For most of my life, I've been "eh" about most
things. Of course, I have my personal political views (left), but I try not to
talk about them outside of my husband and work--both of which think the same
way I do. I don't find it a productive use of time to talk about them
elsewhere. But for the most part, I'm not opinionated on most things. To each his
or her own. Now if a friend is about to do something stupid, I might say
something ("Have you thought about looking at it this way?"). If
someone asks my advice, I might give advice.
I find it interesting that one area where I definitely have
opinions is parenting. I have rather deep, passionate opinions on how to raise
my child. I recognize that my way might not be the "right" way, and
all parents are trying to raise happy, successful children. There are many
paths to take to get there; I realize that.
My parents were lackluster in certain areas (aren't all
parents?), but my mother was superlative in others. She raised me to be very
resourceful and completely independent (not sure that was by design) with a
strong work ethic. I follow through on the commitments I make with rare
exception, and I try to be very reliable. Upon entering the work world, I
realized how rare these qualities are in a world where people drop out at the
last minute, miss deadlines, are unorganized to the point of not reading important emails, etc. My motto of "show up
prepared," which I thought was a given for everyone, isn't universally practiced. And I think a huge part of where I am today is because I show up
prepared, far more than any skills I have. While I probably don't need to raise
my daughter to be as independent as I am, I think it's important to instill a
strong work ethic and reliability for the dividends it will pay in her life. So
I am a bit…overzealous when it comes to that.
I don't believe in monetary/"thing" rewards. I try
to instill that the psychological feeling of success is better than getting
money or "things" for accomplishments. For instance, she has weekly
spelling words at school. Some parents give their kids money or toys if they
got all their words right, especially back in the beginning of the year. I
thought to myself that it would be a difficult weekly reward to maintain, and
wasn't the goal for her to enjoy learning for the sake of learning instead of
for the reward? So I'm the parent who says "good job" and that's it.
The new thing seems to be surprising your kids with a
vacation (perhaps to that huge moneymaker that starts with a "D") and
missing school. Parents are renting billboards (I kid you not) to announce the
surprise to their kids. To each his or her own, I say.
With a bit of trepidation, we're going to that "D"
place in August. She has started asking about it since so many of her friends
have gone, and I do think she's old enough to really enjoy it. Why crowded
August? Because I do not want to show her by my actions that missing school is
acceptable to me. Sure, if her grandparent was on his or her deathbed or
something like that, of course I'd make an exception because I do want to role
model that people are more important than school. And as for announcement? We
told her earlier this week that we're going in August. I'm looking forward to
the anticipation she'll experience in the coming months, and we'll look at the
park map and plan what order we'll see things in. She'll be part of the
process. She's put the date on her calendar, and we're telling her that we'll
be staying with family for part of it, and we're staying on the property for
some of it. This is how I approach the whole thing, which is far different from
how most other parents approach it. And that's okay.
