Image by Dave Stokes.
I read with interest last winter’s firestorm over Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
But I wasn’t so interested in Chua’s parenting style as I was fascinated by our culture’s seeming obsession with titles.
Western parenting. Chinese parenting. Attachment parenting. Free-range parenting.
Can any of us really claim to subscribe to any of these full tilt? Is there any among us who never strays? An attachment mom who’s never let her baby cry it out? A free-range dad who’s never trailed his eight-year-old at the playground?
Do these titles help at all? Or do they just create another layer of pressure and, as a result, guilt? Just another set of expectations that we fail to meet?
If we really have to have all these labels, I’m inventing a new one. I’m just not sure yet what to call it.
How about Fly-by-the-Seat-of-Your-Pants Parenting? Trying-My-Best Parenting? Patience-Mixed-with-Hot-Tempered Parenting?
What do you say? Any of those have a ring to it?
Anyone want to join me?
More importantly: think I can get a book contract out of it? :)
What title would you give to your parenting style?
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
I was thinking for awhile there of starting a blog called “Because I Said So.” It was going to remind parents of our generation of the power of No.
But lately, I’ve been more of The Teenage Whisperer in my house. My parenting has become all about the judicious use of Yes. I swear, as they have changed, I have need to change my entire approach just that suddenly and drastically.
I love this! Thank you for writing this. We have this crazy need to categorize and control everything!
I have no idea what I would call my parenting. Trying as hard as I can and making tons of mistakes parenting.
Ha! That reminds me of HGTV’s Secrets of a Stylist!
Sometimes I am a “Think-I-figured-it-out-way-after-the-fact parent”…. Although the true irony is that I have realized that the situation I have figured out too late only applies to the current child and probably not with any subsequent children! Or maybe I am the “Not-quite-sure-how-to-do-this” parent!
I don’t think it’s fair to subscribe to one style of parenting. Consistency is important, but it’s more important to pay attention to the needs of our children, and modify as needed. However– I will always be– even on bad days– a “love you to the moon and back” mom!
I love these. I’m an “I figured it out once I no longer needed it” mom. But always had the best of “Love you to the moon and back” intentions.
Having finally met that delicious baby of yours, I can’t imagine being anything else! xo
I’m with you and as a rule avoid labels, particularly parenting labels. I just do what feels right as I go. It’s called “everyday parenting.” :-)
Yay for the label-defying Mom (and Dad)! I also have a constant feeling of not belonging in any one specific category. Or dabbling in many, but not too deeply. If anything, I evolve constantly as a Mom.
One thing I hate about the giving of titles to everything is how if you ascribe to one thing that is a part of that title, people automatically assume you do it all. I hardly ever used a stroller and loved my Moby Wrap, and both babies co-slept with us for the first few months of their lives. “Ah! Attachment parenting!” Never mind that those might be the only two things that we did that are connected to attachment parenting, that’s how we got labeled, and people assumed that mindset drove our every decision. Never mind that the first baby had colic and would only sleep on her papa’s chest for three months, or that I was so tired with the second baby that it was easier to have her sleep with me than to get up for her midnight feedings. Nope, nothing practical about our decisions, just made because we did attachment parenting.
Gah!
I’m Partially-Proficient Mommy. :)
I agree, wholeheartedly! In fact, I’m calling mine imperfect parenting, and I’m also hoping to get a book deal of out the mix!
Or, perhaps, we can call it middle of the road parenting. That’s what I am always hoping to hit– the middle. Be free, but be safe. Know things, do things, but not every thing.
Agreed. My “label” – “Whatever it takes to get through the day” parenting.
Gut-Instinct-Parenting?
Or how about, OMG-My-Parents-Knew-What-They-Were-Talking-About-Parenting?
House Cat Mother. My Battle Hymn would be, “I’d much rather lie in the sunshine than do anything. I’d much prefer you’d leave me alone than bother me, except when I’m in the mood for a cuddle (and you better watch out). Once in a while, I feel like a tiger, and make you do your homework, practice guitar and learn all of the state capitals, but in short order I return to my lazy patch in the sun. And watch out, I have claws.”
Love it! Really made my day (considering its hot as hell and I really DO just want to lie in the sun).
Hear hear! (And if you can swing it, by all means, turn that idea into yet another parenting book!) :)
YES!
I hate the labels. One book I read talked about “good-enough” parenting, that’s the closest I’ve come to choosing a label.
If I wrote my own label… What keeps me sane and my kids healthy.
I like the idea of calling it seat of the pants parenting.
Trusting in Love Parenting but Figuring it Out as I Go Parenting too and Sometimes I Blow It and Need to Take a Big TIme Out Parenting.
I can’t see that labels help.
Start slow and then taper off is my motto. Works for anything.
Kristen, my favorite line in your piece? “More importantly: think I can get a book contract out of it?” Totally made me laugh on several levels. :)
If I had to choose a title, I’d be a “take-my-cues-from-my-kids” parent. That’s pretty open, isn’t it?
Classifications are helpful in scientific research. In marketing. In other domains. But in life? We’re all too carried away with slotting each other (or ourselves) into a category, feeling like that makes everything neatly comprehensible, and then moving on to whatever comes next.
Shameful. And worse – silly.
How about “Thought I Knew It All Til I Actually Had A Kid And Realized I Knew Nothing” Parenting????
I-do-my-best-but-it-still-isn’t-good-enough parenting. Ugh.
People were born to label others… I don’t mind it so much when parents try to label other parents but it irks me when I see parents label their own kids. Oh, he’s the athlete, and she’s the drama queen.
The book “Scream Free Parenting” has a whole chapter on labeling children and the damage it can do to them, something they’ll carry their whole lives! The author advises to change our vocabulary to “sometimes, you can be a little…”, “you tend to be…”.
I’m very careful not to label my kids, especially when I talk about them with other people, but it’s a lot easier / lazier to label than really describe how our kids behave and who they are.
I fall into that trap sometimes: “He’s my sensitive soul.” “He’s my exuberant one.” I suppose it would be worse if the labels that I give my kids were negative ones, but I don’t think slapping on a label of any sort is particularly helpful.
The problem with labeling kids (and people), even if it’s positive, is that kids will eventually behave that way most of the time, since they know we expect them to. It can put a lot of additional pressure, especially as they grow up. In Scream Free Parenting, the author explains that most labels that were used on kids still apply to them when they are grown-ups. If you look around, you can see it for yourself. How many times have you heard people, she was always the smart one, he’s always be a clown. It’s pretty striking! I honestly never thought about it much until I read the book, but I notice it a lot more now.
This sounds like a book I should check out! Thanks for the recommendation.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The titles are created for book deals. The parenting style you describe reminds me a bit of “Slacker Mom” or “Three Martini Playdate”. I know…more titles. But yes, I will definitely join whichever style you define even though like you, I like to don’t make a point of fitting into labels.
These are all great title ideas—for and from parents who actually wish to help. However, if you actually want to sell a book with a big publisher I’d go with: You’re a terrified idiot and you’re ruining your child—and I’m going to sell you the secret that will make you and your child perfect and superior to all others.
I wish I was kidding :(
I love this Kristen! I am so sick of the labels and the accompanying B.S. guilt that comes with it. I agree. How about “Doing the best I can with three boys?”
I hate the typification and categorization of parenting. It suggests a rightness that I just don’t feel exists. Sure, a parenting philosophy is ideal, but nobody can live up to that in the real world, as you point out. And it just gives people on the other side of the philosophy the right to say “You’re not like me. You’re wrong.”
At the end of the day, we’re all doing the best we can to prepare our children for life outside of our little nest. It’s a shame that can’t be a label. The “Best We Canners.”
I love “Patience mixed with hot tempered parenting.” Because that feels like my day a LOT. I’m patient through 300 mini-things (spills, falls, arguments, tears, questions, questions, questions, etc), then all of a sudden BOOM. The hot tempered part arrives, probably because of how patient I’ve been through the day.
I have ample opportunity to read but rare moments with two hands free to comment. This is one such moment and this post has just been waiting!
I love this. Thank you. No, it is too hard to subscribe full tilt to any one philosophy and it is ridiculous to think that we can/should.
I like the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants parenting. I find that is my predominant style as well. After all, these little people throw so many curve balls that that is my best shot!
Lol! Love it. I like “doing my best” parenting. That seems to describe me. I definitely am not as perfect as I’d hoped to be. Lol. Thank God kids don’t remember much before 3. I’ve made so many mistakes! I appreciate my parents so much more.
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