"No Regrets Parenting"

Hi Everybody! Happy Wednesday!

PAIL has a little book club going on that I'm participating in this month. The book is called "No Regrets Parenting" by Dr. Harley Rotbart. There was a list of questions submitted by participants, and I'm going to use those questions as a framework for my discussion of the book. And so, without further ado:

• What, if anything, did you find particularly useful about this book? I love the premise of this book, which is to spend time with your kids and really live every minute of their childhood, so once they are gone you have "no regrets." I haven't really seen that idea spelled out before, and it was useful for me to gel some of my thinking about parenting. On the not-so-useful side, this book also played into two of my biggest fears, namely: 1) How in the world am I going to let these kids go when they are 18? I love them so much, can't imagine life without them (although I probably will still be part of their life, I know, it's just not the same) and 2) Should I be spending every waking minute with my kids? Is my working part time harming them? This book talks so much about spending all the time you can with your kids, and I already feel guilty sometimes for working...
• How did this book influence how you think about parenting or how you approach busyness? This book pretty much just reinforced what I've been thinking, which is time with the kids is good and it can be totally unstructured and be fine. My day is so busy, my "to do" list a mile long, but kid time comes first so from 7 AM to 11 AM I'm pretty much solely with/100% focused on the kids...ditto for 5 PM to 8 PM and all weekend.
• What parts of this book do you disagree with and why? This book stated right up front that it wasn't intended to help people figure out ways to get time for themselves, but I wish that had been addressed. The book makes it seem like you should do your job and spend time with your kids and that's it. That's what I'm doing now, pretty much, and maybe that's as it should be, but I really would like to figure out a way to have a little life of my own--just a tiny bit of "me time"--as well.
• The author keeps talking about time, time time with your kids. I know a lot of us at PAIL have young toddlers, and I’m wondering what others do with their kids in this age range. Sometimes when I have the whole weekend, at some point I feel like I run out of ways to keep everyone entertained. This was actually my question, and I love, love, love spending time with my twins but I do sometimes feel like I run out of ideas. They're 16 months old and the only real structured things we have are story hour on Tuesday mornings and Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings. Other than that, here's my list of go-to ideas, but I'd love to hear more: Reading (but there are only so many times you can read "Curious George and the Puppies"), playing in the yard, going to the grassy park and running around in the grass, going to the playground and sliding down the slides and/or swinging on the swings, pool time on the weekends, having them "help" me (eg, this morning it took us an hour and a half to make enchiladas for dinner, something it would otherwise have taken me half an hour to do. They also helped take the laundry, piece by piece, to the laundry room this evening. Not very efficient, either of these tasks, but we spend the time together and I know they are learning tons and we have the time), coffee shop for bagels, errands (although this can be a bit challenging with twins), playing with their toys...help...I need more ideas!
• What kinds of things do people do to “double dip” as is discussed in this book? I like to take the kids for walks in their stroller...I get exercise, they get fresh air, we end up at a park where they can run around...everybody wins. And as soon as they are old enough to ski/snowboard I want to start going to the mountain with them...
• Do you have child activity limits or do you let your child sign up for everything like the “potpourri” parent described? If your kid(s) is (are) young, what are your plans? We plan to hugely limit what our kids sign up for, because we want to spend lots of unstructured time with them and keep our lives from becoming too chaotic. What we're thinking to start is to sign Luke and Zo up for ballet and karate (both activities for both of them)...and then things will evolve according to their interests but we feel very strongly about not having our kids over scheduled.
• How do you make time for yourself if you are focusing on spending time with your children and keeping up a demanding career like the author describes? Hahahahahaha..... No, seriously, I am trying to do better, spending a night or two a week doing something creative after the kids go to bed. And also my husband is great about watching them if asked, so I'm trying to plan some evening/weekend things like a yoga class or a pedicure. It's really hard--this trying to make time for yourself is what I'm finding most challenging about motherhood right now...
• Frequently people tell parents to “enjoy every minute” while their kids are little, and at times this book has that sort of feeling. What do you think about this advice and how can you make it practical as a part of your life? I think it's good advice. I do try to enjoy every minute, although sometimes it's easier than others. (Morning sickness isn't a big help in this regard.) I try to be very present and not do email/internet/talk on the phone/etc. while I'm with the kids. I try to plan fun and meaningful activities for us. I try to take lots of pictures and write about the things we do here on my blog so when I look back and it's all a big blur I can see that this time was made of lots of leisurely minutes/hours/days and I did what I could to make it special.
• How do you keep track of your child’s activities? Do you find it helpful or hard to see what you might be missing? My kids are young so this isn't really and issue...

Overall, I enjoyed this book, and liked some of the concrete suggestions that it had. It also helped me to reframe things a little for the better...for example, I do baths and bedtime ritual 99% of the time, and I used to kind of feel like, "Why am I the one who always has to do this?" But the truth is I love doing it. I love spending that time with my kids. What else would I be doing if I wasn't doing that? Cleaning up after dinner (which my husband and mother-in-law so graciously do every night)? Getting in another hour's worth of work? Working on my endless list of chores/phone calls/organizational tasks/errands? It's not a burden to be with my kids--it's not something that's keeping me from other things--it's exactly what I want to be doing. Because I know how fast the time is going to go and how much I'm going to miss doing things like baths when the kids start wanting to do it themselves instead. This book helped to clarify things like that in my mind and for that alone it was worth the read.

XOXO

Image Credit: No Regrets Parenting.