My three kids are all teenagers. They often tell me they feel like they were raised in a bubble. I wholeheartedly disagree, of course.
In their younger years, I didn’t send them to preschool, and I always got to know the parents before allowing them to go to a playdate without me.
As teenagers, they have a curfew, I make sure parents are home if they go to a friend's house to "hang," they follow the rules of the road, and if I find out they are doing something illegal, there are consequences.
If that makes me the overprotective mom they think I am, so be it. It’s all about parenting in your comfort zone
Let’s be honest here: We want to raise our kids in a way that will make them succeed and thrive when they get older. No one sets out to raise a “bad” kid. And while I think my kids are pretty damn good, I'm not one of those moms who thinks my kids can do no wrong.
I’ve never worked for something harder in my life
I want them to have a great childhood without being spoiled or feeling like they are superior and above anyone else. But just because I’ve lost sleep, tears, and all the skin on my fingers to make that happen doesn’t mean they aren’t going to screw up and make mistakes. In fact, they already have — several times over.
All of my children have been caught smoking pot. I’ve gotten a call from a few of their teachers about late assignments, showing up late to class, or just being an all-around asshole.
They have been sassy and sneaky
I’ve caught them in lies. They’ve tried getting out of doing the simplest of chores that literally take a few minutes to complete. They act up if they don’t get what they want sometimes, and have never fully appreciated all I’ve done for them.
I understand it’s too much to ask of my kids. Nobody holds me to a perfect standard, and I don’t want to do that to my kids. And just because they mess up and do something bad, it doesn’t mean they need to be walking around, branded for life.
So many of us (myself included) are afraid of what others think. You can’t get around it — we're hardwired that way.
I think we can all agree that none of us wants other people to think of our child as a “bad” kid, nor do we want people thinking we are bad parents. We don’t want the side eye. We don’t want our kids to be excluded. We don’t want them having a reputation they really don’t deserve.
Just because your kid, or any kid for that matter, makes a mistake — even a huge one — it doesn’t make them a bad kid.
If you do something to your partner you learn from and regret, does that make you a bad wife? If you forget a meeting with a friend, or say something out of spite, does that make you a bad friend?
Can you really be labeled for a few mistakes? Is it fair to label kids for theirs?
No, it isn’t
I wanted to raise good kids and I am doing that. Perfect kids who act like robots do not exist. They are all going to do things we don't approve of. That doesn’t make them a bad kid. And instead of giving them that label, we need to give them chances, help them learn and do better, and normalize the fact that they are going to screw up.
Most important, we need to give them a space to come to where they can feel safe and not ostracized because they did something we probably did several times when we were their age. It's called growing up, and in case you forget, your kid is still that same person you've poured your heart into.
