The saying: “Kids don’t come with a manual” is not true. Sometimes I feel like a heavy soaked sponge overloaded with quick fix parenting advice from books and well-meaning people. But those kinds of sponges don’t get the job done.
They say “Knowledge is Power!” and consequently I figured the more the kids know the better it will be for them. I told them about the Oil Spill, 9/11, disasters and other things. When my youngest frantically clung to me during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill I realized rather quickly that too much knowledge can be quite paralyzing. The inability to do something about it made her feel fearful and powerless. I learned that it is better to preserve the innocent of mind and do only give more knowledge once capable of being part of the solution.
“The Earth is flat.” When I heard in school that people believed for hundreds of years that the earth was flat because they faced consequences by question authority, I promised myself that my children will be taught otherwise in order to find the answers to their “Why’s”. While they have no problems to question those in authority I realized that maybe this is only a good thing when it comes to science and history but does little for them, when I want to discipline them by for example sending them to their room.
“Music is just Music” My goal was to have an open mind about my daughter’s choices and allow her to listen to whatever she wanted in order to avoid silly power struggles I remembered from my childhood. This only lasted until I heard her sing the egocentric, sex driven, sick, anti-feminist lyrics of the group “Blood on the Dance floor” .I was deeply concerned for her. Before I ever had a chance to talk with my daughter about the beauty of sexual intimacy she was already influenced by the mindless garbage of a convicted sexual predator. I had little choice but to protect her and do forbid that kind of trash in my house.
In the end I feel like parenting mistakes are often made because of an overload of parenting advice in our society. Just like a sponge constantly has to be rinsed and wrung, the parent has to consistently reflect on their action and the advice given in order to turn their children into responsibility citizens.