Ha, just kidding. You’re not getting a “Tamra’s Guide to Raising Your Kids to Be Total Assholes” or something. Rather, I want to touch on a delicate subject that was brought to my attention regarding parenting by instinct and common sense versus parenting “By The Book.” (Thanks, A., for the idea, although this ended up taking a different turn than I originally planned. Let’s just say it kind of wrote itself… organically.)
I am baffled by the lack of common sense I encounter on a regular basis, and even more so by the amount of conflicting books written by discipline and parenting “experts”. Who the hell deemed them experts, anyway? I mean, if you look hard enough, there is literature written by “experts” who try to argue that breastmilk isn’t a sufficient food for babies, and that it should be supplemented with formula.
Um, can someone hand me a brick to throw at them?
Like, come on… common sense, you morons, how the hell has the human race (and every other mammal, for that instance) survived if breastmilk, which the body produces specifically for its offspring, didn’t contain everything that an infant needs?
Then there’s also the “By the Book” that isn’t really by any book… it’s just what is considered to be most socially acceptable. I think you can probably tell from my blog what my thoughts are on what is “socially acceptable”.
For me personally, common sense is, well, common sense. I don’t need a freaking set of instructions to tell me it isn’t polite to make a comment about someone’s weight gain, or that digging my underwear out of my buttcrack in the middle of the mall where everyone can see it is a bit… taboo.
I leave those things to my blog, where readers view my vagina and poop stories at their own risk.
Of course, it’s kind of like a train wreck, I’ll admit. I mean, who the hell can really avert their eyes when they see the word PENIS in bold? I’ll be the first to admit that the second I see someone write about their sex life, I’m captivated until the last word. So few people are brazen enough to admit their darkest secrets to the world.
Confess. You know you can’t turn away, either. And by the way, I have a stats page under my admin account on this blog that shows how many page views I get a day… and it proves you are peeking into the life of the less beaten path and all its horrendous little confessions. So you can’t deny it.
(By the way, the stats are anonymous, so I have no clue who you are unless you leave me a comment or send me an email. In fact, you could be my stalker ex-boyfriend and I wouldn’t know… but by God if you are my stalker ex and I ever find out… I will hunt you down and yank your teeth and fingernails out one by one while you scream for mercy. And I’ll be laughing. Don’t fuck with a woman on Prozac.)
But anyway, there is a point to this, I swear.
Common sense. That’s where I left off.
I really believe that in the time before self-help books, parents learned to follow their instincts. Yes, you learn by watching the people who raised you, but common sense tells us pretty clearly whether or not we want to do [insert stupid parenting choice here] to our kids like our parents did to us, you know?
And that’s kind of where I feel parenting books frequently go wrong. While they commonly have some good advice on how to discipline or raise a child with a high self esteem or other crap like that, they often try to set a formula that can be molded to fit any child and parent.
Much like my point from Tuesday’s rant, common sense tells me this is downright wrong. The “expert” who writes a “parenting for a damn fool” book did not have the same upbringing as me. They have a different personality, a different set of morals and beliefs, and birthed children who are completely unlike mine. While some of their techniques may fit the life that my children and I live, they are not going to work for everyone.
Rather, I feel that a “parent by instinct” approach just works better for me. It is formulated to fit me with all my off-the-beaten-path quirks and my children, who have to deal with me until an Act of God saves them from the evil clutches of their insane mother. My approaches wouldn’t work for everyone, just as yours may not apply to me. However, I feel like that’s the beauty of nature and common sense. It creates parenting instincts that are seasoned for the individual, much like breastmilk is going to be formulated perfectly for your own baby.
It alarms me that so many people try to parent according to a specific style or philosophy these days.
While I am actually surrounded by a number of simply brilliant individuals in my life, I am constantly dumbfounded by the pure stupidity of the same people. They are the kind of people who have started uncountable sentences with, “This self-help book I read said…”.
To be perfectly honest, it terrifies me that some of these people are determined to shoot spawn out of their va-jay-jays. They are so dense when it comes down to things that require a pinch of common sense that I’m surprised they know to hold their breath under water.
These are also the kind of people who will take anything they read in a book and consider it as good as the Word of God and parent by it until their child grows up and burns the house down while they sob, “I don’t know what I did wrong, I did everything by the book!”.
It makes me wonder- is everyone’s natural parenting instinct as strong as mine? I mean, I’ll be honest. I wasn’t ready for kids, and I didn’t really know what to do with them… but when I was forced to take care of my first baby (ohmygoshababyjustpoppedoutofmyvagina!), common sense and instinct just took over.
Even in the severe depths of near postpartum psychosis, instinct prevailed. While I didn’t want to remove my ass from the warm spot on the bed, April’s cries forced me to get up and nurse her because I simply had to feed her. On the days when my patience was worn thin and I had visions of paddling Julie’s butt mercilessly for coloring all over the floor when I asked her not to… common sense smacked me first and told me there was no way I was going to lay a finger on that child.
There is no way that the “by the book” parenting styles could have worked for me in my pre- or post- medicated days.
For instance, I’ve read a number of books that say the best place for a baby to sleep is with its mama, and that a “family bed” is the right sleeping arrangement for everyone. Um, no. It really doesn’t work for everyone like the book says. Common sense told me it wasn’t going to work, however personal experience and trial by error proved that my first instinct was right. See? One size just doesn’t fit all.
While there are tons of people who are accepting about the fact that I tend to parent by sense of smell, I do realize that some people simply lack the ability to parent confidently without a bit of guidance. I don’t think seeking help is wrong in the least, but I think there are a number of cases where people just go overboard with it.
What are your thoughts on it? Do you parent by instinct, or by the book? Do you raise your kids according to what everyone else tells you you “should” do, or do you do it by what feels right to you?
Current Mood:
Happy