Running Away

Sometimes I just need a break.  And it has taken a parenting advice book to tell me it’s okay to feel that way.  Rule 7 in Richard Templar's The Rules to Parenting book states that “it’s normal to want to escape”.  I completely agree with this rule because half the time I want to run away myself.  Those who don't have kids are shocked to hear this statement from a parent.  They think “hey, you had the kids, didn’t you think about this before all that happened?”  I know because I used to think the same thing.  And then something small changed my mind—a screaming child.

 This little innocent, precious, beautiful girl I held in my hands turned into the girl from The Exorcist right in front of me.  Smelly things spewed from her mouth (not to mention what happened in her diaper!) and her cute little cooing sounds turned into a high pitched, piercing sound that compared to nails on a chalkboard.  There is nothing appealing about cleaning up this mess either.  Get Me Out Of Here! exploded in my mind.

Taking a little break at this point helps to keep you sane.  Five minutes later, after a cigarette (yes, I smoked—horrible me) and more than a few deep breaths, I felt much more capable of dealing with the situation.  Few non-parents realize that how you deal with one of those moments makes you a good parent or a bad one.  A bad parent doesn't know when to walk away.  How you deal with the monster your little angel becomes really shows you what you’re made of.  Sometimes you need to walk away in order to be able to come back.

A full vacation would be the most wonderful escape imaginable to me right now.  I haven’t been away from my children for more than a night since they were born.  It’s normal to want to get away;  to have an adult conversation, sleep in, and basically worry about yourself once in awhile.  Templar was awesome to put this chapter in his book.  It let me know that I’m not the only one that feels this way, and that it’s okay.  Truth of the matter is that once I’m away from my kids for only a few hours on this imaginary vacation I would be taking, I would be calling my mother and cousin asking them how my kids are doing and to let me talk to them again.

The Man Behind the Name

The author of the book I’m reading is Richard Templar.  While reading through his parenting book, I decided to look up some personal information on the author.  The only bit of information I could find on his background was found on RedAudio, a UK book selling website.  Templar states:

[I've had] over 60 books published on a wide range of subjects including business, astrology, alternative medicine, Chinese culture, sex and humour (not all in any one book though). Before being a writer - although that was what I always wanted to do - I did many jobs including being a casino general manger, business consultant, cave guide and stress management consultant (again never all at one time). I have been married twice, have six children, one granddaughter and I badly need a rest and a holiday.

 Basically, he has had numerous children and can provide the experience needed to write a rules book on good parenting.  But why is that the only information I could find on Templar actually having children?  A single website that incorporated his own personal quote on having children.  To me this seems suspicious.  The reason I decided to look into his personal background, despite all of the wonderful reviews his book received from other parents, is because his chapters are starting to seem a bit idyllic to me.  This sense will come across in the next few blogs I post.  If a person is truly a parent (and I mean the one that helps take care of the kids and isn't just a background figure), then why would they have such a perfect outlook on parenting?  It isn’t easy, and does it nowhere near resemble perfection.  And with all of these books, jobs, and tours- how does one make sure their children are raised properly?

I don’t mean to tear apart the personal life of such a successful writer, but I am just a bit curious as to the experience and time spent with his own children of a person I am taking parenting advice from.  Just a few thoughts for today….

Crazy Mom's and Clean Houses

So the book I’ve chosen to seek parenting advice from is called The Rules of Parenting by Richard Templar.  I chose this book because 1) it had numerous good reviews on it and 2) this is only one in a series about parenting.  The first chapter of the book emphasizes relaxation.  Templar gives examples of parents who don’t relax (which would be the category I fall under according to the examples given) and then suggests actions relaxed parents take instead.  The example given in this chapter that I seem to completely embody is the parent who is obsessed with cleaning up after their child and gets upset when the kid makes a mess.  Let me give you Templar’s suggestion before I describe in more detail my particular situation.  The remedy to an uptight parent is to relax.  Templar states that “really good parents expect their children to be noisy, messy”.

Now, my side of this story.  I have a personal vendetta against a messy house.  It absolutely drives me crazy to have toys strewn everywhere, shoes all over the living room, and kids with dirty hands running around and touching everything.  And according to Templar, this is something that a parent needs to work on and to let go.  So I tried this new method.  I let my children bring out all of their toys—and I left it alone.  My son decided to try on every pair of shoes he owned (and a few of his sister’s)—and I let them alone.  After playing outside in bubbles, my daughter decided to play with dirt (which basically caused a mud pie on her palms)—and I didn’t run to get a baby wipe right away.  Inside of my head I was ragging a war with myself to stop the compulsive cleaning behavior.  And which side one?  Neither!  Because at this point I am neither relaxed nor do I have a clean house.  I was on the verge of having a breakdown.  Yes, I know—they make medicine for this kind of behavior.  Consequently the relaxation method didn’t last very long.  The result of my first experiment was a crazy mommy and a messy house. 

While I admire those of us parents who can leave things to later, I am not one of them.  I would love to be, and I tried to be.  But it just didn’t work out for me.  I think some of us are just meant to be admired, while the rest of us can be neurotic and good parents at the same time.

  Image taken from

 http://buildingmynestofscotts.blogspot.com/2011/01/does-your-house-always-stay-clean-if-so.html

The Baby Bump Changes Your Mind

It’s hard to remember back to the times before I had kids, even if it wasn’t that long ago.  Four years ago I was a carefree young adult without any responsibilities--It was wonderful!  I was able to sleep until noon, go out at night and not be tired around midnight, and only had to worry about feeding myself. 

And when I was not a parent, I had some pretty strict ideas on what parents should and should not do.  I wanted my children to listen to me, to excel at school, and to be the kind of people you hear about from others that seem to have everything together.  I knew I wouldn’t allow the temper tantrums in public and I would never allow my child to tell me what they were going to do. 

Since I have become a parent, I’ve loosened my principles slightly.  I am not so strict in controlling every aspect of my children’s lives.  I still want them to make the right choices; however, now I give them more options and let them choose for themselves.  (The trick to this is to only give them choices between two different options that I would approve of either way.  This gives them the illusion of being independent while still doing something I want them to do.  Mommy 1- Kids 0) I still don’t allow temper tantrums, and if they choose a public arena to have one then I have no problem with leaving right then and there and dealing with the issue at home.  And of course I want them to do well in school; what good parent wouldn’t want this for their child?  But as a parent, I know that I have a major role in their performance and need to take the initiative to guide them in the right direction.

So not much has changed since I had kids.  That may reflect badly on me, but it’s not always the big issues you think about when you become a parent.  It’s the little moments that make you soften your attitude.  My daughter caught me raising my voice at someone the other day, and told me that “mommy, you can’t talk to people that way”.  I guess she does listen to what I tell her after all.  Maybe I should follow my own advice to her.

Why Blog About Parenting?

“It's not only children who grow.  Parents do too.  
As much as we watch to see what our

children do with their lives, they are watching us 
to see what we do with ours.  I can't tell

 my children to reach for the sun.  
All I can do is reach for it, myself.”  ~Joyce Maynard

I was never raised around younger kids.  My mother likes to tell me that the first time I held my daughter that I had a look of a deer caught in the headlights.  I had no idea how to take care of a baby at that time.  I still have no idea how I’m supposed to be raising my kids.  What I do have is a sense of what I want my children to become in life.  I have been told that I am too hard on my kids and that they are too young to expect good behavior out of-- I disagree.  If any of you have ever been next to that kid screaming his lungs out in the middle of the grocery store, then you disagree as well.  I look around at what some children are today and I tell myself that there is no way I would ever let my kid act like that.  For this reason I have always tended to stay away from parenting advice.  But as a parent, how do you know if the way you are raising them is correct?  To respect authority and not to fear it?  To be a happy and confident person?

Every person has one idea or another on how your children should be raised.  Should they be spanked or not? Should they go to private schools?  Should I feed them nothing but organic baby food?  And honestly, there are no right answers.  Every parent raises their children differently and different things work on children because no one of us is alike.  With this blog I want to take a look and implement a well known parenting book,  The Rules of Parenting: A Personal Code for Raising Happy, Confident Children by Richard Templar, and see if what the “experts” suggest will actually work, or if it all is an ideal to achieve that is not achievable in reality. 

I will take one of these rules and test them out in daily situations that occur between me and my kids.  Maybe it will work, or maybe it won’t.  And all of the details will be out there for everyone to see.  Either way, I want real parents to know what another parent is trying and what actually works for me.  I’m hoping that by the end of this experiment that I will have found some new and useful ways in dealing with my children that will benefit us all.