Verified by 
Here’s how the conversation usually goes:
“So, what do you do?”
“I’m a social worker.”
“What kind of social work do you do?”
“I’m not in clinical practice right now. I’m actually writing.”
“Oh! What are you writing?”
“Well, I’ve got a book coming out.”
“That’s great! What kind of book?”
“It’s actually, um, a parenting book.”
[Pause. Pause.]
“Well, it was nice to meet you.”
I get it. I really do. Most of us are sick of the advice in parenting books well before the baby arrives, if we even make that long. Most of us parents are just trying to get through the day without going completely crazy; the last thing we need is the nagging voice of some “expert” reminding us of all the ways we’re permanently screwing up our kids. I know from experience.
Let me give you an example.
Potty training has been rough in my house, to put it mildly. (Ok, I guess it’s not as bad as it could be, seeing as how we only had one giant poop in the pants in the middle of Panera.) Don’t let that fool you, though. My daughters have peed all over some of the finest establishments in the greater Boston area, including schools, museums, restaurants, synagogues, and the couches of pretty much every person we have ever met. When this was happening with our older daughter, I flipped out and decided that I had to fix it. Immediately. I read every book and blog post on the topic, and diligently followed all of the advice. Here’s how that went for me:
I set timers. My daughter diligently toddled off to the potty and peed in said potty. Ten minutes later, she peed all over the kitchen floor.
I made star charts. My little girl peed anyway, and then smiled and said “That’s ok, Mommy. I’ll get my sticker tomorrow.” And then she peed again while her little sister ate the stars. (But only the gold ones; the kid is a classy one.)
I took her to the doctor. I spent hours making appointments, schlepping my little girl to the hospital, and bribing her to lay still for an ultrasound only to learn that she was FINE. (Except for the part where she was four years old and PEEING ALL OVER TOWN.)
Eventually, I gave up, partly because there was nothing else to be done and partly because I was just so damn tired. I resigned myself to carrying around an extra pants and sparkly Dora underwear everywhere I went. Eventually she pulled it together and kept her undies dry, but not because of anything I did. This was something she had to do on her own time.
And just in time for her sister to step up to the plate. The pee is flowing once again in our little house, but this time it’s not nearly as stressful for me. There are no timers or star charts, and not a single trip to the doctor (at least not about this). My little girl knows that when she has an accident, it’s her job to take off her wet stuff, head upstairs and get herself into clean clothes. (She does this happily approximately 2% of the time, but I’ll take what I can get.)
The difference this time is that I’m starting to get a sense of what I can control (not much) and what I can’t (almost everything). Now, this doesn’t mean that I’ve totally given up on actively parenting my kids (at least not before 5 PM), it just means that I’m learning (over and over again) how and where to focus my energy and attention. (Mindfulness helps, and we’ll talk more about that in future posts.)
Most importantly, I’m learning to let go of the myths that a) I can fix every problem my girls face and, perhaps more importantly, b) that what I do will determine who they become. Don’t get me wrong; it doesn’t mean that my work as a mother doesn’t matter. It does matter, greatly, because the relationship I have with my children is, without question, the greatest gift I can give them—more important than whether or not I send them to the best possible school or sign them up for just the right extracurricular activities or feed them Cheetos for dinner (that only happened once; it was potato chips the other time). Maintaining a strong, loving, responsive connection to my kids is the best shot I have at helping them become as happy, healthy, successful, and resilient as possible, but make no mistake—it’s no guarantee.
The thing is, that whole “strong relationship with your kids” thing is really damn hard. My kids are adorable and sweet and smart and all that stuff, but they can also be shockingly annoying. They’re needy and demanding and illogical and inconsistent—not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because that’s how kids are. Given all that, it not terribly surprising that motherhood has turned me into this giant red glowing button just waiting to be pushed, and man, my little ones push the crap out of that bad boy.
And that’s why I wrote a parenting book—not because I am a parenting expert and not because I want to tell you how to raise your children, but because I needed to re-learn the skills I allegedly learned in kindergarten: how to take a few deep breaths and not throw a tantrum every time I don’t get what I want, how to give myself a time out when I need it, and how to play nice with the people I care about.
My book, Parenting in the Present Moment, is now available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online publishers. It will be on bookstore shelves by October 14.
Want more mindful parenting? Follow me on Facebook and Twitter!
