Pathways

Moved to talk about all the different decisions we make in parenting. I'm getting softer definitely on what I consider OK for families -- have been very hard-line 'home edder' for a year or so, probably to support myself through the big transition. But was shown very recently what hard-line can do for our friendships, happiness and general well-being.

We all make decisions based on where we are in our own development, influences, life-path. I think we can tell whether these decisions are healthy or not by how well we feel, how our children are, our inner compass so to speak. But ultimately there are so many factors involved in parenting that where we might strike gold in some areas, we are sure to let some things through the net elsewhere. Its part of the child's natural development to learn from our mistakes as well as what we see to be our successes.

I have this visual image that I'm going to try and put into words, here goes.

A series of lines, webbing, overlapping

 - Television Watching: at one end we have the folk who say (and carry through with) No telly ever, at the other end the folk who have it on all the time, the rest of us walk the line in between.
- Vaccinations: some don't, some do, for all different reasons and none, they choose either end or some place in between.
- Development and education: Predominantly at home, predominantly at school
- Diet: gluten free, dairy free etc at one end, eat anything at the other
- Learning/teaching to read and write
- Availability of Computer
- Relationships with peers
- Relationships with wider family and other significant adults
- Antibiotics
- Communication, answering back not allowed, healthy arguments encouraged
- Birthing, natural process at one end, hospital procedure at other

And so in this web (with many many more lines that I have named) are families, walking their way through this 3,4,5 dimensional map, feeling their way forwards, sometimes confidently, sometimes blindly, sometimes staying still for a while and then bouncing off elsewhere.

Its all OK, that's what I wanted to say. Its all OK. Except when its not, but then noticing when its not is the first and biggest step to realigning and evaluating where you're at. And even then, it is all OK because we're human, we're on our paths each of us and we're figuring out how to do this parenting thing in a very busy and chaotic world. Take a breath and know you are the best person to be with your child right now.

Namaste.