Parenting

Long before Charlotte came along I had an interest in parenting. Everything about parenting fascinated me. Different parenting strategies, different parenting personalities, etc. The psychology of raising children is one of my favorite subjects to research and study, and has been for many, many years. I had read more than 20 parenting books before I was even out of high school. Every morning before school, I would watch Dr. T. Berry Brazelton's show on Lifetime, What Every Baby Knows. I love to talk about parenting with experts, mentors and peers. Now that I have Charlotte I am starting to implement some of these ideas that I have spent years stewing over. Granted, I'm only 9 months in, but so far I am having the time of my life. My love of parenting psychology has only deepened since she entered the scene. The most astounding part of it all is how many extremely contradicting opinions there are out there. About EVERYTHING. As a perfectionist, it is aggravating to want to do it right only to discover there is no right! The most important thing I have learned so far is that everyone parents completely differently, and every baby needs to be parented differently.  We are all doing the very best we can, with nothing but love for our children. As mothers, we want the best for them, and we do whatever it is we think will achieve that end. I have recently made a commitment to myself and my husband to try and keep my parenting opinions private unless specifically asked.  I love this quote from an article I recently read:


"Child-rearing has been a touchy subject in America, perhaps because the stakes are so high and the theories so inconclusive. In her book Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children, Ann Hulbert recounts how there’s always been a tension among the various recommended parenting styles—the bonders versus the disciplinarians, the child-centered versus the parent-centered—with the pendulum swinging back and forth between them over the decades. Yet the underlying goal of good parenting, even during the heyday of don’t-hug-your-kid-too-much advice in the 1920s (“When you are tempted to pet your child, remember that mother love is a dangerous instrument,” the behavioral psychologist John Watson wrote in his famous guide to child-rearing), has long been the same: to raise children who will grow into productive, happy adults. "


I thoroughly enjoyed this article and would highly recommend it. Really got me thinking. If you take time to read it, I would love to hear your opinion! READ ME!