Am I Doing this Right?

It’s great that there is more than one right way to parent. It’s also challenging, becuase there’s a lot of room for interpretation, and sadly no blood test that can be performed to let you know if you’ve done it right.

Sooooo,….I guess a mom/dad has got to look for other signs if they’re on target.

Sure, you could look for yelp reviews on your parenting, maybe spend your days comparing yourself to others “What is Billy’s GPA?” “Which mom brought the best bake sale goodies?” “Why does Susie’s mom look so well rested?!” “SERIOUSLY! Why!!!??”

If you know me, you know I’ve spent a lot of time being “that guy.” Completely true story: for 6 months I had a race with a neighbor about who could get our kids off to school first. She didn’t know about this race, which didn’t help my parenting self-esteem when I lost, but that didn’t stop me.

I’m continually trying to let go of those comparisons. Trying to find alternate ways to know if I’ve done my best at parenting. With the young men in my house, uncovering those indicators is kind of like an Easter Egg hunt. One of those really hard Easter Egg hunts where they have big cash in plastic eggs. Not coins, cash!

Here’s some of the signs I’ve dug deep for recently:

Danny laughed at my joke. It wasn’t even a little bit of a courtesy laugh

Dirty asked me if I wanted the last banana. He didn’t take it and then leave the peel out for me to trip on and break a hip, he ASKED me if he could have it.

Dirty picked up that banana peel after only a day of prompting.

Sure; it’s a short list, but I’ll take it. They are great humans. You hear that well-rested Susie!? Now, what’s the recipe for those cookies. I want to see if I can make them better.