#parent wars

[warheroics-blog]

@barestbcnes - hi miss mary lou, I'm stealing all ur children, they're my children now oops

[demonsitting]

Time Out Rules?!?!

When I was a kid time out meant standing in a corner or sitting in a chair in an empty room doing nothing for an amount of time that varied depending on the crime, my age, and who was punishing me. If it was something really awful "time out" basically equaled "nap time" as I'd be banished to my bedroom, my current favorite toys removed, and not allowed to be seen nor heard until further notice. 

Today Kayley and Ty were chasing each other around the house and generally rough housing. Its been rainy the last few days so we've not been able to go outside and play. I let it slide. They've got extra pent up energy. But then Kayley takes it too far and I had to separate them. I'd given them both warning to settle down and reminded them their father was due any second to pick them up for his visitation. Ty had started to settle down tagging along after me to the kitchen to help clean up from their snack and make sure everything was in order. Kayley chose that moment to grab the hood of his coat and yank him down to the ground and proceed to laugh when he started crying. I picked Ty up and checked to be sure he hadn't hit his head or bit himself when he fell, he hit pretty hard. Then with a hug and a kiss set him on the steps to deal with his sister. I took her by the hand and scolded her. 

Me: Kayley Sue! You know better than that. You could have really hurt him. You need to calm your little butt down Princess or we're going to have problems.

Kayley rolled her eyes: Whatever, Stupid. 

Me: Excuse me? 

Now I'm really getting pissed. Not only is she attempting to hurt her brother but now she's completely disrespecting me. Of course this is pretty standard as her father nears there is a visible disturbance in the force she becomes this horrible little creature that I hardly recognize.

Kayley: Stupid. You're being stupid. 

Me: That's it. You're done. Go sit on the couch I'll tell you when your father is here. You can leave once you've appologized to both of us. 

She rolled her eyes and proceeded to kick me on her way by. 

Me: Kayley you need to think really good and hard about how you act cause you're stuck with me for two weeks while you're out of school. We're supposed to go do a lot of fun stuff and I've got boxes and boxes of craft projects down stairs for us to do but I'm not joking when I say you'll spend every day in your room without your iPod or DS if you want to act like this. In fact tomorrow when you get home from school you can march your little butt up stairs and stay there until I come get you. 

Now she's really crying. 

Kayley: YOU CAN'T TAKE MY IPOD!!! DADDY SAYS!!! 

So here we are. Here we are at the fun Daddy thinks he can legally control everything in Mommy's house. I love this game. This game is what will finally make me snap and Hulk out.

Me: Honey this is Mommy's house. Mommy's rules apply here not Daddy's and when Mommy isn't here you get my rules too. If Mommy and I want to take your ipod away we most certainly can. If Daddy has a problem with that it can stay at his house. 

There was continued arguing for a few more minutes as she back talked from her place on the stairs while Ty and I returned to the living room to watch out the window for Kirk to arrive. Kayley was in tears when she left and I told him that she'd kicked me and called me stupid and got herself in trouble. That's where this started.  A few minutes later as I'm on my way to WalMart to pick up the photos I need to finish his Christmas gift from the kids I get this text. 

"Please do not threaten to take her iPod touch away. It is not legally yours or Becky's. Neither of you have the right to take it from her. If you would like this explained further I will have my attorney contact you." 

Ummm What!?!? I don't want the ipod. I just bought my own so that Kayley and I could facetime and play the same games. I spent a lot of money I didn't really have on my own so that I could do more fun things with Kayley. I don't want hers. Becky has her own she doesn't want Kayley's. We aren't taking it for our own benefit. We're taking it so that she's actually being punished not just getting what she wants: to be left alone with her games/music/and ability to email Daddy every horrible thing that is going on in her privileged upper middle class life.

What were the rules for you? What are the rules you use with your kids? During time out are they secluded in their room with their ipods and video games or are those things taken and they're left with only their own thoughts? 

[positivemothering-blog]

why I'm not an attachment parent

When A was born, I had read so many books and articles on feeding, settling, sleeping and parenting that after a while, it all seemed to cancel itself out. I didn't have any strong opinions about particular strategies or experts or authors.

Instead, reading widely prepared me for a very steep learning curve. I was prepared to roll with the punches and take each day as it came. I was prepared to feel like I had no idea what I was doing and to treat my baby as an individual with her own personality and needs. I was ready to love her and always do my best by her. I was ready to trust myself and trust her to show the way. I was ready to have lots of wrong answers and to make lots of mistakes. The rest was just superfluous detail.

Several weeks into motherhood, it was unbelievably difficult, emotional and tiring. But it didn't matter because I had been expecting parenting to be that way. It didn't matter because, I rationalised, every new parent goes through this transition. It's hard for everyone. We all have times of doubt, of self criticism, of regret. So despite feeling like crap, I also felt like an amazing mother. In the early days I commented to people over and over again how much I loved being a mother, how this was the best job I'd ever had, how it felt like I was doing something really truly important. And I meant it from the bottom of my heart. I was made for mothering. It felt like my calling.

During this period I started attending a mothers group and it became obvious to me how similar and yet how different mothers are. We were all struggling with the same general issues - needing sleep, worries about our baby's feeding, balancing wife and mother time. But everyone had their own ideas on how to respond to these issues. I enjoyed hearing the many different perspectives and the many possible courses of action. And while it was obvious that I was the odd one out, we all got along wonderfully. As far as my experience went, mothers could be vastly different in practice, yet be great friends.

Some time went by and my husband and I finally emerged from the cloud of newborn sleep deprivation. I finally had some time to read again, which led me to online discussions about those same common issues every new parent faces, and like in mothers group, there was a vast spectrum of ways to respond. I discovered some wonderful resources, passionate women... and something darker: The Parent Wars.

What can I say about The Parent Wars? I found them innocently enough, through an article about different parenting styles. The article generalised and categorised a number of different philosophies about parenting, in a descriptive yet non-judgemental way. I read through the various options, and for the first time, came across the term "attachment parenting". When I read the description, it was like a light came on. I really identified with the description. In mothers group I'd felt like the odd one out, but now I could google "attachment parenting" and find a vast community of parents who were interested in similar things I was, and who had similiar ideas about parenting. Unfortunately, in finding a group of people I identified with, I also found a lot of judgement and critiscim of other parenting styles. And in several cases, nasty attacks on some poor mother who was asking for help from (she thought) her peers. I was torn between wanting to feel I belonged, and not wanting to associate with such negativity. I proceeded with gentle footsteps and continued to search.

Some more internet exploration revealed that all styles of parenting have extremists and all styles of parenting have a few bad apples who bitch and moan about other people's choices. No matter what I read, there were parent wars going on in the comments, from all sides, and usually a bunch of people pleading for everyone to calm down and stop fighting. It seemed that everyone had the right answers, which meant everyone else's answer was wrong.

Instead of feeling like a wonderful mother who was just working it out like the rest of them, I looked on from afar, as mothers "like me" pulled apart every detail of every choice I had made so far. My baby was never going to fall asleep on her own because I helped her to sleep as an infant, she was going to have eating disorders because I fed her to sleep, she was never going to learn self discipline because we didn't use a routine, she was going to die of SIDS because I brought her into our bed for a cuddle and snooze each morning, she was going to get sick constantly because I wasn't racing around the house sterilizing everything she might touch.

And god forbid if a mother said she identified with a label, be it "attachment parent", "soccer mother", or "Tizzie Hall fan". Once you publicly identified with a label, not only would people critcise you on a deeply personal level, they would make a bazillion presumptions about you too. Because all blondes are stupid, all Asians are bad drivers and all [insert any random parenting label] are slowly ruining their children. It was simply revolting to watch grown women behave so badly towards one another.

So I stopped reading the comments, and like magic, I felt better.

I also made a mental note to avoid using labels.

Now when people ask if I'm an attachment parent, I say "no, not really". I say that we do our own thing, and that a lot of it coincidentally overlaps with attachment parenting, but some of it doesn't. I say that it's just a label, and that no two attachment parents are the same anyway. Because that's the truth.

I may not be an "attachment parent", or any other kind. I may not parent my children like you parent yours. But I am a good mother. I have a happy and healthy baby, a happy and healthy husband and a happy and healthy self. And as far as I'm concerned, if you are striving to make your family happy and healthy, you are an excellent mother too.

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