I Have Something To Say To Parenting Critics

Today, I am feeling vindicated. It's been a long time coming and a tough road to get here.

This is a post for the parenting critics, the family and friends, neighbors and acquaintances, who judged and disapproved, either publicly or silently. It's for everyone who looked at me and my children when we were in the trenches of raising and growing, and scowled or gossiped or criticized. It's for people who made snide comments or called my children names. For everyone who thought I was ruining my children.

Raising kids is hard. It is inherently difficult to just get through the long days, keeping everyone alive and fed and the house standing. It wears on the body through exhaustion and the mind through constant stress. There is already a high level of self-doubt that goes hand-in-hand with being a mother. No one wants to raise a serial killer or a lazy freeloader or someone who orders a well-done filet mignon at a nice restaurant. Because the stakes are so high and we love our children so much, it's easy to freak out and overstress. It's a miracle if we get to the end of this parenting gig without an ulcer. I'm losing my hair.

There are already enough "parenting experts" out there to offer advice and judgement for everything a parent does in raising their children, but when I chose the road less traveled, to veer from the mass-American parenting herd, to do my own research and think for myself, the critics came out of the woodwork like swarms of bugs.

So this post is for whoever called the Department of Social Services after my son's home birth with accusations of neglect and endangerment.

It is for the family members who openly criticized my nursing toddlers and my decision to let my young children take the lead in the weaning process. For everyone who thought I was making my children too dependant, who believed they would never be able to function without Mama.

For the critics who thought that sharing sleep with my school-aged children would make them sissies, who thought my children would never learn to be independent.

It is for the people who questioned our decision to homeschool, thinking we couldn't challenge them intellectually and that they wouldn't gain the social skills they would need to function in the real world. It is for my children's "friends" who told them repeatedly that homeschool kids weren't as smart as kids who went to "real" school.

It is for the neighborhood ladies who fussed about my barefooted children running up and down the street, waving sticks and being loud. For the ones who thought it better if children were kept indoors and made to walk in orderly lines, rather than allowed to roam free and play outside.

It's for the family friend at Thanksgiving dinner who suggested I beat my child because he was "being mean" to hers.

This is for everyone who viewed us in the midst of the process and jumped to conclusions about how my children would turn out.

You were wrong.

I know that you saw a  whining toddler, tired and frustrated, who was comforted only by nursing. It was easy for you to think he should be less dependant. It was easy to blame the unusual practice of child-led weaning on his apparent over-attachment to his mother.

I know that you saw an eight year-old child who couldn't fall asleep without his mother's presence and you thought I was babying him, stunting his emotional development. It was unusual to see young children, at least in our country, who aren't forced to bed in dark rooms by themselves each night, forbidden to enter the comforting presence of their parents after 9 PM.

I know that you saw my children struggling with reading and multiplication tables. You saw me slowly move at their pace and you wondered why I didn't push them more, wondered how they would ever keep up with their peers.

I know that you saw my children running free and making noise and being wild and you wondered why I didn't tame them. You wondered how they would ever learn manners or civility.

But you see, I wasn't looking at my children as they were in the moment. Because I wasn't raising children. I was raising people. I was raising adults. How they needed to be in the moment at age two or eight or eleven didn't matter all that much to me. I was making decisions in my parenting approach that I believed with deep conviction would help produce mature, emotionally healthy, well-rounded, intelligent men and women.

And here we are. Just look at them.

My oldest just turned twenty. He's a well-informed freethinker and a registered voter. He's a second degree blackbelt in karate. He's held down a steady job since he turned seventeen. He pays his own bills, owns his own vehicle, and has a generous chunk of money saved. He has joined the US Army (which has been a goal of his forever) and leaves for basic training in under three weeks. He is thoughtful, confident, independent, intelligent, and polite. He isn't who you thought he would be at all.

His sister is 17. While she isn't quite considered an adult by Society's standards, she is definitely not awkward or stunted. After being homeschooled until 9th grade, she is now top of her class at an alternative early college program where she completely and independently keeps up with her own schedule. She has an active social life and a large group of friends. She has a job and pays her own bills. And she recently participated in a scholarship competition which included an individual interview by a panel of judges, speaking on stage to a crowded auditorium, a talent performance, and a scholastic overview. She won! Not bad for an awkward sissy homeschooler, huh?

And I have two more fabulous children coming behind them. Just wait to see what they accomplish. Just wait to see the people they are becoming. I assure you it isn't awkward, or unmotivated, or shy, or dependent.

So listen up, anyone who ever thought I was ruining my children. Listen up, everyone who said mean things or thought mean thoughts about the way I was raising them. I have something very important to tell you.

In.

Your.

Face!

I Can't Control My Children

The internet is full of really mean people.  By using social media, we have the protection of anonymity and the ability to interact without having to look someone in the eye and acknowledge their humanity. It seems to bring out the inner Simon Cowell in a lot of people, causing them to lob nasty comments at the invisible humans on the other side of the computer screen.

This week my blog post, Why My Children Sometimes Have Potty Mouths was featured on BlogHer.com.  The extra exposure led a lot of new people to my blog, which is a cool thing.  Why am I writing if not to have people read what I'm writing, to get people thinking and discussing what I have to say?  I can't vouch for the actual thinking these new readers were (or apparently were not) doing, but it definitely led to a field day full of insult-tossing.  I received all kinds of criticism on my parenting ranging from insinuations of child neglect to accusations of spreading the "lies of Satan". (Although, my accuser couldn't even spell Satan correctly... or maybe she really did mean I was spreading the "lies of Satin"... it might be a reference to the glossy and lustrous facade of certain fabrics who hide their dull lackluster undersides.  She also seemed to have an almost psychotic aversion to punctuation, but I digress.)

Whatever.

I've been engaged in this parenting gig for over 18 years now, and I have four pretty freakin' amazing kids.  I parent in pretty unconventional ways, so I'm no stranger to criticism in regards to my parenting choices, and I don't expect everyone to parent the way I do.

It's all good.  Variety is the spice of life and what not.  But here's the deal:  The average American adult is overweight (60% of Americans) and heavily medicated (70% of Americans are taking at least one prescribed pharmaceutical drug with the second most common prescription being for antidepressants).  The average American is drowning in debt.  Between banks and retail stores there are more than SIX credit cards for every customer.  The average credit card debt is more than double what it was ten years ago ($9200 per household) and that's not even factoring in mortgages (the average principle amount owed on a home loan is $70,000) or student loans (the average student is left with a debt of $20,000 after graduation).  Large portions of the population can't read (32 million adult Americans) and many of those that can read choose not to (28% of Americans didn't read a single book in 2012).  Our government sponsored educational system has failed us in more ways than one (The average American doesn't understand basic concepts of science and technology while 84% of Americans don't know where the Ukraine is located).  The average American generates 4.3 pounds of garbage each day.  And the average American adult's daily "screen time" is 7.4 hours (While I understand that our lives are almost inseparable from technology, it seems important to remind you, dear reader, that the content of that "screen time" is developed by someone else with a purpose in mind... to influence you in some way, either to buy something or feel something or think something.  We are constantly being manipulated by the media) and spends 90% of their day indoors.

I could keep going, but I think I've made my point.  With stats like that, I don't want to be an average American.  And I certainly do not want to raise my kids to be average Americans either.  So if the average American parent is churning out more average Americans, I'm bucking the system and doing something different.

From the day I got that positive result on that pregnancy test, I've taken parenting very seriously.  I've researched and pondered and asked questions and even prayed about every big decision and every philosophy we've adopted.  I assure you my parenting is not haphazard and arbitrary. Instead it is very deliberate and thoughtful and intentional.

So to the dipwad who called me a "piss poor parent" because I couldn't control my children, you are right... kind of.  I can't control my children.  I can't control my children any more than you can control yours.  They are human beings with their own dreams and desires and their own freewill. Parents can lay down the law, make the rules, and attempt to enforce them with punishment.  But children will inevitably make their own decisions.  They will choose to obey the rules or not.  I just want mine to make their decisions with confidence and compassion and empathy rather than making them from a position of guilt and fear.

I can influence my children.  I can encourage my children.  I can teach my children.  I can lead my children by example.  But you are right, jerky internet bully, I can't control them.

But I'm not a "piss poor parent".

While my children are fairly well-behaved by society's accepted standards (they can eat dinner like civilized human beings at a restaurant without spoiling the experience of other diners plus they help around the house and are generally polite to adults and have never been arrested), my goal has never been to raise well-behaved children. I have a more long-term goal in mind.  I'm raising future adults.

I stubbornly believe that this world needs more adults that are creative and curious and empathetic, freethinking adults who question authority and the status quo and the meaning of their own existence, adults who are healthy both physically and mentally, adults who are engaged and alive and adventurous.  We need adults who aren't afraid to ask the big questions and aren't afraid to shake things up.  And it is my sincere desire to send four such adults out into the world.

Sometimes creating such adults doesn't produce well-behaved, compliant, docile children.  My children ask questions and push boundaries and make messes.  They aren't afraid to express themselves or disagree with authority figures (sometimes those authority figures are their parents) or take matters into their own hands.  They are problem solvers, deep thinkers, creative artists.  And they are definitely NOT average.

It might be easier to live in a house with children who weren't so comfortable expressing displeasure with the rules, children who just blindly followed every order (or just broke them behind their parents' backs).  I'd have a lot more mental energy if I shipped them off to school for someone to tell them what to think, if they could be forced into an easily manageable mold, to walk in straight lines, and do what they are told without question. If I had more rules instead picking the big battles and trusting them to make smart choices, maybe my life would be easier.  If I didn't have to answer their incessant questions or defend my reasons for setting every boundary  I'd have more time to watch Game of Thrones and drink cheap wine.

But raising future adults isn't about what's comfortable or easy for parents.  It's not always about managing the childish behavior in the moment.  Instead, it's about keeping the end result in mind.  It's constantly asking yourself, "What kind of adults am I molding?"

So no, blockhead ninny cyber-commenter, I'm not a "piss poor parent" (although there are probably plenty of them out there).  I'm a goal-oriented, conscientious, engaged parent.  My actions are deliberate, not negligent.  My parenting just doesn't always look like what the average American parent thinks it should.

But kudos to you for acknowledging that I can't control my children.  I just wouldn't want to anyway.  It's beautiful and challenging all at once.  But I wouldn't want the alternative, because only the government and corporate moguls want easily-controllable homogeneous adult automatons.