Reply to Where in the DMV are parents of young kids allowed to be imperfect?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I hate to derail this thread, but I think your description really describes me. Not competitive or judgmental about others. But hustling and probably making parenting too hard. I’d like to become more like you. Do you have any tips? Or maybe some concrete examples where what you did seemed different/lower stress/easier than what other people were doing and it still basically worked out fine?

I’m trying to lower my standards and go with the flow more but… that’s not really my comfort zone. [/quote]

OP here and I think the main thing is that we embrace "good enough" a lot. But especially with things that are ultimately not going to change our kid's lives much. Stuff like baby gear (most of it is good enough), summer camps (safe and happy is good enough), weekend activities (some kind of action plus some relaxation). I also think we are fine with middle ground on a lot of things that many people we know go ALL THE WAY on. Like we restrict screen time but not 100% -- our kids don't watch TV all the time but they've seen plenty of non-education programming and it's fine. We want them to eat a nutritious, balanced diet but we don't freak out about treats or processed food. A little bag of Doritos is not going to kill my kid, but I also won't let them have a bag of Doritos daily, you know?

Also, we try not to get too worked up about when our kids reach milestones, as long as it's in the ballpark of normal. I've noticed a lot of our friend and neighbors getting very intense about when kids are learning to swim, ride bikes, or "get" activities like soccer or T-ball. These kids are all really young and I don't think it matters that much. I learned to ride a bike at 9. I never did rec soccer at all. It's okay. Our kids have some things they gravitate towards and enjoy and we definitely try to encourage those interests. And we make them take swim lessons every summer until they are good enough swimmers that we could leave them alone in the water (still some years to go). But otherwise we don't stress about it and I don't need them doing everything or doing it early. Same with stuff like reading -- it's fine to learn to read in 1st grade and not at age 4, I promise. These kids do not need to be accelerated in every single thing.

For us a lot of it is just about wanting to maintain a fairly chill and relaxed family life, so we choose not to stress about stuff that will make that hard. We don't over schedule because we don't want to be running around to a million activities when we could be hanging out at home, getting more sleep, and just relaxing. But it often feels like we're alone in this. No one ever talks about wanting to keep things relaxed and easy at home. They only talk about yet another thing we should all be doing if we want to be good parents. It's just not me. I think I'm a good parent even though I don't do a lot of that stuff. Maybe I'm delusional, I don't know.[/quote]

Love this - you are my people. :-D[/quote]

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