Monday 27 April 2015

What makes a good parenting blog?

Certainly not a lot of the ones I read anyway.

I shock people sometimes with my honesty, I blog about real events, how it affects us as a family and what conclusions we have drawn. I have permission, I'm not allowed to photograph the teen, but he has helped me with the hashtags for his recent visit for instagram, even if it's only his arm that appears in the photo and they'd all rather I didn't tag them on Facebook as then all their friends get to see it, but they don't mind the rest of the family and my friends reading about it all.

Why am I writing this post? Well having joined in with numerous linkys/groups/forums I'm starting to see too much of an artificial world, too many scripted and planned out blogs, too many gushing reviews, too many perfect lives.

But it doesn't bother me that much, as I'm almost done with raising my family, in fact I no longer parent on a daily basis, there's only one child left under 18 and we packed him off as soon as we could back to the UK to boarding school, while we live the life of riley as expats in Dubai, by the beach. I'm sure that would probably get more hits for a post like that, but then it would probably attract the trolls also and anyway I write for myself, for others in similar situations and certainly not for the stats, which btw aren't too bad, but unlike a lot of you I'm not going to make a fortune from blogging unless I can get 10,000 hits per day (some of you are deluded, but you're happy I suppose) I did get 10,000+ hits recently on a youtube video over 2 days.

My youngest son moving to the UK was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my entire life, it didn't get easier because we'd already had kids leave home, each child that left, wherever they went and for whatever reasons broke my bloody heart, but we knew they'd go one day. There were times when I could've quite cheerfully let them live with their other parent. The arguments, the rows, the fights, the name calling and yes it was both sides. It wasn't healthy for any of us, but now they are adults and now they have their own lives, we all just get on fine. We have our space, our own routines, our own habits, no one to annoy, no one to argue and fight with.

This is one of the downsides about living in a large family, you can't please one another all the time, in fact it is rare to even have one or two getting on at any one time. But when they come to visit now, they come as an only child, they come home to mum and dad, they come home as adults and we value and respect each others space, as we all remember what it was like to live on top of one another.

I have no issues with telling you the truth about the realities of family life. I don't care much if you think I'm a bad parent, I'm just a different parent, I am an honest parent.

I have a friend who is aghast at the antics of my children over the years. I told her not to judge as her son is only 11, she looked at me and I said 'I can see that you're thinking oh no, not my child, he won't be like that, ever' and as much as I'm truly not wishing any of the negative things about living with teens, I know she will have her own set of issues and worries about him, she will justify his behaviour, she will analyse her role in it, she may dismiss it, she may challenge it, but it will be there all the same.

The same with some of you when I read your blogs, there are food issues (please research the difference between food allergies and intolerances and learn that sometimes it's not always the food that causes your child to behave badly) I've been there, done that. There is being bullied at school, there is your child playing an active role in bullying, there is being top of the class, the best reader etc, but the reality is, half the time you're exaggerating your child's achievements, but I'm not knocking you for that, I'm proud of my kids also, I'll tell you when they've done something to make me proud. But I'm realistic and more often than not, I'll tell you about the things that went wrong, the pain, the heartache, the walking away, the tears behind closed doors.

It's difficult to measure the success of parenting unless you acknowledge the pitfalls and being honest with yourself certainly helps to make parenting a lot easier.



4 comments:

  1. Well said! And so true...
    People like to put out the good (and sometimes embellished) and I've learnt that. The issue comes when trying to become like the Joneses

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    1. i can't compete, i find it too much of a struggle

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  2. I like that someone else totes a soap box too.:) I have my own theory about allergies - we are too obsessed with being germ free and don't build up a tolerance against allergens.
    I used to worry that I had hardly any hits on my blog and hardly any 'opportunities', but I've gone past caring now.
    LIke you I see lots of Mummies saying my child this and my child that.. YAWN.. yeah it's nice but in reality they are just the same as most other kids. :)

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    1. i agree with 100% on the issue of allergies, let kids be kids, everyone seems so keen for them to grow up too fast and only play with gender neutral toys also

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