One of the (many) problems with learning how to be a parent using books is that the books offer conflicting advice. It's frustrating to say the least, but it also means that no matter what you do, you're doing it wrong (according to the books). I guess it's like religion in that way.
Parenting books seem to be of 2 classes: "woman" books (directed toward women) and "men" books. Woman books have titles like "what to expect when you're expecting" that are 4 inches thick and have advice that's either hippy-esque like "your body will know the path. Trust in that" or "___ is the ONLY way that you can do ____. Any deviation means you have failed as a parent". Men books have titles like "Be Prepared" (aside: that's a really good book) and are usually funny, short, to the point, and along the lines of "this is the problem you will see. Here are your options. Good luck." and helpful chapter titles like "The grossest chapter of this book".
Now, no matter what the books tell you, they may or may not actually work for your kid (based on my 7 weeks of fatherhood). They don't usually tell you that on the dust cover. And when you throw out all the other stuff that you have read and try to conform to the latest book (some of which may be working), that's not fun. It just adds to the stress which makes everybody crazy.
It's like having a scale. We borrowed one from a friend and were weighing Alice, often. This drives you mental. We were even talking to Laura's 90 year old grandmother and she said mention that she had one and it drive her mental. After over 65 years, she still remembers how crazy this made her.
One good thing about reading a bunch of parenting books: because everything that I do is wrong, then there's no way that I screw up worse. Yay for setting the bar at floor height. ;-)
Sounds like you're doing everything "right". Reading the books, trying to do your best. Just the fact that you're worried about how well you're doing shows that you really are doing a good job. Introspection and (attempted) improvement are the two most important things in doing things right, both in parenting and in many other facets of life. You are right though. No matter what you are doing, there's always a book out there that says you are doing it wrong. But there's most likely some other book out there that says you're doing it right. Oh, and about the scale. Get rid of all the fancy doo-dads they didn't have 1000 years ago.
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