I used to be somewhat of a parenting expert. Then my first child arrived and forced me into an early retirement.
Many will presume to know what it takes to be a parent before actually becoming one. I know this because long before my children made their grand entrance I, too, unwisely thought the same.
I would walk past parents embroiled in some battle with their child and smugly envisage how someday my perfect offspring would never dare to throw a tantrum in public. How these dream children would be raised to adore celery, be totally shielded from the evils of television, and follow every single instruction with unquestioning obedience.
Fortunately for me, I never thought to share any of this supposed child-rearing wisdom with actual parents, for upon their earthly arrival a few years later, these dream children of mine wasted little time in systematically and dutifully abolishing my charming delusions.
In between painting a literally breath-taking mural on the car window with the contents of a diaper, bringing all of Shanghai to a standstill via a meltdown about raisins, and taking a generous swig of mosquito repellent and chasing it down with a glob of Vicks, they have each given me an intensive crash course in raising children. The lessons were a reality check in parenting expectations vs parenting experiences, which confirmed that despite thinking I knew everything there was to know about parenthood, the truth was in fact a rather sobering contradiction.
"Expert" advice
Like me BC (before children), for some bizarre reason many people assume to know the delicate intricacies of parenting without ever once having done it. With the advent of technology – social media in particular – the indiscriminate dishing out of parenting expertise and judgments has further increased and become sort of a free-for-all slam.
Apparently, parents nowadays just get everything wrong. We’re just not built the way parents once were, it would seem. We’re either far too permissive, allowing our children to trample freely all over us, or we’re brutal drill sergeants, barking out orders to our repressed little charges. We’re either mollycoddling our children with too much love or scarring them for life with not enough. We’re either robbing our kids of a fun childhood, ably aided by quinoa and kefir, or we’re fattening them up for an early upsized death. We’re either failing to prepare them to someday live in a technologically driven world or we’re frying their brains with digital babysitters. We’re either saying yes to our kids way too often or not enough at all.
In essence, we’re either screwing up or screwing up.
The only thing, it would appear, that we parents can be counted upon to do consistently and reliably is meeting society’s rather truncated expectation of us. The all-knowing, self-appointed parenting experts, along with the barrage of research and studies that appear to be exclusively dedicated to examining parental shortcomings, all generally conclude with the ominous doomsday warning that children are being totally ruined thanks to our glaring incompetence and ineptitude.
Parents are judged by just about everyone – heck we even judge each other. How we find the time and energy – in the midst of a sleep-deprived, repeat-everything-a-million-times stupor – to critique our peers, is very much a mystery. But in between trying to take a bathroom break in solitude and drink a cup of coffee just before it fossilizes we apparently somehow still find a way to.
It is however one thing for parents to take a few pot shots at each other’s parenting deficiencies and something else altogether for someone with zero parenting experience, no children of their own, and no first-hand knowledge whatsoever of what it’s like to bring another entirely dependent being into your life to be arrogantly dishing out pompous advice on how parents could be doing it better.
Yes, some may have vast experiences working with children, some may have spent considerable time studying parenting techniques, and some may have even dedicated their entire lives to researching child-rearing, but it is virtually impossible for one to know the true trials and tribulations that come attached with being a parent unless you’ve actually been one.
Observation, however extensive, is a shoddy substitute for experience, so when I come across a non-parent standing ostentatiously on their perfectly mess-free platforms, sneering down at us parents as we battle in the trenches, who chooses to use that precise moment to lecture us yet again about how we are totally hopeless at this whole business of raising kids, I get just the tiniest bit bothered.
Parenting truths
Parenting is hard work. Good parenting, even more so. Blood, sweat, and tears, literally! It may look totally doable and straight-forward but it is anything but. It is not an exact science, no matter how many parenting books one reads or how many parenting courses one attends. While parenting can often be instinctive, it can also equally be wildly unpredictable. Raising children is an organic venture, subject to an endless list of random elements. It is not battery farming. It is nature as much as nurture. It is day-after-day of learning on the job, a constant process of questioning and re-evaluating, and a seemingly perpetual assessment of all the things that could have been done better and all the things that should have been said instead.
Having children is a euphoric but costly venture and one that takes a substantial toll on pretty much every aspect of an individual’s life. The implications of becoming a parent are significant and long-term, and it is a 24/7 job. There is no annual leave or sick day allocations. There is no sign-off sheet or check-out at the end of the day. Your co-workers – while adorable and totally lovable – can also arbitrarily morph into volatile lunatics from time to time. Such is the nature of parenthood: It is all things wonderful and all things challenging, all rolled into one exhilarating yet erratic ride.
It might be simple to roll out of bed every day, refreshed and not the slightest bit sleep-deprived, and make value judgments about others. It’s easy to eat your dinner in peace and look over at the table next to you with the bawling kid and decide that those parents are absolute idiots who have no idea how to raise children, without the slightest clue about the sort of day that family might be having. It’s easy to dish out belittling terms like "helicopter parents" and "tiger mums" without ever once being in a position of complete accountability for another human.
Spectator parenting is virtually effortless. Try doing it yourself and see whether it’s still all as straightforward as it appears to be. There is much to be said for it taking an "entire village to raise a child," but there is also virtue in accepting that in most instances, the person who probably knows best about bringing a child up is likely to be the one who has everything invested in that little person.
By all means, call out parents who behave in heinous, atrocious ways towards their children. They should be held responsible for and answerable to all and sundry. But regular parents who are just trying to navigate the day-to-day business of raising children? Well, just let them be. They barely have time to rest – they’re probably not going to have time to any attention to unsolicited advice.
A humble request
Therefore, my point to those who haven’t the faintest clue about raising children, but who for some inexplicable reason continue to spend their time sermonizing to parents about how we could be better doing something they’ve never once done, is this:
Don’t offer commentary about parenting, especially condescending, groundless points of views that serve no purpose other than to allude to a supposed superiority and intellect.
The last time I was child-free was eight years ago, so I shan’t presume to know entirely how people without children spend their time, but I imagine there are far more exciting and worthy pursuits to engage in if one is not a parent.
For example, enjoy showers that don’t include the company of a curious and occasionally candid audience. Enjoy naps that don’t involve being intermittently prodded and asked random questions. Enjoy holidays that don’t require packing enough supplies for a small army. Enjoy trips that don’t feature sick bags and uncoordinated spewing mouths (and not necessarily always in that order.) Enjoy opening a book and putting it down because you want to and not because someone decided to see if a Lego Friend would like to live inside her ears. Enjoy weekends that don’t start with someone barging into your room at 6:30 a.m. while waving craft books and glitter pens a little too enthusiastically.
Enjoy, for better or worse, a life where you are only responsible for you and you alone, and leave parenting to the actual experts for a change.
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I used to be somewhat of a parenting expert. Then my first child arrived and forced me into an early retirement.
Many will presume to know what it takes to be a parent before actually becoming one. I know this because long before my children made their grand entrance I, too, unwisely thought the same.
I would walk past parents embroiled in some battle with their child and smugly envisage how someday my perfect offspring would never dare to throw a tantrum in public. How these dream children would be raised to adore celery, be totally shielded from the evils of television, and follow every single instruction with unquestioning obedience.
Fortunately for me, I never thought to share any of this supposed child-rearing wisdom with actual parents, for upon their earthly arrival a few years later, these dream children of mine wasted little time in systematically and dutifully abolishing my charming delusions.
In between painting a literally breath-taking mural on the car window with the contents of a diaper, bringing all of Shanghai to a standstill via a meltdown about raisins, and taking a generous swig of mosquito repellent and chasing it down with a glob of Vicks, they have each given me an intensive crash course in raising children. The lessons were a reality check in parenting expectations vs parenting experiences, which confirmed that despite thinking I knew everything there was to know about parenthood, the truth was in fact a rather sobering contradiction.
ParentCo.
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