Ah, my parenting ideals..... where have you disappeared to?
I'm sorry to say that they disappeared into the ether as soon as we had children.
You know - the standards that you are sure you will aspire to (and attain) when you have small children of your own.
I remember taking a plane trip many years ago, with my husband. We were on our way back from Bangkok to Sydney - a nine hour flight. During that time, the family seated in front of us had a young kid that screamed the whole time (well, what felt like the whole time to us). I recall thinking 'his parents obviously haven't put enough effort into parenting him properly' and that 'no child of mine will ever carry on in such a way!' I also used to scoff at people who let their kids watch TV, gave them dummies, and let them 'run riot' in people's houses (our house, typically!). Boy have I changed my tune since then. I look back on those days and feel a huge sense of embarrassment at how opinionated and sure of myself I was, as though a child's behaviour could be a direct result of the energy and time a parent puts into them (and sure, there is some truth in that but at the same time it's not so straightforward).
Here are some of the ideals I used to uphold about being a parent:
My child/ren will never watch TV:
For many years my husband and I didn't own a TV (I hadn't owned one since I was around 19) and I was adamant that our children would grow up without a TV in the house too. I had read numerous books on the subject, and was very wary about children growing up exposed to media influences not to mention the effect of TV on young minds when children are at the age when they cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality. Well fast forward two years and our daughter now knows all of the wiggles by both name and colour and is fast being acquainted with Dora the Explorer. Let's just say breastfeeding a baby and occupying a toddler at the same time has proved more difficult than I anticipated. 'Feeding time toy boxes' just didn't cut it!
I will never have one of 'those kids' who run wild through my friend's houses:
Oh how far this is from the truth. I have realised over time that no amount of telling a toddler not to touch great aunt nellie's special vase or that beautiful antique dolls house that belongs to your trendy childless friends is going to deter them from doing what they do naturally - being curious creatures, the world really is their oyster and they are going to seize it with both of their chubby little hands. Literally. I know some people that spend the whole time following their child around when they go to someone's house, averting potential disasters, but that must be exhausting. You might as well just stay at home!
My child won't be a fussy eater:
I used to believe that fussy eating was a direct result of a parent being 'too lazy' to give their child 'proper food' (ie, home-made and free from additives and sugar and other nasties). This belief began eroding away when our daughter's reflux gave her an aversion to being fed - firstly by bottle and then she became very picky with what she ate as a result of months of being in pain without it being properly managed. I now understand that sometimes you will give your kid crap food for dinner - you may not want to, but when the little blighters downright refuse to eat anything else and you know that they will probably wake up hungry during the night as a result, a couple of chicken nuggets really isn't the evil you originally thought it was.
Our daughter will be breastfed, not bottle fed:
Before our daughter was born, I knew that we would be breastfeeding her. After all, it was the best source of nutrition and as everyone knows, breast is best. I had never gambled on having a child who simply refused to latch on from the moment she was born. After weeks of persevering, and three months of expressing milk every three hours around the clock I finally gave up.
No child of mine will ever use a dummy!
After spending the past few years before having children observing my cousin and her son who still had a dummy at age four, I knew that this wasn't a track I wanted to go down. But then we had Vivi and she would scream and scream in pain from reflux. For hours. The only thing that brought us some peace and her a bit of relief was a dummy. However, I am pleased to say she graduated on to chewing a grotty old bit of fabric instead.
Our child will fit into our life, and our life will carry on as normal:
Ok, who was I trying to kid here! and how the hell did I ever think that things would just carry on as though nothing had changed?! Talk about naive!
What were/are your ideals regarding parenting?
No comments:
Post a Comment