Parenting Lessons
The things that parenting teaches your are often instinctual, private and beyond recognition of most parenting books. They are deeply private and sometimes, as you lose your cool on the street corner, very public.
All parents have a different list of the lessons learned by actively parenting, usually those lists contain the serious and the sweet, the highs and the lows. Here's my list, and if I was to write this list tomorrow it would be totally different because parenting is like that.
- Sometimes Good Enough, is better than perfect
- The way they did it back then, is not the best way – but sometimes it is
- Exhaustion will not stop you from getting up in the middle of the night
- There will be moments when you will hate your partner
- There will be moments when watching your partner parent will make your love grow by 1000
- Parenting a difficult child is lonely and frustrating but when the light shines through – also rewarding
- Dinner is not the highlight of the day (but sometimes it is)
- The Wiggles can be endlessly fascinating at 5 a.m.
- Cheesies can be dinner, or lunch
- Going out without showering is a badge of honour
- There will be moments when you will all be crying
- The babysitter knocking on the door is the best sound in the world
- You won’t mind waking up in the middle of the night for a cuddle (with a child)
- Sleep is the new sex
- You will get over getting pee’ed on and poo’d on
- Genetics is a weird thing
- The memory of a child’s kiss can carry you through the hardest moments
- Your instincts will guide you
- TV commercials will make you cry
- It’s harder to be a role model than you thought
- Echoes of your parental relationship will be heard in your interactions with your kids
- There is no such thing as quality time, only quantity time
- At 3 a.m. you only have yourself to blame
- They will not close the door when the air conditioning is on without being asked
- Parenting gets more complicated as your kids get older but your love for them never changes
- You will learn more from your kids then you thought possible
What's on your list?
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