Does perfect parenting exist?

The thought of ideal parenting conceives before we have the actual baby in our arms. Young mothers and fathers are perturbed and busy to equip themselves to become perfect parents.  This starts with, which toys we should have, which books would adorn the bookshelf and many more such questions. I would not be wrong if I say that parents are obsessed with the idea of perfect parenting. 

As parents, we all visualize the hypothetical situations and decide ourselves how we are going to deal with those circumstances without realizing that every child is different and so are the circumstances and situations. What we are thinking or assuming might be very different from the reality.

This reminds me how I also got smitten by the ‘perfect parenting’ bug. So, today, I thought to share my experience of upbringing my child.

Well! When I heard the news of arrival of my little one, I hysterically started glancing through websites to look for an enigma called perfect parenting. I was frantically making random calls to parents of grownups for the formulae for me becoming an ideal parent. Received a pile of suggestions and recommendations from every quarter, but all were different from each other and sometimes contradictory. Which in turn, confused me and made me wonder as to whose advice would work well for my child.

Nevertheless, I still looked for the perfect concoction and commenced my journey of parenting. At the hindsight through this journey of 10 years as my daughter is 10 years right now, I got an insight on perfect parenting.

After a decade of being a parent I have realized that perfect parenting does not exist. It is very subjective. What works for your child may not work for my child. For a parenting to be perfect, you ought to have a perfect child, which for obvious reasons we cannot expect that to be. Lot of parenting depends upon the child who is at the receiving end. Parenting ideas come handy from experiences of our own childhood and from today’s current prevalent times like living with internet, more openness among children to present their thoughts without considering the consequences and repercussions. So, all these things are a part of raising a child. At the end of the day, we need to understand our child’s personality, nature, and temperament. We cannot apply the rules which we might have heard from someone as a thumb rule to raise a child.

 No person is perfect, everyone has some strengths and weaknesses. So, let us accept and be realistic with our children as we raise them. Try to develop your own style of parenting which could be a combination of your own childhood experiences and your own intuition or wisdom. In my case, sometimes advises worked and sometimes I ended up in a mess. Then I devised my own style, which started working, because it gave me an opportunity to take a call depending upon the situation with all my wisdom and by making my child an equal participant.

 

So, parents, nobody knows the algorithm of flawless parenting because it does not exist in actual. It is like a MRIGTRISHNA’ which is inside you, and you are seeking it outside. 

So, let us call it 'flexible parenting' which makes us receptive to new ideas, with various possibilities and allows us to adapt to what works best for our child.

So, create your own style, comprising of things which you consider to be right for your child’s betterment. Do not look for the formulae or the solution to the equation outside.  God has blessed the parents with a thing called ‘intuition’ and ability to judge good or bad for our kids.

This was my experience and synopsis of my journey so far!

So, strive to raise a Happy Child, as a ‘Happy child will be your perfect child.