I’ve grown up in a huge family. I’ve always been close you my uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. However this situation tends to put me smack dab in the middle of little minions who constantly demand my attention… AKA kids. Because of the huge size of my family there never fails to be at least 2-5 little munchkins running around at family get togethers and for some reason they chose to gravitate towards my sister and myself because we are “younger” (or at least that is what we are told). We believe that it’s because we are the only ones crazy enough to participate in their creative adventures. I’ve grown up believing and witnessing that kids really do say the darnest things, they will listen to you usually if you aren’t their parents, and single handily arguments about children can easily tear a relationship to shreds.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard an argument break out in my family over children. “I can’t believe you told them they could do this”, “I told you to put them to bed by this time”, “Why are you yelling at them… they aren’t your children!” … It doesn’t matter what the topic may be it always seems that when that battle erupts the gloves come off and it’s all about to hit the fan. I find these to be among some of the worst arguments I have ever witnessed. One if not both of the people in the argument tend to bring up everything that they have ever seen as wrong in the others parenting. As in every argument the goal of making your side become the more reasonable becomes a trail of insults directed straight at the other person. But for some reason these arguments never really seem to end well because as you are attacking the others parenting skills you are also taking a jab at their beliefs in how you should raise a child.

John Gray writes that people in relationships are bound to be strained by the addition of children. Women tend to want to take the much more nurturing approach and give children a good life but allow them to live their own. Whereas men tend to want to solve the problems of their children, believing that they are helping them make their life easier. The women are also expected to be the primary caregiver for the child, a role placed upon them by society. Which is far from true, yes generally women tend to take the lead role in parenting. But these days more stay at home dads are taking care of children while the women are earning a living. Which brings me to the question… What deems someone as the “right” kind of parent? How do you know that your approach is the correct one? And what gives you the right to call someone out saying that their approach is wrong? Like I said I’ve grown up in a family where there have been tons of children along with a million different opinions on how those children should be raised. To this day I have found no right approach… nobody who has it all correct… and in my opinion no one who has the right to call someone out of their parenting skills. So next time, if you ever find yourself in this argument… just watch it… take a step back and think if you really have the right to make that accusation you are about to make… and is worth everything you could stand to lose if you that attack?

For more info on the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" by John Gray http://home.marsvenus.com/