I LOVE this picture and quote from Bill Cosby. He is a genius at finding the humor in parenting and one of my go to sources for a smile on a hard day.
Here is the thing: Parenting is hard. It is a job that requires constant awareness and vigilance. And that is exhausting to the point of insanity. We begin to think that small mistakes will alter the course of our child's destiny forever. And yet, parenting is also a source great joy and humor. Once you get to a certain point of exhaustion, delirium sets in and everything you and your children do seems ridiculous and hilarious. We pose the most threat to our children when we take ourselves too seriously. The truth is that there are days when I can giggle and laugh at my little people’s antics, and other days it feels like I am stabbing myself in the eye with a spoon. Repeatedly.
Take for instance my daughters tendency to put her clothes on backwards and inside out. She once went through an entire school day with backwards jeans. And she often comes to the car at the end of school not noticing that her coat is on UPSIDE DOWN. There are days I just giggle and let her be, and other days when I fear it will make her a target for bullies and hence ruin her school career and possibly lead her to suicidal thoughts. On those days she MUST change her clothes to the “normal” way. It is literally a life and death matter. It all depends on my mood and my perspective as to how I will react. The only thing I am certain of is that she really doesn’t care if her clothes are backwards, inside out, or upside down. And, the message I am sending her is that she is not okay 'as is'. And, she has no idea why I am urgently yelling at her to change her clothes around. NOW! For her getting dressed at all is an accomplishment, considering she’s pretty much an exibitionist. Clothes? Who needs clothes?
Taking ourselves too seriously is a symptom of the much larger cultural disease called Perfect Parent Syndrome. There are magazines and TV shows and other parents screaming at us to be perfect. Reminding us of the perils in this world at every bend. And what’s whispered beneath the screams of these advertisements and shows and judgements is that we are not good enough unless we are: feeding our children organic everything, have them in cute-white-picture-perfect-outfits, taking them out on wonderful adventures that we can talk about on facebook, and/or preparing them to be the next Steve Jobs. That’s just the list of the stuff we SHOULD be doing. The list of don’ts is significantly longer, for example, under no circumstances are they to watch TV for any length of time (That’ll get you on the terrible parenting list for sure).
It’s no wonder we’re all a little sensitive and slightly insane when it comes to the quality of our parenting. It’s no surprise that backwards pants can lead a mom to the eventual death of her child. It’s obvious why most of the parents I know and love are completely crazy. Crazy can be a sign of a good parent, you know.
So my point is this: Parenting is serious business. And...it isn’t. It’s in the code of our DNA, and as long as we are following our instincts even a little, our kids will most likely be okay. Because, guess what? Resilience is in our kids DNA. So we can all relax about backwards clothing and focus on the really important stuff. Like making sure that they know, to their core, inside their gut, that they are loved and special. That they could never do anything to ever take that love away. And truth be told, we love them even more for wearing their clothes backwards. And that it’s always safe to be exactly who they are at home - no matter what their clothes look like, no matter how “crazy” they are.
Parenting is the most important job we have, and the most important thing we can do as parents is lighten up a little and laugh at ourselves. Because as Bill Cosby once said, “Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.”
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