Oh yes, 2013 then. Looking forward, not back.

Photo credit - Joseph Hart

I am not big on New Year's resolutions so there will be none of that from me. I have goals I've set myself which I've already started on a while back. I set them when I'm ready to and I don't need the start of the year to do that for me. (In any case, having a birthday on the 6th precludes starting a strict diet on the 2nd!)

Things are in the pipeline and 2013 looks like it could be good. Equally, it could turn out not quite so great. At the moment, I have to stay positive, be optimistic and do what is within my control to ensure that the good  things happen rather than the bad. It's all a bit cryptic right now but hopefully, I will be able to let you know what I'm rambling on about fairly soon.

A New Year gives you the chance to look back and look forward. 2012 was a pretty good year and we had some amazing experiences. Now is the time to look forward to 2013 and make the year as good as the last one.

I've said it before but Happy New Year all.

There's no such thing as a perfect parent...

This has been something I've been meditating about since I saw it as part of a comment on a blog (sorry, I can't remember which one!). It sums up beautifully something we all need to remember when being a parent is tough or we're being hard on ourselves for our perceived failings as a parent. The commenter used this quote:

There's no such thing as a perfect parent, but there are a million ways to be a good one. 

Parents seem to have been fair game for some time now. We're judged by everybody and parts of the media don't help. (Naming no names but the main culprits sound like Fail and Distress.) We judge each other too, encouraged by the presumption that we're all failing as parents, or at least not as good as the parents whose children are long grown up and who've forgotten what dealing with a small child is like.

We're part of a society that expects perfection, yet it is impossible to achieve. We're human, after all. We make mistakes and we learn by making them. It doesn't help that we have a blame culture where someone loses their job seemingly for every cock-up they make. Nor does it help that parenting involves dealing with a variable - your children. They are all individuals from the moment they are born and have different needs and wants, likes and dislikes. There is no manual, despite a lot of people making their fortunes writing parenting books. None of them can agree, because there is no single right way to raise a child. The government tries to standardise "advice" but fails because what works for one often doesn't work for another, even children of the same family.

Yes, children all have similar basic needs. They need food, clothes and to be kept safe, healthy and warm. Probably most importantly, they need to be and to feel loved. That's it. Beyond that, they will enjoy different things and some will require more input from their parents than others, have different interests and temperaments. As a parent, your job is to make sure they have their basic needs met and then to do your best to ensure their other needs are met, along with the inevitable compromises that arise, dependent on your  circumstances.

Gratuitous lovely (old) shot of my children. Just because. 

Everyone needs to give parents a break. You may not agree with the way that someone parents. Fine. They may just have different values to you and that's allowed. It doesn't make them a bad parent. A bad parent doesn't meet their child's needs, does some unspeakable things to them or allows such things to happen to them. Most parents wouldn't dream of doing that. Their children are probably the most precious things in the world  and they want only the best for them.

No-one else can truly judge someone's parenting because they do not know or understand the child in the same way that their parents do, and they are not living their life. Perhaps, if we stop judging parents, parents will stop judging themselves harshly for bad days, making compromises because they are tired or need to work, making choices that aren't perceived to be "ideal". Parents often beat themselves up for "bad parenting", when if they stopped to consider whether it was, they'd soon realise it really wasn't. True, you might make choices that aren't ideal or best practice but this isn't a perfect world. We're all muddling through and sometimes the best we can give isn't all that great, we know that. But you know what? You're still good parents. The decision may not be all that great, but the children will come to no harm, they'll be looked after and cared for, they'll be fed and clothed. We often compare ourselves to what we perceive to be perfect parents but that's their public persona and who really knows what goes on behind closed doors?

So cut yourself some slack the next time your inner critic calls you a bad parent. Your best IS good enough, and on the occasions when all you can give is less than your best, that's good enough too.

Believe in yourself as a parent. You'll feel so much better for it. There IS no such thing as a perfect parent. And a million (or billion) ways to be a good one. 

How do you perceive me? Roll up for the One Word Meme

Another week, another tag... Lynne at honiebuk - who is also a real life NCT friend who I've known for four years - tagged me in this fantastic meme. For a change, this involves me getting you to do the hard work here. Basically, you have to sum me up in one word. The originator of this meme, Michelle from Mummy From The Heart, explains it thus:

This got me thinking about an email I received a few years back, one of those circular things that I normally hate but this one I loved and have never forgotten.  It was about the power of positive affirmations and how knowing what positive things others think of you can boost your own self-esteem.  It talked of an inspirational teacher who got all her children to write one positive word down to describe the other children in the class and then they had to hand them in.  The teacher then collated all the positive words for each child into a special sheet for them and handed it to them to read and keep.  They learnt that their peers saw them in ways they had never imagined and it had an immense effect on them.  The story goes that one of them died and a number of them attended the funeral and it was found that they all still had their lists 20 or so years later as they had been really touched by this loving gesture.  Did this really happen?  Who knows, but I love the sentiment of this story and therefore it does not matter to me if it was real.

Well, what about if us bloggers and virtual friends did something similar?  How marvellous would we all feel to learn these new facets of ourselves that we did not know existed.  Someone may say I am inspirational (another one I have heard about myself a few times recently) and me being me I would say ‘no not me’ but what have I done there?  Rubbished their opinion and that is not right, only they know if I have actually inspired them to do something.  If people are kind enough to give us a compliment we should be gracious enough to accept it…. and why not go one step further and actually go out and ask for it?

Well that is what I want us all to do.  I am creating a meme, called the 1 Word Meme and I would love for every one of us to be able to collate all the positive words left by our real life friends, virtual friends and fellow bloggers so that we each have a sheet of positive affirmations to treasure and boost our self-esteem.

We do spend our lives listening to our critical inner voices, which are sometimes so loud that it drowns out positive words from others. I'm not bad at accepting compliments, I think, but does it shut my critical inner voice up? Does it heck! The feelgood factor from having nice words from others lasts about as long as my cup of tea stays hot. Which is not very long, given that I drink a lot of cold tea.

So, now it's your turn. How would you sum me up in one word? Bit of a tall order, that one, given that I can't do it. But still - come up with that word and leave a comment below. And I promise - I'll try to make the feelgood factor last beyond my next cuppa.

As this is a meme, it is only right and proper I wave my tagging wand over a few other lovely bloggers to take it forward to have people say nice things about them too. They are:

Sarah from Happy Mum, Happy Child, Happy Life!
Sharron from Chocolate Is Therapy
Jane from Never Plain Jane
Deb from One Rubber Band
Sally from Who's the Mummy?
and Garry from The Blog Up North

(The badge code can be grabbed from Michelle's original post)

Onwards and upwards, folks. Don't forget to get to it in the comments below. Do your worst, eh?