Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The never ending choices of a parent

It starts the moment you find out you are pregnant. There are hundreds of thousands of choices that a mother will have to make for her baby. What she should eat, which vitamins to take, when to sleep, which doctor to choose?  The decisions about the birth alone can be overwhelming. There are classes and books geared to help with these choices. Drugs or natural, midwife or doctor, hospital or birthing center?  When the baby is born it doesn't end. Breastfeeding or formula, co-sleeping or crib?  As your baby grows so does the list of things parents must decide. Daily.

It is easy to turn to the internet where there will be hundreds of thousands of articles to answer your hundreds of thousands of questions. In fact you can most likely find an article that will give you the exact answer you are looking for. And we all know if you can find it on the internet then it must be true! ;)

So how do you know what's the best for your child? Which preschool is best, public or private, school lunch or brown bag? Every day we are faced with decisions. It is my belief that as mothers and fathers we just do our best. We apply our life experiences, adjust for their personalities and hope we've chosen wisely. We arm ourselves with as much knowledge as possible and then we wing it. I think the saying is, 'We plan God laughs'. Most of us learn straight away at baby's delivery that we can take our plan and throw it out the window. You can invasion a million scenarios and number one million and one will be the outcome. (I know, because it happened to me both times.)

You're probably wondering where I'm going with this. Really, it spawned from a recent conversation I had on a social media site with a friend about iPad usage and children. That debate originated from an innocent video I posted with my 2.5 year old, grandma's new kitten and her iPad. Its freaking adorable. Most of the comments were "cute' and 'aww'. The expected comments. Then one comes, 'get that kid off the iPad' I took it very lighthearted. My response was a chuckle and a 'don't worry we balance it out with music festivals, nature and the pool'. I quickly realized the comment was not at all meant to be funny, but judgmental and serious. There was some more back and forth publicly and privately. What I didn't know, until I got a phone call later that day, that other friends where following the thread. I still kept it light and defended my friend, because he doesn't have children. Everyone in the parent club knows the drill. BC (before children) when you see kids acting out in public or running under the clothes rack in the store, you say 'my kids will NEVER do THAT. BC you plan that every meal will be balanced and organic, in reality hot dogs and ice cream for dinner will happen. Then there is the never ending debate of screen time. BC you're gonna be all Pinteresty and do all these cool experiments every day, in reality you put on Peppa Pig so can have 30min of peace or try and prepare dinner. I learned a lot from the responses that were posted. And, as of today there are 123 comments to a follow up post about how terrible it is to let your toddler get instant gratification from a game on the iPad. I gathered that some agreed. Keep in mind that I don't know everyone that posted, so I'm not sure if their comments are BC. But most of the people with kids gave scenarios of why they let their kids use technology so the parents were clear and the majority were commenting to defend their reasons for using technology.

This is where I needed to express my opinion. These parents don't need to defend their choices. They are the parents. For whatever reason they (and I) believe that the instant gratification given for completing a puzzle or helping Super Why find the missing letter is not permanently damaging the growing brain. Obviously I'm not condoning TV as a babysitter. I believe that balance is key. I also believe that what works for one family doesn't work for another. Who are we kidding? What works for one KID doesn't work for another.

Similar conversations and debates will come up often. Almost as often as the choices you are forced to make.  You can find them all over the internet. Vaccines, public breast feeding and home schooling are just a few others that can spark some pretty heated debates.

My main point here to parents is, when your intelligent friends with no kids tell you how you should be parenting your kids, just smile. Hopefully one day they will have little rug rats of their own and all their BC planning and theories will get tossed out the window and land in big pile next to your BC thoughts and plans. You will agree to disagree and be happy that you live in a place where my beliefs don't have to be your beliefs and vice versa. Then you can both have a good laugh.

For now just pour yourself a night cap, relax and hold on to your sanity while your kids run out all their endless energy before bedtime.

Cheers,
Sarah