Glorious Mud

So, here is a familiar scenario:  You are standing in line at the grocery store and your little angel has been teetering on the dark side of angelic all morning.  The tipping point comes when you hit the check out line and your child sees that bright and colorful something that was perfectly places to create a crisis for parents. It happens.  Your child reaches out and grunts - or worse, actually swipes it as you walk by.  And you take a deep breath and say the magic word: No.  And in that moment, your little angel crosses completely over to the dark side and becomes a midget demon.  The thrashing and wailing begin.  Other parents move slowly away.  The security guard talks quietly on his walkie-talkie as he moves where he can watch your every move.  The clerk stares at you with her blank stare and saucer eyes. And in that moment, you wish you had the silver bullet that would kill that tantrum and restore your child to "angelic" statu...

Aren't grandparents the cutest thing ever? They stand in the background with their eyes sparkling as their grandchildren toddle around making strange cooing and gurgling noises. They buy way too much stuff for the kids at Christmas and then brush aside their own children's complaints with comments like, "Oh, dear, it is a grandmother's job to spoil her grandkids." The whole thing feels reminiscent of the Norman Rockwell painting, Freedom from Want - warm, fuzzy, and lots of good food. If you had grandparents like these, count yourself lucky. If your own parents are like these, your kids will have a richer and more joyful childhood because of them. Loving grandparents are one of life's great blessings, and our kids are likely to grow up thinking that our parents are perfect. The reality is, though, that we know our parents weren't perfect. Hopefully we can all assert that they did the best that they could (and, tragically, there ar...

Want advice on parenting? A quick search at Amazon.com for books on parenting will give you over 40,000 titles to chose from - each book promises to help you become a successful parent. You can learn how to enjoy scream-free parenting, how to avoid conflict by being a playful parent, how to be a positive parent or an unconditional parent, or you can even be a clinically-proven parent who can solve your kids' problems in just five weeks. The bottom line (as we all already know) is that there are no five easy steps to perfect parenthood. Even if we were given a perfect plan, we still wouldn't get it right because we are imperfect people raising imperfect children. There is just too much sin on everyone's part to hope for perfection. So if we have already been disqualified from being perfect parents, what can (and should) we hope for? Is it good enough to just be "good" parents? Well, that is certainly better than being bad parents - but it is not the best th...