• We’ve retired everything except our BumGenius.  Unfortunately, the waterproof layer and the external cloth layer in both our Fuzzibunz and Charlie Banana diapers separated.  Perhaps that was because I was using a wash routine more designed for BumGenius (the bulk of our stash), but I’m not sure.  We continued to use them for a while after it happened but have tucked them away for the next child.  We also found that, as the Stinkerdoodle topped 30 pounds the Charlie Banana diapers got too tight around his legs and had too short a rise.  As he encroached on 35 pounds, the Fuzzibunz One Size were getting too snug and he would complain.  The BumGenius 3.0s are about to be retired due to a shorter rise but the BumGenius 4.0s are still going strong.  I expect to use these until he’s potty trained.
• We’ve started double stuffing his diapers as a matter of course.  The BG 4.0s come with two microfiber inserts, one regular one and one newborn size.  Because toddlers hold their urine longer and then have more to release when they go, just using the one regular insert wouldn’t quite get us through two hours.  However, with the two inserts together, he can last two to two and a half hours between changes.  Sometimes it means that I’m changing a mostly dry diaper but more often than not its wet.
• We had been using prefolds and covers overnight but last fall he grew out of the ones we had.  I thought I had topped out the sizes so grudgingly started using disposables at night.  Two things I learned… (1) don’t make assumptions!  While researching options for Acorn’s diapers I discovered that we did not actually have the biggest prefolds and covers.  Oops!  (2) Disposable diapers irritate his little bum.  Even with only using them overnight, the average redness of his bum increased noticeably and we were going through way more diaper cream.  Once I realized that there were prefolds and covers that would fit him, we gathered our pennies and ordered some.  He’s now in a toddler-sized prefold from Green Mountain Diapers accompanied by either two cotton sherpa doublers from the same company or one hemp doubler and one cotton doubler.  This is covered up by a Thirsties diaper cover, sized large.  Sure, it’s a little bulky when we put it on but it doesn’t seem to bother him and once he walks around a little, it scrunches up.  The only leaks we’ve had so far have been due to parent error, not diaper failure.  Also, although it may seem counterintuitive, if he has a red bum when goes to bed because of poop irritation or whatever, he’s likely to wake up with a totally non-red bum, even though he’s just spent the night with wet cotton against it!

Stylin' in his toddler-sized prefold, doublers, and Thirsties cover

A little bulky but not too bad

• We’ve decided to use prefolds and covers for Acorn until that either gets untenable or Stinkerdoodle is potty trained and can hand down the BumGenius 4.0s. (We don’t have enough to share them full-time without doing laundry every day and, honestly, I don’t want to do that.)  We’re going to borrow some prefolds from friends and probably purchase a couple.  We’ll also purchase a few covers and a Snappi or two and we should be good to go until, at the very least, we start introducing solids and his poop changes.
• Flushable liners are a godsend.  As the Stinkerdoodle gets bigger so do his poops and as he was getting less and less breastmilk, the consistency continued to change too.  Dealing with a large, solid-food-only poop while in public was less than fun.  However, if I remember to put one of these puppies in the diaper before we go out I can just throw it and most of the poop right into the toilet.  Whatever was left on the diaper would be sprayed off when we got home.  It’s marvelous!!

And that’s that!  Almost two years into our cloth diapering journey and I still think it was a fabulous choice for us.  And, yes, I can even say that after dealing with some really, really gross poopsplosions. 

Let’s think about this… When I was pregnant with the Stinkerdoodle and through his early life, I was:

• Able to blog whenever I wanted to
• Listening primarily to NPR news reports and very little music
• Resting as well as my body allowed me to at night
• Working a job that was fairly stressful but not physically strenuous, unless you consider holding down a chair strenuous
• As a newborn I could just hold him for hours as he – or we – slept
• I took several hundred photos a month of just our child.
• Caring for a child that was dependent on me for all his entertainment needs.  Sometimes this meant just putting him under his little play gym near the kitchen while I cooked.

During this pregnancy and Acorn’s early life I am or anticipate:

• Blogging as time allows, which means only on Wednesdays when my mother-in-law cares for the Stinkerdoodle and sometimes on the occasional evening when I’m not exhausted
• Listening to far less NPR and more children’s music.  I’m also singing a lot more – lullabies, songs to entertain and distract in the car, endless rounds of “Old McDonald,” and much more.
• Resting as well as my body and my toddler allow me to at night, including daytime naps as needed.
• Not working outside the home.  Sure, it can be challenging to be a stay-at-home mom but the reality is that if I’m having a particularly crappy day or am feeling awful, I can stay home in my pajamas if I want to.  I can also have slow, leisurely mornings rather than rushing to get myself and my child ready, fed, and out the door.  I also am far more physically active just by the nature of having a toddler around and being responsible for all aspects of running our household.
• As a newborn, I expect to be snuggling Acorn in a wrap or sling while we chase around after the Stinkerdoodle, go for walks, etc.
• Taking far fewer pictures of either child.
• Caring for a child who can get his entertainment either from me or his big brother.  Since babies love to watch big kids at play, I’m thinking that this will be a huge benefit.

So, sure, Acorn may not have as meticulous a photographic documentation of his early life as the Stinkerdoodle has had and I still worry a little that his individual needs won’t be met as easily or quickly as his brother’s were.  However, I think that he’s making out in the deal, in the end.  He’s going to have plenty of time snuggled close to me in the wrap or sling, just as the Stinkerdoodle did.  However, he’s far more likely to get outside time starting early on than his brother was.  (Of course, it helps that he’ll be born in May and his brother was born in January.)  His life will be more musical and less news oriented, although Scott Simon’s voice is still a welcome addition to my Saturday mornings.  And the biggest benefit I think he’ll have?  Acorn is also going to have a big brother to watch, to torment, and, ultimately, to play with.  He’s also going to have a Mama who is home full-time and has the space in her brain to really devote a lot of time and attention to him and his brother, hopefully without feeling too overwhelmed.

So do second kids always get the shaft?  No, but they do probably get less photos.

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to celebrate this milestone and say hello to everyone reading this.  So glad you’re here and if you ever feel like de-lurking and saying hello back, I’d love to hear from you!

I won’t rehash the whole visit.  Suffice to say that the midwife was nice enough but the negatives or causes for concern far outweighed the positives.  Here are a few of the things that caused concern for me:

• A nurse did my initial intake, including reviewing paperwork, taking my blood pressure, and listening to the baby’s heartbeat via doppler.  To be honest, she’s the one that I liked best at that practice.  She was genial and supportive.  However, I am used to everything being done by the midwife so I was a little thrown by working with the RN first.  Kinda felt like a regular MD’s office rather than a midwifery practice.
• When the midwife came in she was wearing a white coat.  I haven’t met that many midwives but I’ve never met a midwife that wore a white coat.  To me, it’s one of the symbols of the “I am the professional, you are the patient” power dynamic that is antithetical to midwifery care.  It may not be a problem during prenatal care but that approach is what can lead to women being pressured into interventions that they don’t want and don’t believe are necessary while in the middle of labor.  The midwives I’ve worked with have all met with me wearing business casual or casual clothes, except during the delivery of course, then it was scrubs.  That feels to me more representative of the “We’re in this together.  Let’s work together to support your body while it does when it was meant to do” philosophy, which is what I was looking for.
• The midwife explained that she was going to do a pap smear.  When I questioned her about doing it during pregnancy when I’ve had one within the last year, she assured me it was standard practice and then started the physical.  During the pre-pap conversation I mentioned that I didn’t have much breast tenderness now since (1) my son stopped nursing and (2) the first trimester is over.  She completed the rest of the exam and then said something along the lines of, “I didn’t realize that you’re already pregnant.  You’re right; we won’t do a pap now.”  Um, I’m 25 weeks.  It’s in the chart AND I’m showing.  *Loses points for inattentiveness to important details.*
• Once the physical exam was over, she left the room so I could dress, saying that she’d be back to answer all my questions.  She did come back to answer my questions but I got the distinct impression that she had somewhere more important to be.  Her answers were short and dismissive and she didn’t really make eye contact.  When I shared my concern that my first child being big would predispose a new care provider to moving to c-section too quickly she said, “Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem.  You have a proven pelvis.”  Proven pelvis.  Hate that phrase and, to me, it is pretty telling.  If you believe in a woman’s innate ability to birth a child given the right support then all pelvises are proven until shown otherwise AND there are a relatively low number of women who will need intervention for reasons related to their pelvis.  (I should qualify this by saying that this is true for women who have had adequate nutrition over the course of their lives.  It can be far more difficult for women whose own growth is stunted or delayed due to malnutrition to birth a child vaginally without intervention or significant damage.)  That was probably the biggest red flag of all for me.

On my way home I was asking myself things like… If I ended up with a c-section would I trust that the folks in this practice had exhausted every possible option to help me have a vaginal birth instead?  How likely would I be to hear things like “failure to progress” and “let’s talk about medication” during labor if I stayed with this practice?  If something went wrong with the birth, how would I feel about my decision to stay with this practice?  I was practically in tears as I compared the experience I’d just had with the one I had with the midwives that I wanted to work with.  I was waffling back and forth between feeling like I should stay with them because they are covered by my insurance and feeling like I should do whatever I could to get back to the folks I wanted to be with.

I was still processing this when my husband got home from work.  In a few short minutes he threw my own logic back at me (“trust and the birthing process”… ya gotta have trust) and all of a sudden it was clear as day that I couldn’t stay with that practice.  The reality is that if I stayed with this practice and wasn’t able to have the kind of birth I hope for, I wouldn’t be able to trust that they’d done everything they could to help me have the birth I want.  I’d always question whether their decisions were influenced by their proximity to OBs, questions of liability, whether they’d started seeing birth as a medical process rather than a natural, normal thing that most women’s bodies can do with relatively little interference.

Last night I scrambled through our health insurance’s website and found the local midwives that do accept our insurance.  Much to my delight, I discovered that there is a small, independent birth center in PA that is only 30 minutes from our new home AND they take our insurance.  I called to ask some questions and had a much, much, much more positive experience on the phone than I did with the midwife/OB practice.  I have an initial intake appointment with them next week and am very optimistic that I may have found our next care providers.  Stay tuned!

I’ve been enjoying the second trimester.  I got my energy back, I haven’t been hindered at all in what I can do physically, I’ve been sleeping as well as the Stinkerdoodle will let me.  It’s been pretty good.  I’m starting to see, though, the third trimester coming around the corner.  I’m also starting to remember how swollen and exhausted I was in the last 4 to 6 weeks of it.  To be honest, I have more than a little trepidation about how I’m going to handle that while caring for a toddler.  We’ll work it out, I’m sure, but from here it’s a little scary.

I have a few more tools to be able to manage it this time.  First, I am a totally reformed worshipper at the altar of the nap.  After one particularly miserable day this week, I spent the next day sleeping while the Sdoodle napped and it made all the difference in my mood for the rest of the day.  It also meant that my stomach muscles weren’t nearly as sore by the end of the day.  Second, I heard about this great thing called belly binding.  There’s a wonderful article on it in the newly released Resource Guide from The Feminist Breeder.  Since I already love me some Thing-A-Ma-Slings and our family owns three of them, I’m absolutely planning on doing this later in the third trimester.

As I said to Pete, although I’m enjoying being pregnant more this time than last, I still don’t love it.  I wish I was one of those blissfully happy, glowing pregnant women who are just beside themselves with joy to be gestating (do they really exist?) but I’m not.  This week my body started reminding me what a gift forgetfulness is as I started to have some vague memories of the end of my last pregnancy.  So, for now, I’m savoring the end of the second trimester with all its features like having a little energy still, having enough room in my stomach to eat a normal sized meal (mostly), and not needing to get up every two hours at night to pee.  I’m also mustering my inner reserves for the test of fortitude that is the third trimester, especially the last 6 weeks.  Oh, did I mention that we’ll be buying our first house and moving in when I’m around 32 to 33 weeks pregnant?  Guess I’ll get to put those third trimester nesting impulses to good use!

But now?  Now he’s on a pink kick.  Yep, a boy who loves pink.  When given a choice, he will choose…

... the pink binky,

... the pink cup (did you know that dinosaurs like their milk from pink cups too?),

... and the pink diaper cover.

We don’t have a whole lot of pink in the house because (1) I’m not a big fan and, (2) well, we have a boy.  Most of his toys and clothes are gifts or hand-me-downs so there aren’t a lot of pink things among them.  To be honest, I’m totally cool with boys digging pink.  In fact, the feminist in me kind of loves it but I know that toddlers are fickle and he’ll have another favorite color soon enough.

In my contact with other families over the years I’ve met folks who would FLIP if their son was into pink.  To each their own, I guess, but I just don’t see how the color of my kid’s sippy cup or binky is predictive of his future masculinity, sexual orientation, or anything else.  Besides…

(The Stinkerdoodle at 4 months old)

What are the parenting trenches, you ask?  They are years between birth and your child’s 4th birthday, or thereabouts.  They are the years when you are your child’s whole world and they are totally dependent on you.  This applies to kids whose parents are at home, kids whose parents work, and any combination of the two.  They are the years when:

• The ability to have a complete adult conversation during daytime hours is next to impossible.  One or the other of you – or both! – is responding to requests for help or milk or attention or whatever all while trying to maintain a focused and intelligent conversation with the other one.
• Date nights are a precious commodity but often end far earlier than your decade-younger, pre-child self would deem at all suitable.  Yep, you become one of THOSE people who leaves a party by 10 or 11 because, heavens knows, your child doesn’t care how late you stayed up the night before, they’re getting up at the same crack-of-dawn time they always do!
• Spousal intimacy sometimes happens fast and furious between nighttime wakings and feedings or the beginning and the end of nap time and always with the monitor in the room… and some part of each of you chanting in your head, “Please don’t wake up.  Please don’t wake up.  Please don’t wake up.”
• Stickers on your good furniture, spills on your good couches, pointy objects jammed into DVD players and openings on your computer, water play in the toilet, and so many other fun things happen in your house… and sometimes repeatedly.
• You and your spouse/partner get to practice your spelling more often because the mention of things like p-i-z-z-a or i-c-e-c-r-e-a-m or g-r-a-p-e-s or q-u-e-s-a-d-i-l-l-a-s (wait, is that last one only us?) without being able to produce said item may very well lead to a nuclear level meltdown.
• You are so busy planning the course of events of your day to work around meal times and nap times and to avoid peak tantrum times that you forget to do things like look your spouse/partner in the eye and say, “I love you.”

You get the idea.  Kids in the 0 to 3 year range are demanding.  It’s not malicious, it’s not manipulative, it’s totally developmentally appropriate.  And it can be totally maddening.  Far more than we want, it means putting our own needs aside because we have faith that if we parent one way or another it’ll give our kids the skills to be more confident and independent as they get older and then we get to reclaim that part of our lives!

Pete and I talk about the parenting trenches fairly frequently.  Sometimes it is with a sense of grief and loss.  We were just starting to see glimmers of the end of the trenches with the Stinkerdoodle when we signed ourselves up for another three years of it starting in May.  Sometimes it is with a sense of strength.  “Hey, look at what the two of us can do together – get through the trenches and still like each other on the other side!”  Sometimes I think it’s just a way to remind ourselves that it won’t always be this hard.  No, I’m not saying that parenting is ever easy but I do think that the type of “hard” it is changes over time if you have healthy, normally developing, neurotypical kids.  I’m guessing that it becomes a little less of a physical marathon (sleep deprivation, carrying a flailing, 35-pound toddler, packing and carrying a diaper bag the size of Montana every time you go out, etc.) and more of an emotional marathon as your kids get older.  As a side note, if you’re parenting a child with special needs, your trenches may last a little – or a lot – longer and, as far as I’m concerned, you get all the props – and margaritas! – in the world for it!

When we talk about the trenches, we’re also saying to each other that there WILL be a time again when we are primary in each other’s lives.  Strong parents with a healthy marriage are far more able to raise strong and healthy kids.  To me, that’s a no brainer.  There is a time coming when we’ll be able to leave our kids with a babysitter and stay out late doing things that make us happy together.  There is a time coming when we’ll be able to have a dinner conversation with the children there because they’ll either understand the need to not interrupt or they’ll be old enough to participate in and contribute to the conversation.  There is a time coming when we might even be able to go on a quick vacation with just the two of us!  That time may not be right now but, as we say often, our 40s will be fabulous!

On the day you turned two, you woke up at 4:30 a.m. for the second day in a row.  Your mean ol’ mama wouldn’t let you get up until a more reasonable hour so you hung out in bed with her until…

you started the day at 6:30 with some Dada snuggles.  Lucky you!

 First stop for play?  Well the matchboxes, of course!!

Next stop, breakfast but first you checked out your birthday balloons and birthday banner.

 Fresh blueberries with a side of yogurt and raisins – yum!

Now it’s time to gas up the race cars!

No birthday is complete without a little streaking before getting dressed!  That might just be the cutest little belly I’ve ever seen!  (Currently sporting his BumGenius 4.0 diaper.)

Next stop?  Skyping with Grammy and Grampy!  While chatting with them, you got to open the gift that they sent you and that kept you busy for the rest of the call.  It was…

… a fun new train set!!

It’s your birthday so you got to choose our next activity – playdough!  Unfortunately, the fun ended with…

… the I’ve-been-up-since-4:30am-meltdown, seen here in its early stages.  You told Mama to put the red playdough away and then totally melted down when she did.  When she offered to take it back out again, you only got madder and sadder.  Yep, you’re definitely 2!

A quick snack of olives and some pears and off to bed with you, Snuggle bug!

I asked you what you wanted for lunch, you said “pizza,” so, of course, we had to go out!  Besides, I don’t get many lunch dates with either of my favorite guys!

In continuing our theme of “doing stuff you like to do” our next stop was the library, or iberry, as you say it.  They have cars, puzzles, books, dinosaurs, and computers.  What more can a little boy want?  Next stop was not so exciting (farmer’s market) and then it was time to head home for a little TV for you and dinner making for me.

Mmm, a little “Shaun the Sheep” and couch gymnastics while Mama cooks dinner.

Dinner, however, was not exactly a rousing success.  You were more interested in banging the balloons around than eating green beans and sausage.  Yep, you’re totally 2!

 A little silly time with Dada after dinner and it was off for…

… teeth brushing and then bed.

A few books and snuggles before bed.  You want to know how I know you had a good day?  For both nap and bedtime you were asleep within 60 seconds of when I put you down in your bed!  Happy birthday, little dude!

I found a practice that seemed like they’d be wonderful.  85% of their deliveries are home births and their c-section rate is under 5%.  More importantly, their philosophy is that they strongly believe that birth is a natural, normal process that doesn’t need medical intervention unless there is cause for concern.  They trust in women’s bodies to grow and birth children.  Although I have been very grateful for the care I received from our first midwife, this new practice was a step closer to what I think of as “pure midwifery care” and I was excited to find them.  After meeting one of the midwives I was certain that I wanted to work with them for this birth.

Turns out that there’s a hitch, though… they are out of network for most medical providers.  We did a predetermination of benefits process with our health insurance and got the response that they would reimburse for NONE of the midwives’ fees.  Cah-rap!!!  I heard this yesterday late morning, put the kiddo down for a nap, and then tried to figure out what to do.  I REALLY wanted to work with the new practice but we just can’t pay out-of-pocket their entire fee.  Okay, into crisis management mode…

I decided to call the hospital where I would have delivered to see if there are any other midwives that have privileges there.  Turns out there are; there are four midwives that are part of a practice that also includes seven obstetricians.  That immediately set up red flags because that feels like moving closer to the mainstream medical world rather than away from it.  I, being full of pregnancy hormones, went pretty quickly into a freak out, tears and all.  I posted on Facebook, got some wonderful support from some wonderful friends, and pulled myself together.  I called the new practice, asked a bunch of questions, got a few answers, and made an appointment for two weeks from now.

Now, I don’t know anything about this new practice.  I don’t have recommendations from people who have used them.  I’ve never heard of them before.  Here’s what I do know, though…

• I know that I trust my body.  If nothing else, pushing out a 10 pound, 10 ounce child for your first pregnancy will teach you that!
• I know that I trust my husband.  Pete was phenomenal through the first labor - pushing on my sacrum with every contraction for 15 hours (except for the few that our doula relieved him for), helping me slow my breathing, keeping my focused and relaxed, reminding me to drink, and so much more.  I also know that he won’t hesitate to tell people to quit offering me drugs (if they do that), he’ll ask a ton of questions before agreeing to an intervention, and that he’ll generally be my firewall.
• I know that I trust my doula.  During our first labor she was such a fabulous, calming presence.  She knew just the right way to suggest new positions for laboring and pushing, encourage me to eat and drink, bouy my spirits when they flagged, guide me through getting the most out of the stadol when I requested it, taking pictures during active labor, and so much more.

Even if these midwives are not the hippie, alternative-to-mainstream-medicine midwives that I’d originally hoped for, there’s no reason for me to assume at this point that they’ll do anything other than support our birth plan as long as medically possible.  However, I also know that I have an awesome team in my corner with my husband and our doula.  The three of us together with Acorn can make this as successful a birth as the last one, of that I’m confident.

• Parenting “experts” – What makes them experts?
• Our family’s philosophy of parenting
• How children’s personalities can vary widely, even within families – In other words, Acorn’s personality what may challenge or force us to amend what we’ve identified as our parenting philosophy
• The vulnerability of children, including their emotions, their brains, not to mention their little bodies!
• The resilience of children
• The parenting blog authors, commenters on FB, constituents of Twitter-land, and the like that condemn others for their parenting choices,  sometimes very harshly, or that advocate all parents to take adopt their philosophy  – Take this post from Baby Rabies, for example.  She got a lot of supportive comments on the blog but Facebook was another matter altogether.  Wow!  Hello, vitriol!
• The differences (and similarities!) in parenting a child of adoption and a birth child.

Out of this swirling broth of parenting stuff comes a post called “Parenting Hubris.”  It’s origin?  The vast proliferation of authors, blogs, experts, talk shows, etc. that tell parents how to parent.  There sure are a lot of resources out there that will tell us parents exactly what to do to have the most successful, competent, healthy child possible.  There are a lot of good, science-supported arguments out there about what can have a positive or negative impact on children and their development.  One of the recent examples of this that I found coming across my Facebook feed recently was this blog post from Psychology Today called “Dangers of ‘Crying It Out’.” My guess is that there are other articles out there that cite other psychological studies and that show that crying it out (CIO) is not harmful to children and that these articles are also written by experts.  So experts say two totally different things?  Yep, in sleep training (or lack thereof) and soooo many other things.  There are experts who are doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, ministers, counselors, and just your everyday average Joe.  How on god’s green earth are we as parents fumbling our way through our first – or even subsequent – children supposed to know what is the right way to go??

Here are the things I do know:

• I am not an expert parent but I am an expert on my child.  That doesn’t mean that I won’t listen to and learn from others – experts, friends, family – but it does mean that I trust my gut to give me the right answer for my child … eventually.
• Children, especially when they are young, are so fragile and so easily shaped by their environments.  I’ve done some reading and learning about early exposure to trauma and have found it fascinating and heartbreaking.  Did you know that their little brains can actually be rewired by the experiences they have??  On the other hand, though…
• Children are incredibly resilient.  In my work in both domestic and international adoption, I have seen kids adopted into families after having gone through horrendous, horrendous prenatal and early childhood experiences.  They’ve seen and experienced things that no child their age should ever have to experience.  As a result, many of them suffered in ways that were either immediately obvious or that didn’t become apparent until later.  And yet… many of them found the strength to start learning to love and trust their new families.  Many of them went on to be successful in school and successful in relationships.  These things happened with hard work, sure, but, in many cases, it happened!
• Pete and I have chosen a parenting philosophy that makes the most sense to us and that we think has worked well so far with our first child.  There’s a very real possibility that Acorn (and any future children) will challenge what we now think is right for our family and make us adapt our way of thinking.  While I can’t imagine now that we would change our philosophy drastically, I learned a long time ago to never say never (except maybe about this :-) ).  If we end up fostering children, as we think we likely will, we fully expect that we may need to adapt some of what we do to meet their needs and to help them heal a little from their experiences.
• There is condemnation and judgment to be had for pretty much every parenting decision you make, especially if you make it public.  I feel fortunate that I’ve only had one person actually challenge some of the decisions that we’ve made and he backed off when I gave him a little pushback.  Other than that, we’ve had no outright judgment or condemnation.  (I will say, though, that some of the faces we get when we say that the Stinkerdoodle still sleeps with us are HYSTERICAL!  It’s like people have something they want to say and then swallow it, subsequently making a rather amusing, puckered-looking face.  It is the funniest. thing. ever!)  Some folks haven’t been so lucky as to avoid criticism and they fight it on a regular basis.  The internet sure seems to bring out Judgy McJudgerson in some people!!

So where does the “hubris” part of “parenting hubris” come in?  I’m finding that I do find it disagreeable when people tend to say that their style of parenting is The Way or The One that will breed successful kids.  The definition of hubris is excessive pride or self-confidence or arrogance.  I do think it is excessively arrogant to say that there is one parenting way that works for all parents and all kids and “that way is my way.”  I also know that its hard sometimes to watch other parents make decisions that are different from those that we would make.  I’ll admit to worrying about the kids and how they’re doing.  BUT, does that mean that I would challenge someone on their parenting choices as a random passerby, family member, or friend?  No.  (As a professional social worker, when I was working I did give parenting recommendations and critique as part of my job but I consider that different from my everyday personal life.)

Do I judge other parents?  Sure but only in my own head!  I’m not sure anyone can avoid the thoughts that swirl through our heads from time to time but my goal is to (a) not judge out loud and (b) try to see it from their perspective.  Who knows, maybe I’ll learn something!  I do find, though, that the folks whose decisions I struggle with most often are those that don’t appear to be making thoughtful, reasoned decisions about their parenting.  You know, the folks that go along with what everyone else is doing because, well, everyone else is doing it.  I don’t come across many of those, though.  Maybe I’m fortunate with the people I meet in my life but I find that most of the people I talk to are making thoughtful decisions out of love for their child, not out of peer pressure.

Not really sure where I’m going with this post and, apparently, I’ve reached the rambling end of it.  I guess I just wanted to put out there some of the things I’ve been thinking, many in reaction to things I’m reading on blogs, websites, and Facebook.  What it all boils down to is this I guess… There is a lot of good information out there and lots of judgment being thrown around but, when it comes down to it, we are each the experts in our own children and their needs.  If we can keep ourselves open to learning new parenting skills and ways, maybe even from unexpected places, then we’ll be that much the better for us and so will our children.