Guilt and Getting Over Ourselves

I have a confession to make - I don't read Chatterbox three books a day. Some days I don't even read her one! Shhh - don't tell Mem Fox, will you?

This post has been rolling around in my head for ages. I forgot to put the bread in the oven earlier, so now, while I'm up waiting for the bread to cook, I figured I might as well spit it out.

Mem Fox is not the only person out there with great ideas about Stuff You Should Do With Your Kids. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for reading to children. I'm also all for singing to them, and teaching them a language, and getting them out in the garden, and taking them for walks, and cooking with them, and teaching them table manners, and early potty training (or, even better, elimination communication), and extended breast-feeding, and large families, and praying together, and eating meals together, and teaching them to work, and teaching them to manage money from a young age, and teaching them to swim, and getting them involved in team sports, and in serving the community as a family... Need I go on? Do you start to see where I'm going with this?

I have days when I get really weighed down with guilt over all the worthwhile things that I'm not doing with my kids on a regular basis. Let me examine what that guilt is really about. Do I believe that early potty training will have a long-lasting benefit on my child's character and emotional well-being? No. Do I believe that stopping breast-feeding two weeks before Chatterbox turned two is going to substantially limit her potential? No. Do I believe that my children will all drown in the bathtub if they don't learn to swim by the age of eight? No. Do I believe that my children will grow up unable to interact with others if they are not involved in team sports and community service right now? No. If I analyse all those points above, I find the answers are much the same.

So why do I feel guilty? Oh, hang on, it's not really guilt at all, is it? I'm worried about my IMAGE. I want my kids to make ME look good to others! Someone out there is going to think that I've failed because I gave up breastfeeding Miss Curie when she was only thirteen months old. Someone out there will think I'm totally slack for bumming around at home instead of taking the kids swimming. Someone out there will be disgusted that Angelina can't catch a ball. Someone out there will think that I'm doing something really wrong when Chatterbox chucks a wobbly in the supermarket.

WOAH! Back up there! Doesn't it mean my discipline is failing if my kids misbehave? Not necessarily - it means they're human and sometimes think "I want that shiny stuff and I'm gonna get it, and hang the consequences". More or less.

Side note here - I am NOT a perfect parent. I've got lots that needs to change. My discipline DOES often fail. But my kids' behaviour at any given moment is not a barometer of my success or failure as a parent.

I'm not writing this post because I ascribe to the "I'm OK, you're OK, we're all OK" philosophy. NO WAY! Quite the opposite, in fact. It is SO not OK for me to base my parenting decisions on how they make ME look. I need to get over myself. Whatever I do, I'm going to look bad to someone. My decisions as a parent need to be based on solid biblical principles. I need to do what's right because it's what GOD wants and what will build CHARACTER in my children, not because it will make me look good.

The bible is surprisingly devoid of statements along the lines of "thou shalt engage thy child in 4.5 hours of extracurricular activities per week" This "deficit" of specific intstructions doesn't take away from my responsibility as a parent. It adds to my responsibility. I have to make a judgement based on biblical principles as to what are the greatest needs in the lives of my children.

A couple of years ago now we started down the road of trying to track down the cause of Angelina's eczema. In retrospect I would have to say that the harder I tried to fix it, the worse it got. In retrospect, I would also have to say that my search for answers was triggered by FEAR of what other people would think of me if I did "nothing". Looking back I think some of the dietary restrictions exacerbated the problem, possibly due to - *gulp* - malnutrition. I'm not intending to launch into a medical analysis, but that experience was a disturbing example of me putting my personal image ahead of true righteousness and truly responsible parenting.

I guess I don't mind after all if you tell Mem Fox I don't read Chatterbox three books a day. I reckon she'll understand anyway, but even if she doesn't, that's not my problem. Now I'd better be a responsible parent and go to bed so I'm ready to greet Chatterbox with a smile at 6am tomorrow morning.