Something that I have long believed is that we all put our parenting (and everything else, but I am talking about the parenting today) energies towards different things. For example, I got an email recently from someone that I sent Christmas presents for her kids to and she said “I just don’t know how you do it!” And I was all “uh, you have that PhD in nuclear biology (or something) that I do not have…”
But anyway, my point here is that we all have different things that we care about and different things that we put our time, money, and energy towards. Some people are all about the organic food and make their own baby food. Maybe someone else makes all their kids clothes by hand. Maybe someone else is really committed to reading to their kids and makes a point to read them ten books a day. Maybe another parent cares a lot about balance and doesn’t do any one thing to an extreme. There are lots of examples here.
I think my main “energies” are car seats, shoes (these two are the places I put my money, not necessarily my energy and time), cloth diapers (but we can technically call that a hobby…), and clothes. Maybe also things like extended nursing and baby led weaning but I kind of do those because they are easier for me than not, so I don’t know if that counts. The clothes thing is not necessarily for expensive or cheap clothes (because I definitely do some of both), but I am pretty fussy about my kids always looking nice. (With this comes excessive face wiping because I cannot stand things like smeary mouths and runny noses. I’m not judging your kids or anything, but poor Elizabeth is always being held down and wiped. I am not 100% on that or anything because I am not superwoman, but I do my best to keep the kid smear free.) I don’t buy many things with licensed characters on them and I am super fussy about Elizabeth wearing things that are appropriate. (Ryan too, but I’ve only been dressing him for five months and there are fewer baby clothes problems.) I do not let her wear anything that I consider rude (things like shirts that say “Mom said no? Ask Grandma!”) and I am super picky about her clothes being appropriate for a little girl. (For example, I am not a huge fan of spaghetti straps or animal prints, though I have made exceptions for both of those in the past.) Matt even commented on that a few months ago at the mall, that Elizabeth is usually dressed nicer than the average kid. I was impressed that he noticed. Clothes are not really Matt’s thing.
Now, I do not care in the least if you make other choices for your kids. Like I said, everyone has different priorities for their energy. I’m just curious, what are the things that are important to you?
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Gosh, I am just so lax. Boo. Maybe I’m one of those balanced people?
I feel like we might be kids clothing kindred spirits. My list of things I refuse to let my children wear is LONG. No gendered clothing (boys like sports! put footballs on it!), nothing that sexualizes a child, in general no knitwear, nothing that tries to make kids into little adults, nothing with idiotic words on it (chicks dig me! BARF), etc. I can’t tell you much cute stuff I’ve put back at Target once I’ve realized it says “I;m Daddy’s Favorite!” or some vomitous thing on it.
I don’t know that I would say I put my energies there, though. I think I direct a lot of my energies towards making sure my kids are decent human beings, but I also really value not being a super uptight high maintenance parent. So I think I am probably really strict about manners but sort of who cares about stuff like McDonald’s, if that makes sense.
Oh, and let’s not even talk about how much camo I’ve had to unload on Goodwill. My in laws are hunters, and my kids DO NOT wear camo or skulls or other violent imagery, so out it goes! Sigh.
I have noticed, too, that Elizabeth always looks nice:)
One of my big things is frugality (which is similar to laziness), so I basically dress Margaret in whatever we get as hand-me-downs, whether I like it or not. I do give all the ‘rude sayings’ shirts to Goodwill immediately, because I also can’t stand them either, but her wardrobe can basically be summed up as “early 90s fashion with a few nice things her Grandmas bought mixed in.” Paul’s are “I bought this in giant lots on eBay.”
I’m trying to think of what my other things are. I suppose reading? We go to the library a minimum of once a week and the kids usually check out 10-15 books. But that’s also partly because I can’t stand always reading the books we own. Anything to get something else into the rotation so I don’t have to sing my way through Dora’s Songbook ever again.
Oh! The plus side of early 90s clothing, though it’s not the most fashionable, is that most of the clothes are actually cut for CHILDREN, not dolls. Shorts are long enough, ditto with skirts, no belly shirts. Worth the faded/out of style factor for me, with the bonus that I don’t have to go shopping.
People have commented that I never let Annika wear shorts that are too short. All of her shorts come at least to her knees, I just think it’s inappropriate for a 3 year old to have shorts that are right at her butt cheeks!
I put quite a bit of energy into what my daughter is exposed to with media and books, but find that flexibility is definitely part of that picture, especially as she grows. I think I’m probably overall too lazy to have either a PhD in anything or make all organic food for every meal, but I do try to feed my family healthy, well balanced meals (and the occasional box of Annie’s mac & cheese), so maybe I fall into the balanced category? Or the balanced, but lazy category?
This doesn’t really answer your question, but I put most of my energy into my work and the second most of my energy into my marriage. I… don’t know what will happen when we have kids. I hope there is a natural shift? But I do find myself fretting (a lot, unfortunately) that I don’t do as much as I should, so it was helpful to read this and remind myself that a person can only do SO MUCH, and maybe putting energy into maintaining friendships or sending birthday cards/presents or whatever just isn’t worth the cuts into the work and marriage parts of my life.
But man. It would be NICE to be able to do it all! And still be sane, of course.
P.S. Your kids DO look very nice! And adorable.
Quality time since I work.
Manners.
Fostering an interest in learning
Shoes
Outdoors time
It is interesting huh?
I was very into breastfeeding and babywearing and cloth diapers and this time around I’m just kind of “meh” – I’m still doing the first two (got lazy on the third right at the moment) but I’m not putting my energy into them and socializing around them like I used to. Now it’s car seats.
My big thing with the girls, the thing that I put a lot of my parenting energy towards, are their scrapbooks. I feel like I’m always shocked when people don’t really have a memory book for their kid and it’s just not a big deal for them. I take thousands of photos and I write down every single thing in a calendar, my blog, a baby book and a scrapbook. I’m always stressing on getting it all organized. And I realize that they probably won’t care half as much as I do. But still. It’s my thing.
I’m with you on e smeary mouths and runny noses…. If there is one thing I hate is seeing a kid with his nose cover in (gross, I can’t even type it….)
I looove the nursery where my kid goes, except for that fact…. Everytime I go to pick Ale up, there is at least one kid with a runny nose, many times it has been MY kid and I just hate it!! I am convinced that if they did a better job cleaning their noses, there would be less kids falling sick!
Anyway, I’m also into cloths and breastfeeding… I did my baby food when Ale was little, but I’m not into organic… And I’m not fussy about what he eats. As long as he eats fruits and vegetables he can eat candy or whatever he likes… Of course always in measure.
And BTW, I do NOT know how you do it! You are one of my life heroes!! Two kids, so organized, so much in charge…. i am drawning here and my MIL has been with me an entire month to help me with the baby…. Hehe
When I sat down to write this comment, I thought I would have something more to say. I think that most of the things I cared about, I don’t anymore. Whether it’s that I found it wasn’t worth (for me, not you or anyone else) worrying about or I am just beaten down by my children (I have 3 now) that I don’t have time to care.
I’d have to say, honestly, I put my energy into my marriage (making sure we spend time together, doing things that help my H, going away periodically). That sounds corny.
I gave up on the clothes thing because my ILs buy a ton of clothes for my kids and it’s not always what I would pick, but it’s fine. Then I don’t care if it gets dirty or stained because not a lot of money or effort was spent on those outfits. I used to try and get worked up about what they were eating, now I just let them eat whatever (within reason, obvs) and I cook good things for my H and myself.
Hmm, I’m interested to see what other people say because I don’t know what my “things” are, LOL.
Very thought provoking. I think outside time for kids is very important to me as a parent, manners, and sleeping in your own bed. Very important.
I love this post and the comments it’s generated.
I’ve noticed the difference in my ability to focus my parenting energies since I stopped working part time and am now at home all the time. Interestingly to me this has not helped me become more rounded in my parenting as I thought it might, but allowed me do more if the things I was spending time on before, not really what I’d expected but it shows these things are important to me. For example I had always planned to do more memory recording as i do think this is important, I.e. scrap booking, baby book making etc. I know I’ll wish I’d done that when they’re older but in truth I find that sort of thing quite dull to do and never seem to have the time for it. I take about 5 photos or little videos a day though and my husband occasionally spends a couple of hours going through these and dropping em into a file by month and year, I hope that will be enough when they’re older. I’m also not great at keeping my kids particularly clean and presentable as the day goes on, obviously noses get wiped when needed and hands are washed when they ought to be but grass pain stains on trousers and a bit of spaghetti sauce on faces when a bath is an hour later ends up staying there for the most part as long as we have no company! Everyone is always bathed before bed though.
In terms of what I do focus on, definitely:
- car seats, strollers, general safety and big purchases get a lot if research time, but once they’re bought I don’t think about them much.
- I’m probably too particular about junk food, I generally only put healthy home made food in front of my kids and insist on them having “a good go” at their dinner of they do say they want a desert that is a bit less healthy than fruit or yoghurt. I totally do not agree with the “clear your plate” approach but I think if they’re hungry enough for some cake they can manage some of their veg/ spaghetti/ whatever main course.
- the appropriateness of clothes to an extent but I have two boys so I’m less worried than if I had a daughter. With a girl I’d definitely steer clear of the too grown up stuff. However the clothes thing recently worked against me, we went to a nearby aircraft museum and my three year old found a historic war plane t shirt that he wanted, I’m not really one for putting objects of war on a child’s clothing but hey, it was from a museum! Now he lives it so much he has worn it two days and nights straight!
- books and outdoor time and limiting tv / ipad time to an hour or two max a day. Definitely no inappropriate tv.
- family, having access to grandparents, respecting them and nurturing those relationships.
- manners.
Wow that was far too long, sorry!
In terms of
Very interesting topic! Here’s my list:
- Intellectual curiosity (Bedtime Math and lots and lots of books. Very little TV)
- Good attitude (To me this encompasses good manners/behavior, thoughtfulness, no whining, appropriate language)
- Age appropriate & timeless activities and clothing
Interesting post! I’m big on manners (to us, other adults and their friends), age appropriate clothes (though I let my son wear a lot of superhero shirts but that’s because he will get himself dressed in those voluntarily vs. me having to cajole him to get dressed otherwise), age appropriate tv/activities and good, healthy food. I always wanted to be more into photo saving (I take a lot of pictures and then don’t do anything with them) and crafts but eh, I realize its not gonna happen.
Let’s see…
- Appropriate and nice clothes for my kids. Though, in reality, I worry more about my daughter. Very few shirts with words on them for her (though it’s not uncommon for my son’s shirts to have words on them), but nothing sassy or snarky or inappropriate. Some licensed characters are okay. No camo.
- Books. We go to the library a lot, but we also buy a fair number of books for the kids, too.
- Food. We rarely eat fast food or if we do (say on a trip), we look for a Subway (and I feel very lucky that my kids will eat the veggie toppings with their sandwiches). We cook and bake from scratch a lot (though I didn’t make my kids’ baby food). And in the summer we have a garden. Oh, and agree with MabelB — kids don’t need to clean their plates, but if they are hungry enough to eat dessert, they should eat some of their dinner, too.
- TV is limited. We don’t own a Wii or PlayStation or Nintendo. But we do have games on our iPhones that the kids get to play on what they call “Angry Birds Wednesday.” (so yeah, usually, just once a week though more than just Angry Birds is allowed. Though we have more Angry Birds games than anything else!)
- Keeping kids’ noses clean! Amen.
- Manners and kind behavior.
- Spending time outside.
Great topic — I’ve enjoyed reading all the responses!
This is a great topic! I’ve loved reading everyone’s responses. Here are mine:
1. Education. This is top on my list more for ‘money’ energy that personal energy. I spend a huge amount of money (there are far less expensive daycare options in my area) on the school my kids go to because I have no doubts that my kids are being exposed to reading, writing, art, sensory stuff, social skills.
2. Experiences. Because I don’t have to worry about the above stuff personally (well, as much. We still do read books, do art together, play games that help teach numbers) – I can focus a lot of my energy on making sure the kids do ‘stuff’ that I think is fun and/or important. I’m having them both go to camps this summer, everyone will do swim lessons, we takes fun overnight trips, we’ve taken long train rides to Washington, DC to see the cherry blossoms. We try to do things together in the evening when the weather in nice instead of just coming home and cooking dinner – like bike rides or just picnics outside.
3. Friends. I spend a LOT of time with both my friendships and the kids friendships. I want them to have ‘buddies’ and people they can count on – of all ages.
4. Manners. This is a constant point at our house – “Elbows off the table.” “Can you rephase that a little nicer (in response to I want MILK).
5. Church. Its amazing how much energy I spend taking the kids to church for just 1.5 hours a week. I bagged going the past two weekends, and it was SO nice to have that block of time, but the things my kids learn at church are very important to me.
Off my list:
At my kids school, character shirts are ‘cool’ currency – so not only do I buy them, I activley look for them on sale. When Cam arrives with a batman shirt on, all the others boys surrond him and say COOL SHIRT! So I’m fine with that. But I won’t buy anything that I feel way above their age – Maggie will NOT get a bikini nor grown up black dresses and also I don’t buy the cute wording shirts. But if they come as a hand me down, I won’t throw away -but I will put it in the extra clothes pile for school.
Matching clothes. I give the kids carte blanc with getting themselves dressed in the morning, and I only make sure that the clothes are weather appropiate. Last week Maggie insisted on red pant and a purple polka dot sweatshirt. I cringed, and asked if maybe she should change, but she didn’t want to and i didn’t push it.
This is SUCH a good post. It makes so much sense that we all have different things that are important to each of us. I am going to do my best to remember to think this way when I’m feeling like I am failing at mothering because I can’t sew, or Tot gave out store bought Valentines, or because dinner sometimes has packaged elements.
Since I work outside the home, being present when I’m present is a big deal to me. It may be pillow fights or reading or something else, but we want Tot to be with one/both of us when we’re not working. I agree about the “rude” clothing and felt similarly with Teen’s clothing (even/especially as a teen). Being pleasant is another thing that we care a lot about. No one will be happy all the time, but it’s possible to be less than happy without being rude.
Otherwise, we try to go with the flow. I think moderation is a big factor in many areas of life. We need a little sword fighting and free time mixed in with our puzzles and reading. We also need a Saturday morning donut to balance out all our salads!
This is a great thought-provoking post. I have a 2 1/2 year old, and it’s interesting to me how my expectations/priorities have shifted with the reality of single motherhood. I’d say my priorities now are getting good play time in with my son when I get home from work, getting him outside (he would ALWAYS rather be outside, so that one’s easy), keeping him moderately clean and well-dressed (difficult with so much fun dirt time outside), and making sure he has manners/doesn’t whine/no hitting. Safety is always a priority (car seats, crossing streets, etc.) but I do let him explore his skills on playgrounds and do other “risky” things under close supervision. He loves to have books read to him, which is/was a priority for me, but like the outside thing, he makes this easy to fulfill, since he’s often requesting it.
Less prioritized than I originally thought they would be are things like super healthy eating. I provide lots of good food, and I have become much more aware of buying organic foods, limiting sugar/corn syrup/salt, so basically what he’s getting is pretty healthy, but he also eats Mac and Cheese more often than I thought I’d let happen. I also went from zero screen time with him to letting him watch appropriate/somewhat educational tv (Curious George, Wild Kratts, Thomas). I cloth diapered for 2 full years, and I loved it, but the toddler poop and leaking pee finally did me in a few months ago, so I gave up on that, especially since potty training time isn’t too far away.
I keep a blog going for out of town friends/family, and I’ve converted some of that into book form as his scrapbook, but as he gets older and life gets busier, I find myself updating it less often. Still, that serves as a pretty good record of his early childhood.
Thanks for the interesting post, and the comments from the other readers are great, too.
Reading is one of my big things. Kalena’s preschool encourages 20 minutes of reading a day (they have a color-in reading sheet) and we have NO PROBLEM meeting that. I also buy books regularly and try to take the kids to the library often.
My other big thing is having well behaved children. I don’t want this to come across like I don’t think other people think about this or work on it, because I know everyone wants it and works for it! But I feel like it is one area that I am really a stickler. We have very few hard and fast rules but they definitely get obeyed. I also work hard on encouraging good manners (please & thank you are some of the first signs my kids learned) and on teaching my kids kindness and empathy. Of my siblings and close friends I’m definitely the “strict” parent. I work really hard on being consistent and on following through when I make threats. I actually sort of hate that this is my thing. I’d really prefer it if “playing often with my kids” or “having fun crafty/artistic things to do” were my thing. Sadly no.
I’m pretty lax about what my kids wear (no bikinis or rude sayings being the exception) and they’re almost never in shoes. Also, my kids are often messy and my house is ALWAYS messy. I regularly wish that I put more energy into those things.
Great topic! I am very picky about what my kids wear, they need to be neat and clean if we are going somewhere and I am not a fan of character attire, and we limit sports attire. They definitely need to be appropriately dressed for holidays as opposed to my in laws that show up in the dead of winter in shorts. I spent money on strollers and car seats, and didn’t worry about the other stuff. I work full time so I try to be with the kids when I am home as much as possible. Manners and speaking when spoken to are also big on my list.
My kids are grown (age 28, 25, and 22), so it’s hard for me to remember what my priorities were when they were the ages you’re talking about. I don’t recall as many options as you see today vis-a-vis character clothing (there was a beloved ALF shirt, and a few Simpsons T-shirts) but since I had two boys and then a girl, my girl wore plenty of hand-me-down overalls and blue things (it still drives me crazy that clothing and toys are all so gender-specific). My daughter wasn’t a tomboy, but wasn’t much into pink or princesses either (she loved her pink cowboy boots!), so it was good that she had a lot of essentially gender neutral hand-me-downs. I don’t remember as many rude sayings on clothes, but generally speaking I wasn’t particular about what they wore most of the time, because kids like to play outside and get dirty — and they did a lot of that! Special occasions, like church, weddings, or parties was where I tried to make sure they looked their best. It drove me crazy when the boys wanted to wear shorts to school in mid-winter in junior high, but I learned to pick my battles, and that they wouldn’t to get THAT cold if they’re riding the bus. If they’d had to walk a couple miles to school, I suspect they’d have decided long pants made more sense — however our winters are weird, with below freezing in the morning and mild at mid-day).
I thought I was providing healthy food, but as I got older and learned more about nutrition and food additives, I now feel like I didn’t do such a great job. At least when they were high-schoolers, I was more aware of good nutrition so they left home with better habits. I rarely bought cookies, cakes, or baked goods; those were homemade, because I preferred them that way. But they prefer boxed mac-n-cheese over homemade (I prefer the latter).
I hear you on the messy faces. I may not have been diligent about making sure their faces were ALWAYS clean, but I can’t stand pictures of kids with food (or worse) on their faces, whereas my younger sister seems to think it’s cute (I have oodles of photos of her boys that way – ugh!).
Since I was one of those bookworm types who never did sports and wasn’t good at physical activities I wanted to make sure my kids were more well-rounded and had good exercise habits (because I became an overweight adult). Education is important and I volunteered at their school and was a scout leader even though I also worked full time, but I also made sure they were active in sports, letting them choose what they liked to do, but also making sure they learned to swim, to ride a bike, and to ski (or snowboard). My brother seems to have emphasized education (which is fine) without much regard for physical activity and his kids are all overweight. I came to understand that one can learn valuable lessons in sports that transfer to the working world, things that you can’t learn very well from books or from academia, so I felt like I was providing more balance that way.
I dearly would have loved for them to take music lessons, but none of them had any aptitude, nor could they follow a tune, so I didn’t push that. I think it would have been a big waste of time and money. None of them wanted to do dramatics, which I did.
Cloth diapers and more recently babywearing.
Outdoor play. Creative thinking. Exposing my children to adult ideas – not talking down to them, and if they ask a question, I won’t necessarily give a “kid” answer. (If they seek further info, I will scale it down, but that is not usually the way it happens. Usually they are just interested in further information. For instance, just last week I attempted to explain the number e to my five year old. He didn’t get it, but he was intrigued, and a seed has been planted.) Never insulting their intelligence. Being kind, to everyone.
We homeschool – can you tell? And I do have a PhD but it’s not like I use it or anything, and I still have a sneaking suspicion I fell into it because I was too lazy to wake up at the same time every day for a real job.
I suppose my thing is scheduling. I’m always hearing from folks who are constantly running their child to some activity. Soccer for part of the year, tee ball after, swimming next, etc., etc. It sounds exhausting to me, for both the parent and the child. So, my hubs and I decided when the kids were very small that they would only do one activity that they really loved–just one. School is our boys’ number one job; it always comes before anything else. And they should have lots of unscheduled play time. So, they do Cub Scouts and they seem to really love it. Plus their grades (such as they are in elementary school) are very good and they seem very relaxed and happy. So, I feel pretty happy too.
I really have to think about this one. I think people around me could answer this better than I could. As it relates to my kids- SIDS safety, manners, balanced eating, naturalistic vs. medicine/chemicals.
Hmmmm, I’ll have to give this one more thought. As you’ve seen through the years, clothes is not on my list.