Put down the books

It seems you can't ask for parenting help anywhere without getting a ton of recommendations for books.

I constantly get asked if I've read this book or that one.

If I have a review for them on it.

And I do read parenting books.  I find them troublesome and amusing all at the same time.

But my advice to you?

Put down the books.

Walk away.

Be with your child.

Okay, hear me out before you close the browser, mumbling about how much you love your parenting guru.

I hear you.

I understand you.

I was once you.

And then I realized my child wasn't any of the children in any books I've ever read.

She was her.

And her alone.

And I needed to stop trying to be the perfect parent a book outlines.

And instead be the perfect parent she needs.

And Deserves.

I'm not perfect, but I'm exactly what my daughter needs at exactly the moment she needs it.

I don't do everything "right" according to the books.

I don't "pick and choose" what fits my ideology.. because then what's the point of reading and advertising the book in the first place?

I don't enjoy the idea that someone knows every child and what they need in their parent or caregivers.

I'm not saying those people don't have good ideas.

I'm not saying their ideas are bad (or all of them, some of them are VERY bad).

I'm saying that as a parent, trying to live up to the expectations of a book was not the path I wanted to continue on.

Trying to make my daughter fit into one of he examples given in a book and then dealing with her in that way was unfair to her.

It didn't help my parenting.

And it made us both mad and intolerable in the end.

So I put the books down.

And currently I'm working on listening to my daughter.

Her needs.

Her experiences.

Her wants.

And parenting her according to those.

And sure, we aren't perfectly gentle in every thing.

We often say GOOD JOB!

We are even known to lose our shit and yell.

And that's okay.

Because we don't have to live up to a book to be good people.

To raise good people.

Our children rarely turn out good despite us, or in spite of us.

We are all active participants in the lives of those around us.  And we change those lives daily with our interactions.

And that is what empowers us as parents to teach our children to be the best they can be.  The impact we have on them daily in our decisions and reactions to them.

And so I threw away the books.

And I've turned myself inward.

And I parent my daughter based on how she needs to be parented.

Not what a book says.  Or a guru says.  But based on what she says.

And that is good.