The Biggest Problem with Parenting is......

by Kenneth Choo September 10, 2018

people care too much of other people’s opinion of their parenting. The only person that you have to care about is your spouse’s opinion and how your children are reacting. A lot of our ‘Parenting’ are generational and some of it might not be applicable in today’s era.

Today’s Parenting are being largely influence by the stereotyping of society:

Both parents have to work
You need a car to chauffeur your children for convenience
You need to stay in the condominum
You need to send your children to good school
You need to send your children for enrichment lessons like ballet, piano, sports and many more….
The wife should be Stay-At-Home Parent, not the husband.
You must have a 9–5 job.
You cannot beat/cane your children or scold your children. You must use “LOVE” to educate them.
You are always concern about your neighbor’s kid’s grades.
You want your children to get good grades and go to university.
You pinned hopes and invest effort on your children to be the one that you want and wished to be.

A lot of these beliefs are being embedded in our unconscious mind by people who have been our authority figures like our parents, teachers, relatives, grandparents, bosses, and friends.

Everyone’s parenting style is different like it applies to work-life balance. It is like our fingerprints. There’s no one size that fits all. No one can teach parenting and no one can learn parenting from others too. It is learning from others and pick the things that works for you but definitely not everything. Firstly, everyone of us are created differently even twins have their differences too.

A lot of parents love to stick their parenting style to other parents and thinking theirs is RIGHT but more than often they do not have the context of the whole situation and positioning of the family. Even so, no one is ever in any state or position to give any parenting advices.

Even when you see the doctor, doctor will ask you a lot of questions in order to understand your illness more so that he/she can prescribe the medicine for you. These medication might work or might not work largely depend on how much context of your illness you shared with your doctor. But that does not ensure that you will be well again. It is still very much have to do with what works for you and it varies from one person to another.

A snippet of “The Future Of Parenting” share by Gary Vaynerchuk

So it is really important not to listen to other people’s advice, not even your parents’ 100%. Because a lot of advice from our loved ones are coming from their FEAR for us more than the LOVE for us.

In order to be a better parent is to be SELFISH first before you can be SELF-LESS.

Why do I say that? I believe that most of you might have taken a flight and watch the in-flight instructional video or demonstration. Did you realize that the instruction for the part where the gas mask dropped down during emergency? They advise you to put the gas mask on yourself first before you put it on for your child. The reason is you have to save yourself first before you save others.

“In the unlikely event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop down from the panel above your head… Secure your own mask before helping others.”

Many parents put too much emphasis on their children that they forgotten their own well-being. It is common to see parents fall into this invisible black hole and more often they don’t know that they are in this ‘hole’ especially for first time parents.

When they are in this black hole, they will feel

Stressed out!
No life
No freedom
No choice
Not loved
Pitiful
Lonely
Meaningless
Frustrated
Angry most of the time
Restless
Sacrifice
Tired

These are just the common symptoms for most parents.

To be a better and self-less parent, you have to be selfish first.

To Be Selfish doesn’t mean that you are a bad parent.

So Parents, start with yourself first. Love yourself, Pamper yourself and Treasure yourself first. Your children will feel it and they will be happy as long you are happy.

Don’t be affected by whatever others say about your parenting because everyone of us are different. All you might need to do is to audit if it does help. Maybe you can use this chart below as a guide. Because the key thing to parenting is Happiness.