You know that shelf you have, where the parenting books are? The ones with studies. The authors have letters after their names, and you trust them. They’ve done their research so that you don’t have to, and they’ve studied more children than you will ever see in your lifetime. Their systems work. You might have to try out a few different systems, though. Positive Discipline, tough love, Love & Logic. Maybe Attachment Parenting resonates with you. Maybe Dobson floats your boat because you believe a firm hand is the way to go. Dr. Sears really knows his shit.
Whatever you want to believe in your heart, there’s a study out there to back you up and someone with letters after their name to soothe you and there are about 4 thousand kids that have been in the studies to prove their theories. Seriously, kids are pretty universal. Developmentally, they all do basically the same shit at pretty much the same time. There’s very little mystery to them, and as long as we love and cherish them and make sure they know that and don’t fuck up our bond with them or you know, fucking traumatize them in some way, we’re good.
Right?
It’s still winter in most of the country. Go now, and look at the shelf. Take a pretty basket with you, and fill that basket with all those books, and carry that basket outside with a lighter, and light those motherfucking books on fire. Do you have marshmallows?
Those people don’t know your kids, can’t know your kids, and those books are written with only well adjusted, normal children in mind. They do not take into account mood disorders, neurological factors, spectrum diagnoses, or personality disorders or kids at risk for disorders. Nor do they address trauma victims, abuse victims or children from broken homes, survivors of parents who have died or food allergies. Or your kid, or yours or yours or yours. They do not address the PARENTS who may also be dealing with their OWN set of mood disorders, quirks, compulsions, and other factors which may royally fuck up a kid. No wonder this paragraph worked for me for 9 days and this sentence from the back of this book worked for me for six months in 1998 for a week and this book just flat out made me want to hunt down the author and have him move in with me for a week and have him work his 1-2-fucking three fucking magic on my heinous fucking plate throwing asshole of a child. Jesus.
This is me trying to be funny about something that’s the least funny thing that has ever happened: my realization that nothing I have ever believed about parenting is true, and that quite possibly every piece of advice I have ever given about parenting is wrong. And I’ve given a lot of it, because of almost everyone I know, I’ve got the oldest child. Here are just a few of the more broad little nuggets of wisdom I’ve been spreading around the world that have not produced the results we anticipated, and therefore I feel like I should warn you off of them:
- As long as you provide love and attention and stability, you are OK. Even if you flounder some on your methods, loving kindness prevails, no matter what. And if for some reason YOU aren’t able to provide constant and consistent emotional stability, make sure you surround yourself with people who can. Family, therapists, friends and what have you.
- Don’t hit. Hitting just teaches them to get better at doing wrong things and later, to hit people and animals.
- (and it doesn’t feel like loving kindness to a little kid.)
- Never leave, never quit. Abandonment can’t heal.
- Teach them to question authority.
- Because I told you so is a bad answer. Try to explain as often as you can.
- They are equal members of your family! Treat them as members in the cooperative and they will respect that responsibility, and you.
- But most of all, love is really ALL YOU NEED because as long as you are coming from a PLACE OF LOVING KINDNESS, whatever you are doing WILL WORK. You can’t royally fuck up a child by parenting with loving kindness. It’s just not possible.
It’s a beautiful night for a bonfire. This is the last post in this blog that will ever contain a word of advice about parenting.
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