Helicopter Parents vs. Free Range Parents.
Elimination Communication vs. conventional potty training.
Tiger Moms vs. Permissive Moms.
Apparently there’s a war of not only words but ways of life and parents are being made to draw a line in the sand…or sandbox as the case may be.
Depending on your vantage point, you may be in the right or you may be totally wrong. You are likely doing wonderful things for your child or you are ruining them as human beings forevermore. You just can’t win.
Never has there been a time in our history where there have been so many different ways of parenting and, more importantly, so many parents arguing, disagreeing and generally condemning those who choose to raise their children in a different way than their own.
Add to this fact the reality that our multi-ethnic, socially-stratified society adds even more variables to the mix, including culture and ethnicity as well as social economic class, to name a few. Is it any wonder that there are almost as many ways of raising your child as there are children in the world (alright, not quite, but it certainly seems that way)?
Yet, although most of us know this, we stick to our guns, insisting that our way is the right way. Perhaps it’s human nature; perhaps it’s our stubborn belief that we’re right and…well…everyone who doesn’t agree with us is wrong. No more so than in the parenting plane are those who continue to bicker and argue about what is the best way to raise a child. If you’re not with us, you’re against us, end of story.
Though intellectually, we know that this type of rigid, black-and-white viewing of the world is wrong, we can’t help ourselves. Somehow it’s not wrong when it comes to us and our choices on how we raise our kids. Again: we’re right, everyone else is wrong…right?
So the question this week is as follows: Do you think that it’s possible for us to finally all get along? Can conflicting and different parenting styles exist? Is there any hope of us finding common ground and celebrating our similarities as parents instead of our differences? Let me know what you think in the comments below!
VIDEO: Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Image courtesy of www.sheknows.ca
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