Is it necessary to understand Parenting?

My dad often used to say, “We didn’t raise you both. We were just there. You both grew up all by yourselves.”

When something in my everyday life pinpoints to the fuss of today’s parenting, I get reminded of these words of my dad. Parents did do parenting then and children did get raised then.

Yet, the term parenting and the many parenting concepts weren’t any significant.

When the father and I disagree on dealing with our son, for something in particular, the father quickly sends a link to prove his point. Yes, I have a hundred of such links. I don’t care to open most of those links; those which I open, I don’t read it till the end and even if I read it till the end, I don’t take them seriously because none of them has ever made me feel like a nice, sweet mother.

None!

Most of them discuss the psychology of children as though they write from sitting inside a child’s brain. They talk about the cause and effect of every word and action of the parents on the children. They categorize parenting styles – gentle parenting, mindful parenting, toxic parenting, helicopter parenting….(a lot more). And they advice how a parent must sneeze and breathe in front of the kids!

For instance, consider the scenario below which most parents can relate to:

My boy spills milk on the floor. He is exploring by doing a milk painting with his fingers on all nearby surfaces. I am in the best of my mind, I give a smile, admire his creativity and we make an interesting cleaning activity together.

Now…

My boy spills milk on the floor. He is exploring by doing a milk painting with his fingers on all nearby surfaces. I am in the middle of frying something in the kitchen. The writing assignment deadline is just a few hours away. The childhood friend is leaving back to the US tomorrow; I will have to spare time to meet her before she leaves. Wait a second, why is the home quiet? I hurriedly peep out of the kitchen. Man! There’s a whole lot of mess on the floor, on the sofa, on his shirt, on his pant, fingers, face. And the baby who has been up to something in the other room, is now giving a sharp cry. That means she hit on something or fell off from somewhere. And the frying thing in the kitchen is burnt now.

So gets my mind, followed by giving my piece of my mind to the little boy. It heightens if I realize the father has been happily watching a video inspite of the mess happening around.

For the same situation, my reaction to my boy differs depending on my intra-personal situation. According to the father’s parenting links, no matter what the situation is, I must be a nice and kind mother, making my boy feel positive at all times; else, I am missing something important in parenting. And they justify by a list of pointers that can affect the logical-psychological-emotional-developmental-social-physiological well-being of the child.

I feel alright with a little dose of such parenting gyan. A few have been helpful; I cannot deny on that. However, I often ask to myself, if parents can be perfect beings at all times? Doesn’t being mindful of all that we speak and do in front of the kids, restrict us from our spontaneous flow of life? And most importantly, if it is really necessary to understand, contemplate, dissect, dig, and study parenting in order to follow on some parenting rules in our everyday lives?

Over the few years of parenting, I’ve realized that, yes, it is important to understand parenting! 

You might not have expected this answer from me, did you? Neither did I until I thought about it for this blog post 😆

May I please continue in another post my realistic parenting realizations?!

Until then, please tell me what do you think about the necessity of understanding parenting, in the comments below.