good and bad.

I think we all have the tendency to focus on our successes, rather than our failures, especially when we blog. Being online, or on facebook, makes that easy.... When Willow does a good drawing, it gets shared on facebook. What doesn't get shared? The drawings where she just did squiggles, or the time she decided to tip all the water into the paint container, which promptly split on the floor...

Sometimes I have the pleasure of interacting with people whose children are grown, and they frown when they see a kid playing up. My kids never behaved like that, they say, shaking their head. People these days just don't know how to discipline their kids. 

Yes, there are some dodgy as all hell parents these days. But there have been dodgy as all hell parents throughout history. Heck, in the Bible, Lot offers his virgin daughter's up to be gang raped by the men of Sodom and yes, God makes all the men go blind because rape is wrong, but Lot still offered them. Today though? There is so much choice and so much convenience. The most obvious example would be food. People thought I was odd for packing food for my eight hour train ride.... even though my food was delicious and healthy, and the food you get on the train is not. So there's that choice- to pack or buy? Once all you could get was pretty much water when you went out- now you can choose juices, cola, lemonade, sparkling water, soda water, sports drink, fancy pants drinks with licensed characters aimed at children, poppas... Companies are constantly trying to sell us crap- 100% natural! Yeah, but high in sugar, which is natural. No artificial colours! Err yes. But "natural" colours can still be pretty bad for you. After all, Annatto is from a tree, but it's just as bad as any synthetic colouring- heck, it affects more people than artificial colouring does! So I feel like it's a bit of an uphill battle to make an informed choice... Ok. Drinks was a bad analogy, since the obvious best choice is water. But... to vaccinate or not? Organic or not? Eggs and peanuts in the womb or not? So many choices. I think we have very different battles now, too. 

Anyways. The good and the bad. I try to write about both, because I think we owe it to ourselves, to other parents- hey look, I'm not perfect. I'm not a constant stream of pinterest worthy projects. Sometimes I hear other mothers screaming at their kids in the shops, and I wonder if I sound like that? What do I sound like when I discipline my kid to other people? How does Willow come across to other people? Annoying? Charming? Well behaved?

Anyways. This is perhaps a bit confusing, my desire to write about the good and bad, as well as musing on how we have so many choices now, choices that previous generations didn't have. We also are more open to attack these days. Announce on an internet forum that you, say, circumcised your son because you believe it's cleaner/ his dad is/ religion and you're likely to get blasted by "inactivists" who think you've just mutilated your son. There are groups formed against pretty much every parenting decision you might make, because out there, there are a large group of people who think you're wrong and aren't scared to tell you so.

Baby sleeping in another room? There will be attachment parents who will accuse you of abusing your child.
Baby sleeping in your bed? There will also be parents saying you're abusing your child, by dicing with their life.

Of course, most people are content to let you be. But you don't hear them. You hear the random stranger on the net, blasting you for being a shit parent because you didn't breast feed.

I guess none of us are perfect. None of us can make perfect decisions.