Happy 2019 y’all. Back to routine, back to reality, back to schedules and floating through the daily grind, back to putting thoughts into words!
New Years resolutions…how are we doing with them?!? Staying strong?! I didn’t so much as make a New Years resolution as I decided to make a list of goals for the whole year instead. I’m more of a slow and steady wins the race person as opposed to the think and act type of person..unfortunately!
These little goals are tucked away safe and I’m just hoping the universe will somehow magically make them happen, because let’s be honest, I can’t be in charge of EVERYTHING! I have already started listening to podcasts so I have that going for me so far this year. Hello 2019..here we are.
Let’s talk clothing. Anyone else’s kid love their clothes? I’m talking, 3-4 outfit changes a day. Besides the annoying factor that I already do what feels like 12 loads of laundry a day, there is also the fact that we are on a big shorts kick right now. Minus 30 outside but he has to wear shorts, and guess what, he wears shorts outside!
Why does he wear shorts outside in minus 30 weather? Because there’s only so much explaining and reasoning I can muster up with a 4 year old until I think, you know what, freeze your legs off, I’m over it! Is that bad? I should probably stick to my guns when it comes to things like frost bite but jeepers, sometimes at a certain point of the day, I like just letting them figure things out on their own. I like to see if their intelligence will kick in at some point and guide them to learn not to expose their skin in freezing cold temperatures. So far it has been working, so we know we have bred some sort of intelligence in them.
This theory is ok though right, because I let him pick out his own clothes and dress himself?!
My question is just this, why am I supposed to let them dress themselves in the morning and when did this become a thing? Also, how far/ long do I let this go?! I am not being sarcastic for once, I legitimately want to know why.
It’s no secret that in this glorious age of parenting, everyone has an opinion about everything and everyone loves telling you their opinion on every matter, so I’m pretty sure if my child wears a dress, wears sweatpants, wears shorts, wears a cape, or where’s skinny ripped jeans, someone’s going to tell me what they think about it. Even though I’m literally just following the “parent rule” saying let this 4 year old, with very little world experience, dress himself in the morning.
Here’s the thing though, I want my children to have pride in their appearances and I want my children to know that there are, indeed, rules in the world that you do need to follow, and call me old school, but I don’t want my son grocery shopping with me in a dress. I truly admire other people who do it. We were just shopping yesterday and a little boy was wearing a dress and I thought “You go, you new age momma, you,” and I will always try to instil in my son that that is totally acceptable if that little boy wants to do that, but personally, we’ll stick to pants.
It’s totally not fair because doesn’t everyone who wants to have kids, partially only want them just to play dress up with?! Now they are telling us that we’re not allowed to play dress up with them and our kids are to tell us that they will be wearing the old raggedy green t-shirt with the bright blue corduroys. This is not what I signed up for.
I’m not saying I don’t want my kids to express themselves but I’m saying I want rules and I want them to learn that they have to follow them! They can express themselves in…colouring, dance, play. But we wear nice clothes out for dinner, we wear whatever we want grocery shopping (with boundaries) and we wear shorts only in the summer when our legs are not going to fall off.
So here’s how I see it, if I let my kids where whatever they want in public, I get 50% of the population (mostly between the ages of 50-100) saying, “Oh god, why would that woman let her child leave the house wearing that?!?” Then, if I dress my children in matching, gender specific clothing, I get the other half of the population saying “Oh god, that mother doesn’t even let her kids wear whatever they want, those poor children!”
Basically, one life rule I want my children knowing is that sometimes we have to do stuff we don’t want to do. That’s just the way it goes. When you get a job, you might have to wear a uniform, you can’t just be that person that decides umm no, I’m actually going to wear a suit of armour today. I am really hoping that if I start teaching them this at a young age, it will come to them as way less of a shock in their future. I’d like to make their future adulting less of a challenge as it is already going to be for them, even if that means not letting them wear a 3-sizes-too-small pair of Ottawa Senators pants to the grocery store.
So, I’m going to continue to lock my sons dresser, dress him in plaid shirts and khaki pants, make him learn the hard way that we don’t wear shorts in -30 weather and enjoy our 10 minute battle royales in the mornings!
Ok, I’m kidding I’m not going to do any of that, but here we are, 2019, and parenting is just as hard as it ever was!
Crooks & Chaos 