Parenting is hard. Let me just begin with that general statement. I don’t care if you’re a stay at home parent, or work outside the home, a single parent, a co-parent, a younger parent, or an older parent. Raising another human is hard work. It’s a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week job, with no sick days and no days off. It’s hard, and anyone who tells you differently is either not doing a very good job, or lying.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that so much of conventional parenting advice seems to be aimed not at improving the life of the child, but at making things easier for the parent. Did you ever think about it? New moms are bombarded with information on how they should train their new child to sleep through the night … then Mom won’t have to get up with baby anymore, and she won’t be as tired. They’re given tips and fancy methods of ensuring their child is potty trained by 23 months, because they shouldn’t have to worry about fussing with diapers for a day more than 2 years. They’re advised to plan naps around their schedule, to put kids in a time-out when they “misbehave”, and to completely ignore them when they have a tantrum.
Here’s the thing: No one ever said that parenting is supposed to be convenient. It’s not. Good parenting is messy. It’s real. It’s hands-on. It’s in the middle of the night, and it’s in the middle of a crowded supermarket.
Yes, it would be easier if kids slept through the night from the get-go. But not only do very few babies naturally sleep through the night, they are not designed to do so. They have tiny bellies, and they get hungry frequently. They get lonely. They get they scared. They want the warmth and comfort of their mom. It’s our job to be there for them, to love and care for them …. day and night.
Yes, it would be easier not to change diapers for 3 years, but some children simply aren’t ready before then. It’s our job to be respectful of their needs, of their bodies, and of their individual time table.
Yes, it would be easier if we could plan our days around conveniently scheduled nap times and eating times and play times. But kids aren’t robots for us to program. They’re people. Just like us, they have their own internal mechanism telling them when they are hungry and when they are tired, and also like ours, it ebbs and flows with the changing seasons. It’s not our job to expect our kids to fit neatly into our own unchanged lives, but to remain flexible, and patient, and recognize that once we have children we need to change from a couple dynamic to a family dynamic… one in which every voice matters.
Yes, it would be easier to make a whole bunch of rules, to never have to worry about our children straying or getting hurt or getting themselves in trouble. But children need to play. They need freedom. They need parents who support them and cheer for them. Parents who help them when they need it, and give them space when they do not.
Yes, it would be easier not to deal with the tantrums and the difficult moments. It would be easier to lose our patience, to send the offending party to his or her room, and to dole out an arbitrary (and unnecessary) punishment. But doing so does not help your child OR you. It doesn’t help your relationship.
Being a mindful and conscious parent means doing just that: being there. It means being there, right there in the moment, and not taking the easy way out. It means counting to ten (or fifty or 172) so that you don’t respond in anger. It means getting down on your child’s level, and talking to him or her. It means being kind and empathetic. It means treating your child the way you yourself would like to be treated. (I don’t know about you, but I would not like to be ignored or banished to another room to when I was upset about something. I would want to be heard, and I would want to know that someone cared. ) It means apologizing when you screw up – because you will screw up – and it means standing up and being a parent even during the hard moments. The uncomfortable moments. The moments when you’re tired and cranky and oh so tempted to fall back on “easy.”
Being the kind of parent I want to be isn’t easy. It’s hard. Some days it’s very hard. But I don’t think something that important should be easy. It should take work, and commitment, and love, and heart, and a really good sense of humor. If you’re moving from an authoritarian style of parenting to one based on partnership I can’t tell you that there won’t be good days and bad days, and I can’t tell you that you won’t sometimes feel like you’re taking one step forward and two steps back. But I can tell you – promise you even – that it will be worth it. Good relationships with your kids (or with anyone for that matter) are always worth it.
And that is so much better than easy.
I have never found parenting to be easy.
That’s because you’re a good mom 🙂
Perfection. Love it.
<3 Thank you.
Sigh, I did have one of those mythical babies who happily slept by herself through the night in her own bed from day 1. Then I had another baby… a normal baby… and I can appreciate the “parenting is hard” sentiment more now.
My first slept through the night by like 8 weeks. My second didn’t sleep – ever – until he was older than 3. I feel you!
Finn will usually sleep… just not in incriments longer than two hours and never anywhere that’s not on top of me.
Oh yes, that was Paxton too. He sleeps just fine now at 11 😉 Doesn’t even need me in the room.
thanks for this, Jen! This is why I can’t stop myself from reading your blog (knowing that it won’t take so much time for me to read it) whenever I see that you’ve posted a new one, even if I know I need to get up from my seat now and prep our lunch (oopsy me!) I must admit that I don’t agree with ALL of your thoughts, but most of them makes sense to me as a mother, and that I’m glad that I’m able to focus on those which would give a positive effect on my way of parenting, and I must say that I’ve become a better parent by reading and trying to incorporate your inspiring and positive methods to how I relate with my kids, and I truly thank you for those.
I wish I could inspire other parents as well, like how you do it, but writing is just not my cup of tea. I hope to find my means, in God’s grace.
Oh, and about the conventional parenting advices, maybe they’re really, mostly focused on making the lives of parents easier, but maybe it’s just because most, if not 100% of the parents are good ones, that’s why we tend to give so much time and attention to our kids, and mostly forget to take care of ourselves. I believe that we, parents need to devote time for ourselves as well, so that we’d be able to give so much more of what we have to our kids. For me, it’s a matter of balancing, really, and taking into consideration if the advices are applicable to my family or not. 😉
Thanks for the feedback, Maya! And I absolutely agree that as parents we need to take care of ourselves as well, or we won’t be able to give fully to our kids. 🙂
What an awesome post. I love it. I really needed to read this today 🙂 It’s been a year of parenting the way we have, and it has been worth it, and we would never go back, but there have been some moments today where I was counting a little higher than I have been for a while 🙂
You put that into a nutshell so well, wonderful post, sharing! Thank you!
amen. a friend of mine just posted this on facebook and it is just what i needed to hear after some discouraging conversations with “friends” this week. Parenting is hard. No 2 kids are the same. What works for our family may not work for everyone else. But my kids are happy and healthy. sure, they may get hurt sometimes and they get dirty a lot and most nights they both end up in our beds. but they are little – i want them to feel secure and keep their innocence a little bit longer. thanks for sharing.
Yes, absolutely!! Glad you liked the post 🙂
That was a lovely post. I really felt your sentiment and I really understand exactly what you mean.
Today was a hard day. Today, my daughter is working on her one-year-old molars. Today, I am tired because she woke up too early. Today I’m sore because she didn’t want to eat all day, just nurse and nurse. Today my back aches because she needed to be carried close to me all morning and all evening. Today I didn’t get anything done or get a rest because she needed to nap in my arms in the rocking chair.
Today, when she is done with her bath, I will hold her and rock her and she will fall asleep in my arms. Today, like every day, I will know that I love her with all of my heart and that she is my reason for being.
Today was hard. It would have been easy to put her in a playpen and give her some toys and get some things accomplished. It would have been easy to ignore that she wasn’t eating and say “She’ll eat when she’s hungry.” It would have been easy to let her fuss when she couldn’t sleep by herself and hope she fell asleep again on her own. It would have been easy to lose my temper.
It would have been easy, but it wouldn’t have been right. When she falls asleep in my arms tonight, I don’t want to be wondering if I did the right thing. I just want to look at my daughter and know that I did everything I could for her. Yes, today was hard on both of us, but some days are like that. Other days are easier, and every day is worth it. She’s already growing up faster than I could have believed. I want every minute of her childhood to be filled with love.
Even if it’s hard.
Beautiful response, thank you!!
Just read your post, Jen. I absolutely agree and love it! Not one of my four children ever slept through the night until each was at least one year old. I have received a lot of inappropriate advice from the “let her cry” when my oldest daughter (now 13) was weeks old to “he would get all the help he needs if you put him in school” (my 10 year old son) when we had him tested for dyslexia. Most of the comments I have received about breastfeeding, babywearing, no playpens, etc. did seem to me to be all about the parents’ convenience because folks would shake their heads or say, “What about you?”, or say “Well, my kids turned out fine and I did it ——way.” While I have not always controlled my temper and sometimes have made excuses for not lying there a few moments with my little boy (age 4) at bedtime, my children and I have a close relationship that I know would not be that way if I had not listened to them, played with them, and all that jazz that you talked about. No one is perfect and we all have our moments of not so good parenting, but my children have seen God work in my life as they have had a front row seat to how I have changed.
“No one is perfect and we all have our moments of not so good parenting, but my children have seen God work in my life as they have had a front row seat to how I have changed.” Amen!
You have impeccable timing Jen. Just today I was fighting with Elijah over trying to get the older boys to school on time (they were ready, he was not) and I couldn’t seem to please anyone, let alone the child who I appeared to wrong. Its been one of those days for him, nothing I offered seemed enough, or right. Not the food he wanted, then changed his mind about, did not want to go to the park, and then I had to drag him away from it so we could get his brothers from school, even where he wants to sit changes on a dime. I’m working on going with the flow with all my children, and its far from easy. The to-do list for my family’s arrival in town is a mile long, yet we went to the park today, going to church as a family tonight. I have my downfalls, but realizing that I’m human, always on the path to doing better than I did before, being more “there” than I was even 5 minutes before, its hard. Its really hard. Yet, as Dave Ramsey preaches about changing the family tree with finances, I’m working to change my family tree with how we parent.
I can totally relate to everything you’ve said here. Right now Tegan is keeping me on my toes more than I think my boys ever did.. not even just at her age.. but at any age! Like you, I’m trying to stay present and go with the flow and remain flexible. Some days it’s hard, and most days it’s tiring. But still worth it. Always worth it.
When I first had my daughter I was the kind of mother that was always there for her. A trip and fall and I was right there to pick her up and brush her off. My husband would often tell me to stop babying her or she’d grow up to be weak. My mother-in-law would tell me how patient I was with her and sadly had this bewildered look on her face as thought it were unnatural. I started feeling as though I were doing something wrong so I toughened up, but I felt terrible and UNNATURAL inside. I have since gone back to my NATURAL self and parenting style and we (my daughter and I) are soooo much happier. I guess a little good came out of it because now I’m sure to listen to myself before others 🙂
Thank you Jen for encouraging these natural feelings.
Christy
Glad it spoke to you, Christy 🙂 And yes, I try to always trust my instincts, and what comes naturally. I have done/said things as a parent that I regret, but I have never ONCE regretted following my parental instinct. It always knows best!!
I find that following your instints and not listening to other parents made parenting easier for me. I didn’t have a lable for how I parented, I just did what seemed to make the children happy or content and that made life easier for us all. I dont really think about parenting as being “hard” (not that it isnt). I just like to focus on those wonderful good days (thankfully there are more than the tough ones). We deal with the though days as the come and then learn and move on from them.
Absolutely agree with what you’ve said here (about focusing on the good days) I don’t generally dwell on parenting being hard either…. except that sometimes it is. 🙂 And listening to my instincts, and ignoring the unsolicited advice of other parents has never, ever led me wrong.
I hope you dont think I meant I thought you were dwelling on hard days. I didn’t mean that at all 🙂 I was just kind of saying, its easy to forget about the hard days when they days are good. Not being argumentative, just kind of giving my thoughts.
Oh no, I didn’t think you were being argumentative at all. No worries! 🙂
Beautiful, as usual. It’s not about fitting the kids into the pictures I draw of what my life should look like. It’s about drawing the pictures around our actual life. I like that I have your words to read now that I’m not writing anymore. You keep me inspired. 🙂
Thanks, Vickie! I have to say that selfishly I wish you were still writing, because I miss reading your words too…. but I’m so glad you’re still hanging around and reading. <3
hehe, yes life would be so much easier if the kids would just do as I say, but alas, they don’t and I don’t want them being submissive or blindly listening to anyone so their childhood about helping them live better than that – which becomes extremely challenging, but like you said, parenting isn’t easy in the first place, so why not take on the challenge and do it well?