Only a mother….

Only a mother has a sippy cup and a pair of toddler underwear in her purse…

Article Review: Confessions of an Imperfect Parent

I saw this article from the Boston Globe regarding blogs, books and websites that allow parents to air frustrations, imperfections, etc. and wanted to know what you thought. I’ve taken a couple excerpts and provided some comments.

“There has never been a better time to be a bad parent.
Scratch that. There has never been a better time to say you’re a bad parent.
Bad parenting confessionals are all the rage these day…They sell you on cynicism. Then they give you the bait-and-switch. The bad parent, they argue, may be the best parent of all.
Perhaps it’s the ultimate expression of irony, the perfect parenting stance for Generation X. Confessional parents see their badness as a way of striving to be good: less overstressed, overscheduled, and fixated on perfection than the boomer parents who came before them. And they’re arguing that more relaxed parents – slackers, stoners, slobs, oversleepers – might lead to happier kids.”

NAPM: Having an outlet to understand and accept that we are not perfect, allows us the opportunity to forgive ourselves for not living up to the “June Cleaver” version of motherhood. I don’t see this connection with other mothers as a way of justifying lazy or “relaxed” motherhood. This a bit of a stretch as most mothers are not “slackers, stoners, slobs or oversleepers” and aren’t looking for acceptance to be so. They work hard, love their kids and at the end of the day, do the best they can.

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“Whether such honesty is good for the kids in the long run is unclear, says Harvard psychologist Richard Weissbourd, author of “The Parents We Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children’s Moral and Emotional Development.’’ On one hand, he says, it’s good in certain circumstances to be open about your flaws, to admit that parenting can be tough. On the other hand, parents who overdramatize their own feelings aren’t necessarily the best role models.

“You can make your kids self-centered by focusing too much on their needs,’’ Weissbourd says. “You can also make your kids self-centered by writing self-involved books and articles and modeling that kind of self-centeredness and self-involvement. It’s just a repetition of the problem.’’”

NAPM: Huh? What? How is it ever wrong to focus too much on our kids needs? And how do our kids become self-involved by us airing our frustrations to other parents and connecting with others that are sharing our experiences?

I’d argue this all can make us better parents in the long run. We learn from each other – how to handle certain challenges, etc. In the long run, it seems a bit of over-psycho analysis to say this could harm our children in the long run.

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I also left a comment at the end of the article – check it out if you’d like.

I’m interested in your thoughts on this article and subject.

Full Article