Inflexible, Perfectionist Parents, How Did You Relax Your Parenting?

[Anonymous]

OP have you tried code!ne to the face?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you won't take meds, would you consider smoking weed? I'm not kidding.

You are doing all this for your kids to have a perfect childhood, but all your kids are going to remember is how uptight and shrill you were. I know, because i had that parent. My mother made our peanut butter. It sucked. We weren't allowed to eat anything with artificial flavoring or coloring. Cake at a birthday party? Nope! M&Ms? Nope!

I got in trouble all the time for breaking rules. There were too many to keep track of. My sibling and I both live across the country from our mother, see her once a year, and have terrible memories of growing up and being at home.

Listen to this person. This person is your kid speaking to you from the future.

Your kids are not going to thank you later in life for feeding them the hummus with the best oil. Your kids are going to love the freedom of being away from you so much that they never move back closer after college.

I didn't have the crunchy granola parents, but I did have extremely strict parents will so many rules that they were hard to keep track of and different rules for different kids. For example, my brother, who was younger, could stay out until midnight but my sister and I had to be in by 10:30 because the chance for rape when up after then. Soooo then why was he allowed out??! My younger sister always had to have perfect grades and anything less than 100 was a failure according to my parents. My brother and I? We could get Bs and Cs if we wanted. Why? My sister took after my dad's side of the family and wasn't as pretty so they told her she needed to be "extra smart to make it in life because she'd never have a man to rely on with her looks."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, first you need to want to change, and you aren’t quite there yet. Perhaps you could commit to doing more observation about the impact your behavior has on your kids? And see if that gets you to a place of genuinely wanting to change.

I get it. I’m somewhat like you except my issues are all health and safety related. I don’t care about the molding or the activities. But I do care about car seats to an irrational degree, and organic food and not putting plastics in the dishwasher and water safety and on and on. But all of it to a level that will give my child an anxiety disorder. And I can see that, but I’m not willing to change because I FEEL like I’m keeping her safe. And I’m not willing to stop doing what I’m doing and make myself more anxious for the possible long term benefit to her mental health because it feels unsafe. You’re doing the same thing but it’s about crown molding. You’re not ready to make yourself more uncomfortable and anxious yet. When you are, you will figure out a way to make the change happen.

You seem really self aware, so what do you think would be the sort of "a ha" that would make you change or try to change for your and her own relationship ? No snark, just curious.

The top poster has classic anxiety thinking, which just ends up making anxiety worse. If you want to feel better, you have to lean into feeling unsafe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you won't take meds, would you consider smoking weed? I'm not kidding.

You are doing all this for your kids to have a perfect childhood, but all your kids are going to remember is how uptight and shrill you were. I know, because i had that parent. My mother made our peanut butter. It sucked. We weren't allowed to eat anything with artificial flavoring or coloring. Cake at a birthday party? Nope! M&Ms? Nope!

I got in trouble all the time for breaking rules. There were too many to keep track of. My sibling and I both live across the country from our mother, see her once a year, and have terrible memories of growing up and being at home.

Listen to this person. This person is your kid speaking to you from the future.

Your kids are not going to thank you later in life for feeding them the hummus with the best oil. Your kids are going to love the freedom of being away from you so much that they never move back closer after college.

I didn't have the crunchy granola parents, but I did have extremely strict parents will so many rules that they were hard to keep track of and different rules for different kids. For example, my brother, who was younger, could stay out until midnight but my sister and I had to be in by 10:30 because the chance for rape when up after then. Soooo then why was he allowed out??! My younger sister always had to have perfect grades and anything less than 100 was a failure according to my parents. My brother and I? We could get Bs and Cs if we wanted. Why? My sister took after my dad's side of the family and wasn't as pretty so they told her she needed to be "extra smart to make it in life because she'd never have a man to rely on with her looks."

Some wacko families coming out of the woodwork on dcum

[Anonymous]

OP, haven't read this whole thread but here's a wild guess: are you by chance the child of an alcoholic? This kind of behavior - the absolute need to control everything out of fear things will go horribly wrong - can be found in alcoholic families. People who grow up in families like that are sometimes desperate to take care of everyone and control them. If you are, then I would suggest going to an Al-Anon meeting for Adult Children of Alcoholics where you'd get support to relax this kind of behavior. If you're not, apologies. It was only a guess on my part because it sounded oh, so familiar.

Hope you find what you're looking for. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I have similar tendencies. My therapist has been wonderful. I wonder if you're getting the best therapy for yourself?

My therapist has emphasized that kids will actually thrive if they encounter a bit of adversity in all domains--including in their experiences with their parents. So if their childhoods are "imperfect" in some regard, that can help them with adaptation, etc. I'd think about it that way: imperfection will help your kids develop helpful coping skills.

You probably also need some "exposure" therapy. You need to experiment on some level with being imperfect and then learn that outcomes will be ok. Without these exposures, you'll never give yourself the opportunity to learn that imperfect parenting yields reasonable results. You're currently reinforcing your own high standards.

Especially if you don't want to take meds, you need a great therapist and not a psychiatrist.

Finally, realize that the perfectionism itself isn't all good or all bad. It's just that sometimes it's helpful and sometimes it isn't. It's nice that it helps us achieve desired outcomes. So don't view it as something you need to eradicate. You just need to be more flexible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have similar tendencies. My therapist has been wonderful. I wonder if you're getting the best therapy for yourself?

My therapist has emphasized that kids will actually thrive if they encounter a bit of adversity in all domains--including in their experiences with their parents. So if their childhoods are "imperfect" in some regard, that can help them with adaptation, etc. I'd think about it that way: imperfection will help your kids develop helpful coping skills.

You probably also need some "exposure" therapy. You need to experiment on some level with being imperfect and then learn that outcomes will be ok. Without these exposures, you'll never give yourself the opportunity to learn that imperfect parenting yields reasonable results. You're currently reinforcing your own high standards.

Especially if you don't want to take meds, you need a great therapist and not a psychiatrist.

Finally, realize that the perfectionism itself isn't all good or all bad. It's just that sometimes it's helpful and sometimes it isn't. It's nice that it helps us achieve desired outcomes. So don't view it as something you need to eradicate. You just need to be more flexible.

And wow, I must say that a significant percentage of these posts are really cruel and unhelpful (hopefully unintentionally so).

[Anonymous]

I think people are being way too hard on OP.

The world has become increasingly competitive and OP is doing everything she can to give her kids an advantage. 90% of the threads on here are, at their core, about the same thing. The manifestations are different, but every conversation about extended BF-ing, medication-free births, Beauvoir admissions, Bethesda real estate, planning travel to Europe, etc. are all about the same thing - giving our kids the absolute best.

OP, I say lean into it. You don’t have to lower your standards to make someone else feel better. Keep on grinding that homemade hummus!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you probably will get flamed for this, but it’s obvious that your heart is in the right place: you care about what is best for your children.

I grew up in a similar household, I had a stay at home mom that gave us healthy homemade snacks daily, and nightly home cooked dinners. The truth is, kids don’t value or appreciate these efforts. I remember when I went to overnight summer camp for the first time and came home so excited to “introduce” my parents to ranch; I couldn’t believe that something like ranch existed and they wouldn’t be interested in buying some for themselves. Similarly, when I went off to college I gained the quickest freshman 20 because my body simply was not used to food outside the vegetarian organic meals offered by my parents.

That said, as a parent myself I can sincerely appreciate their efforts, but I’ve found that moderation is what is most healthy, despite not being as healthy. While your post speaks nothing of weight, I’m thin, and personally eat a healthy, primarily raw diet - as a note, we do not keep ranch in the house! I don’t force the same standards upon my child; there is an expectation that we’ll eat a healthy well balanced dinner every night. However, I’m the first one to hand her a chewy bar if she’s acting hungry. Given my own upbringing, my thoughts are that it is much healthier to introduce processed “ssnacks” while supplementing with healthy meals.

Finally, in my option there’s nothing wrong with keeping a clean orderly home, or catering after school activities to each child’s interests. The sunscreen sounds crazy, but that is simply because I imagine constantly wiping “sunscreen prints” off surfaces. I think you need to realize that childhood is an introductory period for your child: if you so strictly control each aspect of their lives, it will be much harder for them to find their ways on their own. Just my two cents.

OP here. Thank for writing. I went to HYP for undergrad and grad. I'd say my most successful classmates were either from immigrant families that were almost overbearing and the other half were from helicopter-type families. There's something to be said about intensive parenting, and who knows how you would have ended up with different parents. Maybe instead of body issues, you'd be morbidly obese like my in-laws, who literally say they won't eat vegetarian food because they're not vegetarian. That said, it would be wonderful to have the best of the free-range and helicoper parents. I'm aiming for that middle path. It's been hard, though, as you can tell by my post.

Are those "most successful classmates" the ones who are most successful as adults? I went to an Ivy and so I know those types and a lot of them are doctors now so they did fine. But the most successful people I know are super confident and at ease with themselves and often didn't go to particularly impressive colleges. I try to think about that and make be sure I am trying to foster my kids confidence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people are being way too hard on OP.

The world has become increasingly competitive and OP is doing everything she can to give her kids an advantage. 90% of the threads on here are, at their core, about the same thing. The manifestations are different, but every conversation about extended BF-ing, medication-free births, Beauvoir admissions, Bethesda real estate, planning travel to Europe, etc. are all about the same thing - giving our kids the absolute best.

OP, I say lean into it. You don’t have to lower your standards to make someone else feel better. Keep on grinding that homemade hummus!

But this is based on the fallacy that input equals output. THere is some nutty person on here who is always talking about how a 'well groomed child will have no problem getting into the gifted program.' Um, no. It's not like there's an exact ratio between how much homemade hummus they eat and their SAT scores, where serving the stuff from Costco is an automatic 30 point deduction. If only it were that simple! My kids are older and there are three trends that you will see:
at some point in middle school, some percent of your friends will stop bragging about their kids and become somewhat secretive. This may be because they are doing so well, and it may be because they have fallen off the fast track due to any number of factors. There is almost no way to predict who these people will be.
There will be a similar event which occurs towards the end of high shool, and one more after everyone graduates from college.
Some kids won't graduate from college, will fail to launch, etc. etc. etc. It won't necessarily be the kids you think it will be.

Life is very long and that's what you need to grasp, hummus lady. There will be things that occur that you won't be able to shield them from. You could get cancer or you could get divorced or you could win the lottery. No amount of hummus will shield your kids from the effects of these events.
That's why people talk about resiliency, etc.
And -- when you realize that your kids have nothing even remotely interesting to say when they're asked to write a college admissions essay about 'overcoming a hardship' you may also find yourself stymied. All that work and at the end of the day, lots of employers, admissions folks, etc. want to see kids who've seen a bit of real life and experienced the consequences of their choices!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people are being way too hard on OP.

The world has become increasingly competitive and OP is doing everything she can to give her kids an advantage. 90% of the threads on here are, at their core, about the same thing. The manifestations are different, but every conversation about extended BF-ing, medication-free births, Beauvoir admissions, Bethesda real estate, planning travel to Europe, etc. are all about the same thing - giving our kids the absolute best.

OP, I say lean into it. You don’t have to lower your standards to make someone else feel better. Keep on grinding that homemade hummus!

Who is saying the world has become increasingly competitive? Aside from university admissions I'd like to see proof of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have similar tendencies. My therapist has been wonderful. I wonder if you're getting the best therapy for yourself?

My therapist has emphasized that kids will actually thrive if they encounter a bit of adversity in all domains--including in their experiences with their parents. So if their childhoods are "imperfect" in some regard, that can help them with adaptation, etc. I'd think about it that way: imperfection will help your kids develop helpful coping skills.

You probably also need some "exposure" therapy. You need to experiment on some level with being imperfect and then learn that outcomes will be ok. Without these exposures, you'll never give yourself the opportunity to learn that imperfect parenting yields reasonable results. You're currently reinforcing your own high standards.

Especially if you don't want to take meds, you need a great therapist and not a psychiatrist.

Finally, realize that the perfectionism itself isn't all good or all bad. It's just that sometimes it's helpful and sometimes it isn't. It's nice that it helps us achieve desired outcomes. So don't view it as something you need to eradicate. You just need to be more flexible.

And wow, I must say that a significant percentage of these posts are really cruel and unhelpful (hopefully unintentionally so).

The OP's parenting style is flat out suffocating. So there.

[Anonymous]

Been there, done that.

Take the meds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Here. I know parents of 4 who will use tylenol PM to put their fussy child to sleep on tough nights. One classmate of my daughters already has several capped teeth. She's constantly sucking on lollipops when we see her at the park. Another child gets a ham sandwich for lunch every day, despite telling her mom she's committed to vegetarianism. She confessed to me that she likes coming to my home for playdates because I don't force her to eat meat. (My kids are vegetarian by choice; DH & I are not. Yet, accommodate everyone's dietary preferences.)

I'm sure all the parents above think they're doing a great job. I happen to be very hyper-critical and self aware. The world is full of clueless people who think they're doing an awesome job.

The world isn't so black and white. I'd love to hear more nuanced answers from people who understand the benefits (and downsides) of being conscientious and, yes, perfectionist.

You are not great or awesome.
You are not the idea parent.
You are not doing it better than everyone else.
You have nothing to be smug about.

Your children tell other moms that they like going to their house because they can touch things and eat normal food. The moms then judge you harshly.
The mom doesn’t like coming to your home for play dates. She is lying and being passive aggressive towards you but you are so smug you can’t see thought her.

OP here. You must made my point. I agree with most of your criticisms. Except I don’t believe you’re any better thank I am. While I see your flaws, I am not full of venom. I don’t approve of some parenting techniques, but It doesn’t make me want to “take them down a notch.” We all make sacrifices somewhere, and I understand their priorities are different. That’s curious to me, not a threat. Obviously, I wish I could shift mine.

Or maybe that makes me smug to reply smugly to a smug poster.

BTW, You think you know what the child I had over for the play date was thinking? How? You could be right or wrong. More likely, you only see what you want to see.

Yes, you are right, that is an accurate description of yourself

Listen no one ever thinks you are perfect. Moms like you are fun and easy targets to make fun of via passive aggressive remarks. Except you are so smug you really truly believe what others tell you.

If a mom tells you "Good for you for doing xyz" or "I would love to have a house as clean and tidy, no toys and now mess " or " I wish we could eat all organic but my kids"
- any of these are the start to snark. the rest of the moms are in on it while you sit there beaming like an idiot.

Please like yourself enough to take meds .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP Here. I know parents of 4 who will use tylenol PM to put their fussy child to sleep on tough nights. One classmate of my daughters already has several capped teeth. She's constantly sucking on lollipops when we see her at the park. Another child gets a ham sandwich for lunch every day, despite telling her mom she's committed to vegetarianism. She confessed to me that she likes coming to my home for playdates because I don't force her to eat meat. (My kids are vegetarian by choice; DH & I are not. Yet, accommodate everyone's dietary preferences.)

I'm sure all the parents above think they're doing a great job. I happen to be very hyper-critical and self aware. The world is full of clueless people who think they're doing an awesome job.

The world isn't so black and white. I'd love to hear more nuanced answers from people who understand the benefits (and downsides) of being conscientious and, yes, perfectionist.

You are not great or awesome.
You are not the idea parent.
You are not doing it better than everyone else.
You have nothing to be smug about.

Your children tell other moms that they like going to their house because they can touch things and eat normal food. The moms then judge you harshly.
The mom doesn’t like coming to your home for play dates. She is lying and being passive aggressive towards you but you are so smug you can’t see thought her.

OP here. You must made my point. I agree with most of your criticisms. Except I don’t believe you’re any better thank I am. While I see your flaws, I am not full of venom. I don’t approve of some parenting techniques, but It doesn’t make me want to “take them down a notch.” We all make sacrifices somewhere, and I understand their priorities are different. That’s curious to me, not a threat. Obviously, I wish I could shift mine.

Or maybe that makes me smug to reply smugly to a smug poster.

BTW, You think you know what the child I had over for the play date was thinking? How? You could be right or wrong. More likely, you only see what you want to see.

Yes, you are right, that is an accurate description of yourself

Listen no one ever thinks you are perfect. Moms like you are fun and easy targets to make fun of via passive aggressive remarks. Except you are so smug you really truly believe what others tell you.

If a mom tells you "Good for you for doing xyz" or "I would love to have a house as clean and tidy, no toys and now mess " or " I wish we could eat all organic but my kids"
- any of these are the start to snark. the rest of the moms are in on it while you sit there beaming like an idiot.

Please like yourself enough to take meds .

+1 OP clearly isn't open to criticism and suggestions.