Parenting Schmarenting...Like Nike Says, Just Do It

Parenting attracts whack-jobs. I’m not kidding. Has there ever been an enterprise where people make up more names for stuff, or actually just make sh!t up, ever in the history of the planet? Is there anything, aside from drugs, that can market itself so completely effectively without having to do hardly a logical or rational thing? Drugs sell drugs, not people…same with parenting/baby crap…have a baby and then you are surrounded with parenting/baby crap. There’s no getting around it. Sell weed and you don’t need a marketing budget. Have a baby and you can count on someone buying you sh!t you don’t need, talking sh!t you don’t want to hear, and naming / labeling things that wouldn’t have names or labels otherwise. That’s a fact. Just like how one in every four country music fans is a racist. They are. That’s a true statistic I just made up for this story.

I get so damn tired of hearing about methodology and terminology and at least a half dozen other “ologies” and almost no one stands up and says, “enough” Dr. Ferber…tough beans Dr. Spock…eat it Dr. Sears. Here’s something strange and exotic for all of you parents…We’ve been doing this stuff for thousands upon thousands of years, right? I think that parents and babies can naturally figure things out if they’re being attentive to one another without the intervention of PhD’s and guys (‘cause there seem to be an awful lot of “guy” baby/parenting experts) who don’t have vaginas telling women who do, how to do things.

Here’s some groundbreaking stuff…

Your kid is just a tiny version of you…there’s food they like and food they don’t like. Sometimes they’re tired and sometimes they’re not, and sometimes, just sometimes, they’re tired but aren’t going to bed until Letterman is over. They learn to walk on their own…there’s some biology and physiology wrestling around on the floor with regard to that tricky one and outside influences take a back seat to Mother Nature. They will sleep when they sleep, and they will and simultaneously won’t respond to the insanely inconsistent cues that you give them on a regular, borderline, abusive basis. EVERYTHING that you do is going to have an impact and start the dominoes tumbling…let them cry, don’t let them cry, etc…painful etc…Do this and they fail third grade math, don’t do that and they never have a healthy relationship with anyone ever again. Don’t you see…in the end nature wins and we lose. That’s why vaginas stretch out beyond Steven Spielberg’s imagination and then bounce back. It’s called elasticity and Mother Nature invented it way before produce salesmen, broccoli producers, and gym sock manufacturers. That’s why women have both a pain threshold and decibel tolerance at least 1000 times that of men. There’s some nurturing obligations that childbirth takes nine months to prepare you for and that general ecology across a few thousand years and several similar species allows your body to adapt to as long as you own ovaries. The natural world is an incredible place and I’ve got my money with a backstreet bookie in Vegas (Carlos is his name) that Mother frikkin’ Nature wins every time.

When is your baby going to walk…ahmmm, more to do with DNA than any brand of exersaucer you can find on sale at Wal-Mart.

When will my baby wean itself off of my breast milk…When the combination of you trying to get them to and when they actually want to intersects.

When will my baby sleep through the night…when the perfect balance of comfort, room temperature, anxieties, relief from hunger, sound, and perhaps darkness all collide to create the perfect storm, and even then the next night will differ.

Etc…endless and glorious etc…

I’m grinning at the nonsense of it all. It’s a very vain endeavor this parenting thing is. It’s all about you pretending that it’s all about the baby until you realize that it’s suddenly and strangely not all about you. Then things start to fall into place. Obi Wan Kenobi could have given a lesson or two in parenting when he suggested to Luke Skywalker to, “let go and let the Force guide you.” That old, druid-lookin’ cat was right. Stop reading Dr. Sears and start reading to your child. Stop questioning your baby and start questioning yourself. Pay attention ‘cause I can assure you that they are.

If I hear one more person use the term ”night weaned” or ”attachment parenting” or ”intellectual security” I’m going to throw a Graco travel system at someone’s head. Just be, just do, and work on you. That’s my mantra…

Just be…Just do…Work on you…

I tell myself that I create my own problems…that this is just a blank slate that I’m charged with painting on and I’d better not mess it up. I also tell myself that if I ever catch myself using any of that pseudo-intellectual, bullsh!t gobbly-gook that I keep hearing parents use you’re allowed to tie me to a hockey net nude and shoot gravel at me.

Now, on a more positive note…Zoey has managed three whole days of managing her Mom’s daytime absence without the slightest hint of issue or concern. More importantly, her Mom has done the same. I’m beyond proud of those two. Grandma deserves some serious credit for the transition as well ‘cause she just slipped in and held her hand out for the ball. June handed it to her like some savvy old Major League Manager and turned away trusting that she’d get the job done. She has. She hardly even threw any warm up pitches. Nice job Grandma. You still got the juice.