One helpful book I read just before our daughter was born was "Whole Child, Whole Parent." Some of it was typical advice, but at the start it said that most parents try to learn how to be a parent from books, or from other parents, or from worrying and fretting about it, thinking that if they don't know beforehand what they are doing they will mess the child up. The author says that the best place to learn how to be a parent is from the child: Pay attention to the child more than the books, more than the friendly adult advice. If you really watch what the child is trying to teach you, REALLY watch, you will learn how to be a good parent.
Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't. Ursula Stange wrote:
I wish I'd made the simile up but I heard it or read it somewhere years ago. I don't usually use it except on Monther's Day. As for other parents telling you stuff with the 'you'll see' label, be glad that you weren't the one that was pregnant. I'm sure your wife listenend to hundreds of 'you'll see' stories about the perils of pregnancy and birth. As for having children, I suspect other parents gush in because it is such a miraculous thing. And no one who hasn't been there knows just how emotionally walloping the experience is. We all thought we knew. But we didn't. As well, as David says, it's the most unprepared-for thing most of us will ever do. As for worrying, my mother tells the story of how annoyed she used to be when my father just went to sleep while she stayed up and worried. His answer, like yours, was that she was worrying enough for two and surely she'd wake him if anything mattered enough.Ursula Paul Stone wrote:It's funny how "parents" of all walks like to tell us stuff with the "oh, you'll see" warning... but so far, I haven't "seen". I'm sure his mother will do (and has done) enough worrying for two people.
-- -------------------------------------------------"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence and ignorance." -------------------------------------------------
John Wager john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Lisle, IL, USA
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