As my mother-in-law says, “kids don’t come with a manual.”
I read a lot of baby books when I was postpartum, and true – none of them translated to true manuals.
Many led me to feel icky (hi, Baby Wise).
Fortunately, a few others gave me feelings of empowerment, reassuring me I could create myself into any parent I wanted to be.
I identified with gentle parenting – or conscious, positive, authoritative – whatever term you use – and realized that’s how I wanted to parent.
I want to be a gentle, authoritative parent.
Little did I know how much of a challenge I’d be setting myself up for.
A fucking marathon – not a sprint.
Many parents sprint.
They have well intentions but fall short of the true nitty-gritty nuance of the parent-child relationship.
They forget how much of a person their child is – already.
I’ve done it (and still will, because I’m a flawed hooman).
I know that you very well know how easy it is to revert to “old tactics” of parenting, but I also know how much you value cultivating a healthy, connected relationship with your kiddo.
And here you are, on the gentle parenting path reading a gentle parenting with Fibro blog.
This post explains gentle authoritative parenting pros and cons I’ve discovered since becoming a mom in 2017.
Authoritative parenting pros
These are the things you need to keep sight of when you’re white-knuckling the steering wheel because they won’t stfu back there.
You’re creating a mentally secure place for your child to grow up
Authoritative parents are superstars at raising kids with high self-esteem, who love to learn, and who generally grow up to be happy and successful people.
You care – or most importantly, show that you care about your kid’s feelings and desires with your actions and words. Like apologizing when you get it wrong.
You’re healing your inner child
Another pro of gentle parenting is how healing it is for your inner child.
Those times of feeling unheard, unseen, conditionally loved, and so forth – are memories – and therefore energy in your body – that begs to be released.
Tending to your childhood emotional wounds is a gift.
A dense, early aught’s era TV-heavy gift, but a powerful present nonetheless.
You’re forced to evolve
By healing your inner child and cultivating a safe space for your child to grow up, you have no choice but to evolve.
Evolve into a better person and a better parent.
You’ll unexpectedly find peace and playfulness
Gentle parenting brings peace (though that’s not to say no explosions and icky-feelings aren’t present, get real) because you know you can fuck up and the sun will still rise tomorrow.
There’s real peace in that.
The playfulness comes when your body feels safe enough to just play and say screw the chores and work for a bit.
Because you’re teaching that life is worth living, even amongst stress.
You’re severing poor patterns
Oh, thank goodness for you.
Authoritative parenting was not the law of the land when our parents and their parents grew up.
We are lucky to have so much information at our ready.
Plus, so much time has passed to reassess child-rearing strategies, like spanking, that we know now how much ill effect these methods can have.
Usually, these methods fall under authoritarian parenting, which so many of us were raised with.
You’re breaking that cycle which works in the short-term, then translates to long-term ughhh (think poor boundaries, low self-esteem, etc. that authoritarian parenting wields).
Good for you.
For real!
You take no shit
I think you stop taking shit when you commit to this gentle parenting thing.
From adults.
Because adults love to second guess and judge and eyeball.
To be judgey is our nature, after all.
And here you are doing things differently from most, at least in your inner circle, most likely.
Though ironically – maybe this means you take more shit from your kid.
Because you’re going to try your best to allow your child to let out their feelings, their thoughts, and damn sometimes the things they tell you you did are not good.
It’s hard to feel like a good parent when you internalize whatever they’re crying about into oh shit I’m a real, real crappy parent.
But the others, well they can go to hell.
Because you’re determined to do things differently, aren’t you?
The cons of gentle parenting
In case you’re brain is so frazzled you can’t think of any drawbacks, let me tell you the ones I’ve come up with:
It’s way fucking harder than the alternatives
Consciously choosing to do things differently is a challenging commitment to keep.
You know that keeping your cool is way harder than letting loose.
It’s not rocket science.
You’ve lived an experienced life.
Learning the ropes of parenting, unearthing childhood wounds, being essentially a life coach for your kiddo when you can’t even figure out what the fuck you’re doing on your own.
It takes a shit ton of dedication
When your bandwidth is stretched thin, keeping that commitment to gentle authoritative parenting gets tougher.
This path you’re choosing takes a lot of dedication – but you’re reading this now, so you probably already have a good sense of that.
Think of these factors of gentle parenting that require some serious commitment:
- not dismissing feelings
- holding space for undesirable behavior (not to be confused with letting harmful physical behavior happen)
- figuring out how to deal with unwanted behavior
- being more patient
- being a positive role model for your child in the way that you envision
Reading these sound rather simple.
But in the moment, it’s a volcano erupting. You sinking in quicksand.
Whatever other natural example you can think of.
You can’t solely rely on “what you know”
You can’t be fucking around with gentle parenting if you’re not willing to grow.
Remember what I said about cliches?
Well, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
You’ve just got to fucking choose to learn.
God, I could scream it.
But life gets in the way, and because of this and that, digesting this new information takes time and other privileges that you might not always have.
Gentle parenting takes some privilege
Gentle parenting takes some privilege.
Time to learn through blog posts, books, find an actually-helpful-for-once podcast, and so forth.
Money, to afford time and peace of mind so you can be present and in the moment with your child.
Gentle parenting also requires emotional maturity.
Humility becomes your new bff – but first, humility is a cold, hearted bitch.
Many times we’re not equipped with each of these at the same time, and therein lies part of the struggle.
Your takeaway
Gentle, authoritative parenting has its pros and cons.
It’s not all sunshine and matching neutrals as many Insta mommies would have you believing (no shade – I love neutrals too).
The good news is that you’re:
- creating a safe space for expression of feelings
- healing your inner child
- forced to evolve
- going to find pockets peace and play
- breaking bad patterns
- taking no shit
And yet, there are drawbacks to gentle parenting. It takes massive effort, time, and commitment to stay on this road. And privilege.
For further reading, I recommend this post on why understanding child development is so important for parents.
What do you think are the pros and cons of gentle, authoritative parenting? Share your insights in the comments below.
