Adulting & Parenting

 I love the phrase "adulting."  It basically means making grown up stuff happen and pretending like you truly know exactly what's going on, when really, you are just making it up as you go. 

I basically began my adult life as a mom since we had our first baby at 22...so for me, parenting often felt exactly like "adulting" in my early years.  Actually, I still feel like I'm just winging it quite often.  The truth is though, now that we are getting to raising our fourth little one, I'm beginning to feel like I know what I'm doing...sometimes or well, at least more frequently than before.  Over the last decade, my mindset on parenting has changed from "how do I do this correctly?" to "what needs to be done to raise them well."  I've found that taking the mindset off of me and my performance and moving it to them completely changes what I do and how I handle most situations.  

For example, my just turned two year old loves trying to climb things.  The younger me would have been between should I be the helicopter mom and move her to safety?  Should I be the laissez faire mom and see what happens?  But the child focused mom in me now looks at her and reminds her that this isn't the best thing to do when I'm not there to help, but also teaches her how to find the next rung down on the bunkbed ladder with her foot while holding on tightly so the she also has a chance to learn proper proprioception and how to get herself out of situations like this. 

Too often, I think we doubt ourselves.  Truly, we do know what we are doing better than we think.  Our generation is the product of the "do it because I said so and I'm right" generation.  We all grew up and learned that there is no "right" per-say, but rather that parenting is more of a series of decisions that you make based on what fits that moment best (and you are always praying that your decision truly was the right one).  The truth is though, we know a little more about our children and ourselves than we honestly believe we do.  We just have to believe in ourselves and find the tools it takes to make parenting actually happen and to feel more fruitful in the day to day.