Parenting: An Opinion

It occurred to me recently that the best parents - in my opinion - that I know always seem to be people who are good with kids... all kids. By contrast, what we seem to get lots of these days are the uber-parents whose lives go from being about whatever eclectic collection of hobbies and vices they were interested in before they reproduced, to their kid(s), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That sort of parent is boring to talk to (unless you find their children as fascinating as they do), not the least of which is due to the fact that they seem to think anything their kid does is intrinsically more incredible than anything over the history of mankind - including the colour of the poo in the diapers! They're not bad parents in the sense of being neglectful or setting anti-social examples; they're simply guilty of instilling their children with an inate sense of entitlement that the rest of us have to deal with from friends and co-workers once those kids grow up! It's natural that your parents would think you're the most special person in the universe; but they shouldn't raise you to expect everyone else to treat you that way!

All of which got me thinking about men and women I've known who seemed - to me - to be really good parents. One common denominator among them was that you could put them in a room with anyone's kids, and they'd do well: they'd play with the children, and be comfortable doing it. They'd talk to them, not down to them. They'd have an good sense of what interests a three your old versus an eight year old versus a teenager. And the kids would always have fun with them!

Vicki had the misfortune of marrying someone who said he loved kids, when in fact he'd never really spent much time with any! That inexperience, and his difficulty in adapting to parenthood, ended up killing their marriage (it wasn't all gloom and doom, though, as that opened the door for me to enter Vicki's life). What I took away from that was an idea that I'd urge any young person to consider before ever having any children: find out how your co-parent-to-be is with kids long before you start a family with them! Whether it be with nieces or nephews, or by babysitting your friends' kids, look for opportunities to see how he or she interacts with the younger set. If they're comfortable in that role, chances are they'll make good parents; if they can't seem to figure out what to do with them, then the best you can hope for is that they'll become an uber-parent, fixating on your children to the exclusion of all else, and spoiling them for the rest of the world. And if you're unlucky, they won't even be able to do that!