The Perfect Parent

I was lurking on a parenting web board today that I used to frequent quite a bit and one of the threads on there got me thinking. Mostly that I'm glad I don't post there anymore. The original post could be paraphrased as "I'm a bad mommy because I yell at my kids and I'm trying to stop, please help me." She actually said in the title "bad mommy alert". Insert MAJOR eyeroll here. Whatever. Since when does it make you a bad parent if you yell at your kids? I agree that using a raised voice for every little transgression will probably backfire on you in the long run on the discipine front. But sometimes you just can't get your child's attention any other way.

So... between hush-hush parenting, the spanking-is-abuse camp and the self-esteem police, most of us are apparently in big trouble and our children are destined to fail as human beings. I'm not saying that we should reverse whatever parenting archetype we are working with and put our kids down, or spank them or shriek at them every time they get out of line, but are we supposed to be our child's best friend? Repeat after me, gang: NO. We... are ... the ... parents. Granted, none of us is perfect and we all regret some of the things that we do with regard to our children. I'd even venture to say it's okay to feel guilty if you yell at your kids for no apparent reason (which I'm ashamed to say, I've done on more than one occasion). But we are human beings and we're raising humans not automatons. And human beings have emotions: good and bad.

This brings me to the gist of the thought process that this poor, idealistic (and somewhat deluded) mommy stirred up in my brain... the Perfect Parent. That's what we all set out to be. From even before we have kids, and through each step of parenthood (up until we actually have to live through a particular stage with all involved parties coming out alive) we have a set of rules (conscious and subconscious) that we think we are going to live by. Rules that will make us a better parent then our own were:

HAH!

is what I say to that.

You already know the rules. They started being invented when we were children ourselves.

1) I'll never make my kids eat brussel sprouts.
2) My kids will be allowed to stay up late every night and watch rated R movies.

These are the easy ones to laugh off, but as you got older, the rules got more complex:

3) I'll never buy a minivan like Mom's (complex because you won't know you want it until you need it, and by then you might need a church van).
4) I won't ever use the TV as a babysitter (yeah right...talk to me again after you havent showered for four days straight).
5) I'll never yell at my kids.
6) I'll never spank my kids.
7) I'll never.
8) I'll never.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we simply can't BE the perfect parent who lives up to all of these hare-brained rules. Like I said before... until you are in that moment, and living that particular situation, you can't possibly know what you will do. It's much better to treat the Perfect Parent rules that you set up like the Pirate Code... not so much of a code and more of a guideline~ if you dont know what I'm talking about you haven't been to the movies in far too long... but I digress.

The bottom line is: You can't call yourself a bad parent for undermining your sense of parenting idealism, by actually behaving like a human. And you can't let your Perfect Parent Code get in the way of actually parenting. And you're not going to hell for yelling at your kids every once in awhile.