Thought I Was Doing a Good Job!

Why is it so infuriating when someone criticizes our parenting? I am wondering this because a parent of my daughter insinuated lately that I’m not strict enough when it comes to parenting.

Part of me thinks that we are afraid deep down that we’re going to screw up our kids and that we’re not doing all that we can to make sure that they’re healthy, learning everything they can and feel good about themselves at the end of the day. The other part of me thinks that some days it’s just darn hard work and if we’re working this hard at it, then we must be doing something right. Right?!

We see a show like ‘America’s Got Talent’ and there are children who can dance, sing and perform amazing stunts at such young ages and we wonder if we should have gotten our children into ‘this’ or ‘that’ at a younger age. Did we miss out on a special skill that our child may have had or with a little perseverance would my child have become a musical prodigy? Then we see a glimpse of ‘Toddlers in Tiaras’ and we think the opposite!

As parents we spend a good part of our day doing one thing or another for our children. We feed them, make sure they are dressed in clean clothes, get them off to school, go to work so we can make money for more food and clothes, then we’re helping with homework, taking them to extracurricular activities, feeding them again and making sure they’re getting a good night’s sleep. We drive them to practices at 5:30 in the morning and we spend ridiculous amounts of money on equipment that may end up in the shed next year.
Somewhere in between there, we’re absorbing advice from friends, family, coworkers and Dr. Phil and trying to add a multivitamin to our child’s morning routine and use more vegetables in our shepherd’s pie at dinner.

So, if after all this, someone comes to us and criticizes our job as parents, I think we just may be justified if we take offense to it, even though, I’m trying hard not to.