What Kind of Parent Will I Be?

Miss Priss turns two next month and she's already starting to show glimpses of personality that suggest she's going to be outgoing, friendly and STUBBORN. Basically, me in a diaper.

So, Hubby and I have been talking a lot about what style of parenting will work best for her. Up until this point, our goal has been primarily to keep her alive, but now we're ready to focus!

I've been reading Dr. Rosemond's book, "The 5 Fundamentals of Effective Parenting." In the Forward, he says, the worse thing you can do as a parent is buy a parenting book.

Very clever, little man. Very clever indeed. As I have just bought YOUR book, it is apparent I will need to buy no others. I like you already.

Anyway, his basic philosophy of child-rearing is to structure the family in such a way that the nucleus of the family consists of the mother and father and the children revolve around them...not the other way around, which HE says is the current recommended "trend" in those OTHER parenting books (the one's you're not supposed to buy) and basically, this is THE reason our current society is crumbling down all around us. He's kind of a bummer.

He doesn't like deal-making or bribing as a way to get children to mind. He feels it gives the children the power to either accept or reject the deal. If the child rejects your deal, what do you do then?

Parents, he believes, should NEVER give up their power to their children. If they do, he argues, they will never have their children's respect which is one of the fundamentals to successful parenting. Instead, he suggests that parents simply set a standard for behavior and then an expectation that every member of the family will live up to it. If the children don't, then consistent punishment should occur. He's not a proponent of spanking, by the way, he likes the idea of the "BIG Consequence." It has to be something major that a child will remember and think about the next time...like denying them the opportunity to go to a sleepover or a field trip in response to bad grades or a call from the school about behavioral issues.

So, I'm reading this book and I'm thinking, "This all sounds very, very familiar."

Maybe it's because this is EXACTLY how my parents parented my brother, my sister and me...and I think the three of us turned out okay. I mean, I still think my brother has the makings of a master criminal, but miraculously, he did not end up taking that path. When we were little, he used to babysit my sister and me and my parents would give him money to order a pizza for our dinner. He would say that since he ordered the pizza, it was technically HIS pizza, so J-sis and I had to pay him for our share!

But that's not even the outrageous part. The outrageous part was that J-Sis and I actually paid him for our pizza!! Yikes. It bothers me that I was ever that gullible.

So here, all this time, I didn't think my parents knew what in the world they were doing and it really did seem at times like they were just playing it by ear. Maybe they were, but I now believe that they always parented with the big picture in mind.

So according to the doc, you will be inducted into the Parenting Hall of Fame when your children become self-sufficient, functioning members of society (i.e. they have a job, their own apartment and don't spend all day living in your basement, mooching off you and playing video games 24/7). If you do it right, your children's adult relationship with you will shift from the strong parent-respectful child dynamic to one of friend to friend.

I actually remember the time I became aware of this very shift with my mother. Hubby and I had been married for about two, maybe three years and we were visiting my parents for the weekend. Hubby and dad were playing golf, so my mom, my aunt and I went shopping. On the radio in the car was a relationship advice talk show and the featured couple were having a problem with differing sex drives. The counselor was helping them work through the issue, and one of her recommendations was for them to "negotiate" their sex life so as to be acceptable to both parties.

For some reason, this got me tickled. I said to my mom, "So...what? They're going to sit facing each other at a boardroom table and she'll write on a yellow legal pad what she's willing to do and how often she's willing to do it, then slide it across the table to him for review? He'll respond by saying, I agree to items one, two and three, but I'll DEFINITELY need number four a minimum of twice a week.

To which she will respond, I'll give you number four twice a week, if we take number three off the table completely. Done and done. Initial here, here and here. Sign here. And now you may "do it" to close the deal."

We all had a good laugh, and I remember thinking, that was kind of weird. I just joked about sex life negotiation with my mother and she thought it was funny. So there it was...we'd graduated to a new level in our relationship. It sounds silly, but for the longest time the thought of discussing sex with my mother would have been followed with a big fat "EWWWWW!!"

So, Dr. Rosemond, I'm going to keep reading your book and I'll take your advice and not buy any more books...that is unless my mom decides to write one and then I'll be the first in line for my autographed copy.