The Humiliation of Parenting…

Kids often imitate their parents when they play. You’ll see little girls acting like little mommies and little boys acting like their dad. Unfortunately, you’ll also see little ones imitating parental flaws. ~ Lisa Barker

So I was searching for some laughter today, and I found an interesting site. Lisa Barker of Jellymom.com, which I had never heard of until today, also writes for a site sponsored by Disney called DisneyFamily.com. (Very interesting by the way) She wrote a post called “One Smart Family”, I had to check it out.

“I’ve come to expect a little humiliation when my kids play. It’s good for a parent’s soul. It might be one of the rare ways you’ll ever get some real feedback on your parenting and thus gives you the opportunity to change your ways….I think God builds children with these idiosyncrasies to keep parents from getting too proud. There’s no way I’m going to brag that my son can read the satellite channel guide when two seconds later he’s going to order the food on his plate to jump into his mouth.”

I laughed as she describes a particular moment when her son is not exhibiting his “full potential”, and it got me to thinking about my own moments of parental humiliation. It seems to be in the moments when you want your children to really show out that they tend to instead make people wander if drugs during delivery is such a good idea after all. 🙂

It is in these moments that my daughter decides to paint the room with her soiled diaper.(Really happened… several times) It is in the moment when mommy needs her to be on good behavior in front of our Pastor of Family counseling that she decides to lie on the ground and throw an all out fit. Of course I can just imagine what is going on in his head, (and she is giving advice to other women for what?).

Then after they have shown their hiney in public (sometimes literally) they will come and wrap their little arms around you and say “I love you” or give you a kiss on the cheek. You wonder “why could you not have done that when someone else was around ?” Yet you take it, enjoy it, and the humiliation of parenthood is somewhat not compared to the joy of it.