What is a good parent?

Am I a good parent?

How do I measure my parenting?

Is it by how well my kids behave?

Whether they have the same opinions I do?

Succeed academically?

Obey me?

Are clean, put together, and cute?

Don’t talk back?

This list could go on for days, literally. This is something I’ve been thinking about since a friend’s post about what she used to think good parenting entailed,  spurred my brain into action. 

Parents often just parent. Seventy to eighty percent of us parent like our parents did, unless we make a conscious decision to parent differently. If we do decide to parent differently, we must face our past, work on changing our attachment style, and put some new parenting tools in our belt. If this is you and you want to learn a new type of parenting (I did) click here. 

Once we are parenting, we get on autopilot. We just do it because, let’s face it, there’s not a ton of time to think about it. So, let’s make some space to think about it right here.

National Parents of The Year

Many years ago, when we only had three children (instead of seven), hubby and I were awarded “National Parents of the Year Award” at a reception in Washington D.C.. My question? “Why me? Why us?” I didn’t feel as if I were the best parent in the nation. Oftentimes, I didn’t feel like the best parent in the room when I was the only one in the room. Many times, I feel as if I’ve missed the mark completely. 

So, do awards and accolades mean I’m a good parent or do they make me a better parent? And if my parenting was okayish when I had three bio children, why did I lose the ability to parent successfully by many peoples’ standard after adopting a sibling group of four?

The Inner Critic

Some of us, especially ones on the Enneagram have a constant inner critic telling us how wrong we are, how we should/could do better. Even when we have a victory, like not yelling, our inner critic tells us we wanted to and so it doesn’t count. 

All of us have mom guilt. It is universal. It shows up in different ways and always shows up pointing the finger at what we did wrong. We didn’t wash all the clothes and someone didn’t have their favorite shirt. Or we stayed up late to watch a movie because we needed a break and now we are grouchy. We yelled. We bossed. Fill in the blank.

So, here’s another question – Do we measure our parenting ability by our inner critic and/or mom- guilt? 

I know, I’ve poured out many questions. I created a survey to see what you think. It’s called the Good Parent Survey. You can find it here.

For the next six weeks, I’ll be talking about “What is a Good Parent?” on the Positive Adoption Podcast and picking apart some of these questions on my lives (Tuesday on Facebook), and in article form. If you would, take a few minutes and take the survey, I’d love to hear what you think! Also, feel free to leave a comment- What do you think defines good parenting?