home parent. Don’t you dare “Just” a stay-at-home parent.

But don’t shame me, either. And then there was the shared post from the ‘better-than-me’ mom that was the second source of my irritation.

“My kids went to bed at 9pm every night. They didn’t go to other kids’ houses and throw a fit to bring home toys that weren’t theirs […] I don’t ‘just have good kids’. I MADE them good kids. I didn’t give them the option to be otherwise. If your kids won’t go to bed, if they are liars or violent, if they are disrespectful and mean…why are you giving them the option? They are YOUR responsibility. YOU decide what they can and can’t do…. They need a schedule. They need boundaries. They need manners and rules. Love is not a lack of discipline.”

God I feel so judged just reading this post. It’s not the content that gets me; it’s the tone. Don’t tell me that a kid who throws a fit hasn’t been taught not to. Just as there are plenty of well adjusted adults who were raised in rough homes, there are just as many troubled adults who were raised in awesome, super, scheduled homes.

We need to all be in this together. At the end of the day, parenting is tough. There is no one-size-fits all method; no recipe for “making” a good kid. Everyday I try to strike a that balance between being too permissive and too controlling. Everyday I try and teach manners, boundaries, rules. Everyday I hug, remind, correct, remind, teach, remind, love, remind. Everyday I try and love as hard as I can, and try to make sure they know it despite being in time out all day for talking back. And some days are great; the fruits of our labor are evident as we proudly beam at our kids who are caring and kind and even somewhat reasonable (if it’s a really good day). But other days, despite all these efforts, are flat out misery. Some days are constant battles; even when they do go to bed consistently at 9pm, sometimes they end up overly exhausted; sometimes despite our constant efforts, our kids do have public meltdowns, act sassy, talk back… And if that isn’t stressful enough – the daily grind and constant attempts to do the best for our families – we are shamed by others, other parents!, on top of it.

We have got to be in this together. We have got to suspend judgement and understand that everyone’s situation is different. That maybe you did a damn good job raising good kids, but that doesn’t mean that parents of kids who have meltdowns aren’t doing just as damn-good a job.

Please, take a step back. Take some time to feel the sun, to smell the air, to remember that you are one family in a world of people; that this is one moment in a lifetime of moments. Understand that this too shall pass, that this trial – it’s a phase, one phase in a lifetime of phases. Let’s slow down together, take a few deep breaths, share some laughs and some tips and some woes, and commit to valuing one another. Parenting, it’s hard enough. Throw some light and love our way.