Reply to Do you ever get tired of being good? Good parent, good citizen, good neighbor….

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was thinking about this the other day.  How exhausting it is sometimes to try to do it "right".  I'm hoping the work I do now will pay off and make my life easier down the road.

Like, that teaching my kids about healthy food and letting them choose what they eat will result in not dealing with body/weight issues down the road.
Or getting my little kids to do chores so that it's not as hard of a battle for them to do them when they're bigger kids.

But it may not pay off at all, and parents that didn't give a shit at all will end up with perfect kids and mine will be all effed up.

I have no idea but I keep trying anyway.[/quote]

Think of this as a visit from your future -- I'm a Mom of late teens and I can tell which Moms put in the effort re: chores, healthy eating, self-sufficiency etc. and who didn't. Teen versions of kids without a strong positive influence like yours will be overweight, slovenly brats prone to anxiety because their parents didn't strengthen them by assigning tedious yet necessary tasks and shielding them from life's disappointments. I see them all the time.

Keep up the good fight - it's worth it and it shows to people you don't even know.[/quote]

DP, and I think you're attributing too much to parenting.  My parents were pretty permissive with both me and my sister.  I somehow ended up with a ton of self-discipline, I was responsible at an early age, neighborhood parents beat down my door for babysitting, etc.  Fast-forward 30 years and I have a well-respected job, healthy family (knock wood), etc.  My sister is a dysfunctional mess, hasn't worked in years, relies on our parents for everything, on and on.

Now, I do this stuff with my own kids because I think it's important for them, but I also think part of "being good" that too many mothers take on can include taking on too much responsibility for how their kids turn out.  It's not okay to assume you know everything about how a kid was parented based on who that kid is as a teenager.[/quote]

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