Just an ordinary mother

About Mommy blogs and the Internet. We know things we did not know we had to know about being mothers and parenting and babies and toddlers. And when we don’t know, we can ask a whole worldwide community of knowledgeable mothers! Mothers have so many choices now.

 I find myself feeling guilty most of the times when I read about all the high aspirations of parenting methods. There are the Authentic Parenting style, the Natural Parents, and the Attachment Parenting websites. Unschooling dot com and Gentle Disciplining. Code Name Mama has even decided not to expose her child to the whole Santa myth, and her arguments are very sane.

Then the guilt tripping sets in. Maybe we should do it another way!? The green parents also make me wish I could be a better greenie!

I try most of the times just to juggle being a mother, and to work as well!

Sometimes we are so tired when we get home, we declare it a McD’s night out. Horrors, yes! We feed our children a McDonald’s hamburger every now and then. I even ask for the toy that comes with the food because I think it is some of the cutest toys ever. Now I hear it encourages bad eating habits... Guilty!

We do Christmas with Santa because we think it is a whole lot of fun! And it cultivates a special family tradition for the little one.

Luckily we also get validation of some of our parenting styles. Sometimes when the baby (now toddler) is more in our bed, I think about all the benefits of co-sleeping and don’t stress about it. The same with spanking which we don’t do – gentle disciplining takes care of that!

The other day I thought to myself that one of my New Year’s resolutions should be that I should relax about my own parenting style. I am an ordinary mother trying to juggle life! I try to aspire to be more mother and parent and working mother, but I give myself permission to just be ordinary. Sometimes I will live up to my aspirations, sometimes not. I love reading and will keep on reading about all those great parenting styles!

Now I am an ordinary working mother. That is totally OKAY for me!

Virtual kids

The technology has its advantages when you are trying to sleep. At half past 4 this morning, Mieka was sitting next to us in bed, bobbing on a video playing from my cell phone. It struck me that my daughter of 9 and half months is growing up in the virtual world. I am writing about her in the virtual world of the Internet. She is represented in the digital domain in a blog. My eldest daughter of 16 years has made her own digital footprint already, she uses MXit and Facebook. When Arnia was born, I did not have a cell phone or a computer. Since then, our lives have changed considerably with regards to technology. How are things going to change in the next 16 years? It feels like there is a quickening with regards to time, but also to the exponential quickening of the use of technology. Are we all going to tweet on each other’s tweets, playing mafia wars and building farms in a virtual reality? How are we going to talk to each other in a few year’s time? I find it very exciting.