Blurred Lines

Now, the parenting manuals will tell you that there are clear rules, consistent rules, and if you follow them TO THE LETTER, your kids will be well behaved, well mannered and all round perfect.

They will sleep all night as babies, feed like little angels, and they will learn to be proper boys and girls, the type that everyone will coo over and compliment you on, and certainly never incite rolled eyes and tuts from old ladies in supermarkets.

Can I tell you a secret?

That's bollocks.

I know we would all love to have clear lines - this is acceptable, this is unacceptable - but in all honesty, most of the time, those lines will be so blurred, you'll think you've drunk that entire bottle of gin you've been eyeing up all day.

FOR EXAMPLE...

You want your baby to sleep in their own cot, so you try to be consistent and put them in there all the time, but one night you're so exhausted that you take them in beside you and just enjoy the peace.
Have you given up? Are you spoiling them? Have you undone all your hard work? Or are you just doing whatever gets you through the freaking night?
Blurred lines.

Your toddler used to be a brilliant eater, but recently will only eat ham sandwiches or cucumber - for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Are you being too soft? Will they suffer from malnutrition? Are you (le gasp!) "making a rod for your own back" by giving them what they want? Or are you just happy that they're eating anything at all?
Blurred lines.

Your 7 year old son is becoming more independent and he wants to use the men's toilets in public places because it's "embarrassing" to go to the ladies.
Do you insist that he stays where you can see him? Do you let him go? Do you hang around outside the men's loos with a desperate look in your eye?
Blurred lines.

Your child doesn't hit, or swear, or bully other kids, but she does insist on singing loudly in public.
Do you tell her to stop? Do you let her express herself? Are you worried that she's annoying other people?
Blurred lines.

The thing is, kids will test the boundaries. They will  question the rules. And you know what? They should.
Yeah, I said it. They should.

When I was nursing, it was always drummed into me the importance of being accountable for your actions. You were never to just blindly do something just because someone had asked you to - you had to understand what you were doing, why you were doing it and the likely outcome of doing it.
So, if something went wrong, you couldn't just shrug and say "Well, so-and-so told me to do that", you had to have an understanding of what you were doing.

I think it's the same with kids, it doesn't do any good to just have strict rules and boundaries, and nothing more than a "Because I said so" as your backup.

Sometimes kids will be annoying, and sometimes we have to accept that as long as they're not maiming anybody or breaking the law, they're just being kids.
Sometimes babies won't sleep, and sometimes they just need a cuddle. Sometimes toddlers will refuse to eat anything but a small handful of foodstuffs.
And that's the crux of it....sometimes.
NO child will behave according to the manual all the time. NO child will sleep all the time. NO child will let you get through every supermarket shop for the entirety of their childhood without making you want to rip your own head off just so you can throw it at them, just once.

We're human. They're human. And sometimes, you have to step back and realise that if the current rules aren't working, maybe it's time to change them, evolve them, or throw them out entirely.
They grow. They change. Everything is a phase.

So, as long as you're parenting within your chosen lines MOST OF THE TIME, take a deep breath and accept a few bumps in the road.
If you bend the rules occasionally, you're not confusing your child, you're teaching them that life isn't always straightforward. You're teaching them to be flexible, to be human, to forgive the odd mistake.
They need to adapt, they need to be flexible, and we need to be flexible too. Sometimes, learning to co-operate is so much more effective than standing either side of the invisible battle line and refusing to back down. Our kids will learn more about teamwork if we talk through our reasons for having certain rules and their reasons for not wanting to live within these rules, than if we just clamp down on them with a rod of iron.

As my son moves closer to becoming a teenager, I'm finding myself more and more often being questioned, and having to realise that, terrifying as it might be, I'm going to have to start letting go soon, bit by bit. And I think he'll trust me more and tell me more if I'm a bit openminded with him, rather than being super strict and having him go behind my back anyway.

Anyway, the lines are blurred, the whole thing is a grey area. My lines may be totally different from your lines, and our kids may occasionally go so far past the lines, they can't even see the lines (Friends reference).
But as long as we all accept ourselves and each other as the fallible, fabulous, irritating, brilliant, beautiful messes that we all are, and let go of the parenting manual ideals, I think we're all doing okay.

Not perfect, but okay.