Generation Parent Guilt

I have been pondering parenting lately. What I am doing right, what I am doing wrong...what works what doesn't...that sort of thing. I despise parenting books, I prefer to look towards people I know or people in history that have qualities in life or parenting that I find valuable. What I have seen is we are generation of parent guilters. Perhaps its the access to information that nags at us. A fifteen minute trip on the internet you can quickly find your child should be involved in sports, music, activities, but just enough and not too much and you should be firm but not too firm. You should give them freedom but too much damages. You should homeschool unless you want them to be normal is socialization in which you should send them to school except don't let them be bullied. You will see how testing in schools and big classes are hurting their education, but sheltering them in a homeschool environment doesn't allow them to achieve full potential. You will find that its damaging to not touch them, but it is damaging to hover. We don't want the roots to be too deep or the wings to be too wide........

I stopped and realized a few things. One parenting has taken on so many different forms in the past. Some generations had families working the farms, some years had kids who played in the streets till the sun went down, some years had wars raging around and fathers off to war. However we have survived.........generations after generations of people that have quirks, histories and pasts. Yet somehow we seem to think that the harder we try we somehow will overcome all history and figure out how to parent near perfect children, who somehow will avoid problems and mistakes. What we find is a generation of parents who carry guilt. If I had done this or that. If I had been home more or if I had left them alone. If I had given them this or not given so much. If I had pushed them harder or pushed them less. If we didn't truly believe parents could achieve "perfect" children through "perfect" parenting we wouldn't be intrigued by shows like "Worlds Strictest Parents" or "Supernanny". I myself fall in the trap of thinking if only I had or I would or I can........Truth be told, there is no secret no special formula no perfect method. No guru has the answers. If we want the answers it comes down to the same answer for every area of our lives, the Bible. I have learned through life that my responsibility is to living for Jesus and studying and following the Bible. Through that my children will get what they need from me. It won't look like your family or a neighbors family or a friends family but I can be confident our kids will all become adults who all know how to navigate life. For some it will seem easier, but it nary is for them on the inside. We all have to find our way, regardless of our parenting.

Side note......I do not condone bad parenting :) In that I mean abusive type! I just think parents need to drop the guilt and worry and realize that if we are truly giving our best to our children, our children will turn out OK in the end :)