Anyone think there's too much emphasis on being a good parent these days?

[hunkermunker]

All the navel-gazing "Am I a good mum" stuff - kinda misses the point there's a child involved.

Very me me me.

No?

hello you, nice to see you here (tis slubbs btw)

I'm thinking about your OP, I'm in a me me me zone atm as there has been a lot of urination upon my person today.

Well perhaps but it is not a thing I trouble myself with................

BTW LOVELY to see you

I'd say there's too much emphasis on being a parent at all - yes it's important, but being a good person first might give a better balance.

Yes ,I think we all think too much about been parents rather than just getting on with it .

My dc say "I'm bored " o go and I feel guilty and try and find things for them to do
when I said to my mum I was bored she would tell me to go and entertain myself

I think a lot of us try and befriend our dc more these days .

Massive topic innit? I'm totally with blinking - I really remember saying I was bored to my mum and was told to clean my room! That fettled me. Now we would whip up something wonderful to do (well, not me, but some would)

I think we think its a job in itself, which it is of course, but I think within a generation we feel guilty that we don't spend all our time with our kids in 'quality 'mode. I think the world of work is somewhere in that equation.

I think there's also a huge industry now telling us that we couldn't possibly be capable of living happy and useful lives without a ton of help and guidance from experts - books, TV shows etc. And somewhere along the line, we've been suckered into believing it.

So we are convinced it's all too complicated for us to manage on our own, and we have to constantly be checking that we're doing it "right".

I think those books and tv programs about 'how to parent' can really put parents under preasure to be perfect - we're given so much infomation surely we should know what to do in every situation that arises - shouldn't we?

And then all the advice conflicts anyway, so you couldn't possibly do it all - so you end up flip-flopping between different styles of parenting, and the children end up not knowing what to expect from one day to the next. Whereas you'd almost certainly be better off sticking to one way of doing things (unless it's totally off-beam!) and setting reasonable standards.

The longer I am a parent the more I realise what a terrible hash my parents made of it. and

I think a little more guidance is a good thing, though that should go had in hand with compassion too.

Yes. Parenting is a craft today. Which is a bit like saying breathing is a craft. In both cases you do it because there really isn't much choice. Breathing follows on from being born. Parenting follows on from your child being born.

That's not to say there aren't good parents and not so good parents. But that tends to be part and parcel of being a reasonable human being.

I was thinking something similar-ish. There seem to be a few threads recently where people are trying to defend a decision they have made that goes against 'advice' which seems quite sad. Saw my HV yesterday (who I like), she was talking about weaning, and pointed out that if on a desert island mothers would have to trust their instincts. It seems that us modern, intelligent mothers have to some extent lost our instinct. We (I mean this generally, I'm sure there are many that do parent instinctively) become obsessed with following guidelines, that we probably lose the 'holistic approach'.

I've had the following conversations with friends:

X says: I can't believe Y puts her babies to sleep on tummy. - but X wouldn't contemplate bfing.
A says: I could only ever contemplate a home birth, don't know how B could go to hospital and lose quality bonding time with dh and lo. But As children were sleeping in their own bedroom that first night. B co-slept for 12 months.

I could go on. I'm not quite sure what my point is on this, but seems that it is possible to get completely hung up about one piece of advice, and miss others. Rather than pragmatically just doing what you can, and trying to be as informed as possible. See what I mean?

I of course am above reproach as I do everything purrrfectly!!

Also to get back to what some of you others have said, following my little tangent above, I think it's important for children to get a little bored at times. Its a very important life skill to be able to entertain yourself. Says I who when bored watches pants tv and eats a packet of chocolate hobnobs in one sitting

To our horror dp and have realised that the first four of our children have turned into 'poor little rich kids' in that they just 'expect things to happen for them, for things to be given to them. They are not grateful, they say 'thank you' (sometimes after severe prodding) but I don't think they really mean it.
I spend my time feeling guilty that I am not doing enough, whatever that means. I have stopped, long ago reading anything to do with parenting advice, from any source. it just makes me feel shite, lacking and confused.

I will not know how successful or not I have been as a mother until my children are nearly adults and I can see how many hang ups and worries they have.
And I have to pray that they don't have too many because by God I am TRYING my best to make things ok.

My bench mark for success will be how generally happy and at ease they are with themselves as adults

Yes, any cries of "I'm bored" were met with suggestions of room-cleaning, doing the vacuuming etc. Cries of "I'm hungry" (if meals hadn't been eaten) were met with offers of a piece of bread. Excessive energy/fighting with siblings/general fidgeting got a suggestion to run round the garden (later, the entire block).

I'm pretty sure my parents didn't agonise over the day-to-day parenting the way that seems common now.

you are right

but it;s because we are so insecure we neeeeed the validation - having a happy healthy child isn;t enough, we want to know we are Getting it Right and have a pat on the back for doing so.

guilt plays a huge part

I do think some people are so concerned with being seen to be perfect parents that they forget about the actualy children involved. That's sad.

Then there are new parents who have been bombarded with so much information that they doubt their own instincts and worry about every tiny aspect of their child's development, you see it all the time here, especially by the first time mums. Surely our great grandparents had more self-confedence in their parenting instincts.

People need to stop trying to be perfect parents and concentrate insted on being good-enough parents, and most of all being reasonable human beings.

i personally feel a lot of pressure to be 'perfect'. This coupled with the fact that i'm naturally anxious makes me feel on edge a lot of the time. I know dd is turning out pretty well so far, but if anyone complements me on it I can't help feeling 'well that's probably because i'm following something I read in What to Expect the Toddler Years or Dr Spock'. I don't feel that it's because of my natural parenting abilities that she's turning out well. Which is a bit ridiculous.

On the other hand I feel glad that there is widespread advice available to help me avoid making some of the mistakes my own mother made, like losing her temper and giving me a thrashing and then feeling incredibly guilty afterwards.

Sandy, I'm a bit like you!

Sometimes I feel I get 'the look' from mums if I look bedraggled and am just allowing my child to have meltdown in publc for eg (sure, it's annoying. But, much prefer the types who smile sympathetically or try to distract my ds.)

guilt does play a huge part that's for sure.

We need to start having more confidence in our own abilities to parent adequately. Not perfectly, but adequately. We are only human after all and perfetion is not something to strive for, it will always end in failre.

Margo, some of the things my parents allowed me to do are astonishing. But, I came out of the 70's unscathed and actually would love to give dc some of the freedom I had.
But was there really less pressure to be good parent then? I know mine worked very very hard and tried their best to bring us up well. Same s*&t, different day?!!

Thanks OMDB. We just need to hear things like that lots more!
I feel guilty about the smallest things. Will get over myself now, get a grip and get on with what may be a quite nice dinner!

I think parenting has turned into some kind of competition. 50 years ago if you had clean, warm and fed children then that was enough.

It doesn't matter what mums (let's face it dads are not judged) do there is always someone to criticise.