Worst mom advice I’ve gotten

1: you can’t spoil your kids too much.

I hate to break it to you, but you can absolutely spoil your kids too much. This kind of advice always makes me cringe. Along with this us “you can never be too gentle with your kids” “you can never be too careful with your kids” etc etc…

Look, I’m all for loving and spoiling and being gentle with your kids but there’s a time and a place for it.

Spoiled kids are only cute for so long, blink and now you’re stuck with entitled and immature adults who can’t handle the world if it’s not handed to them on a silver platter.

Being gentle & careful is great but you also need to push your kids to push their own limits… to explore the world and to explore what they are capable of.

In a perfect world I could do everything for my kids, and they would turn out to be well balanced and thriving members of society but unfortunately this isn’t the case. And I’ve definitely been guilty of doing too much for them and encouraging them to be too careful in the past.

It’s something I’ve been working on, especially when we are outdoors. Pushing my kids to be LESS careful … to climb the tree or paddle in the water or jump over the rocks… may be one of the scariest things I’ve ever had to do as a parent. Pushing my kids to clean & cook for themselves and to be on one more self-reliant isn’t easy… but all these things have built confidence in my kids and helped them mature physically and emotionally in ways I wasn’t even expecting.

2: you only get 18 summers with them.

While I like this advice to some extent … for the simple reminder to enjoy the years I have with them… I don’t like the connotation that after 18 years they will leave you, never to be seen again.

My goal as a parent is to cultivate an environment that my kids WANT to come back to. I want to build and sustain a relationship that they will treasure, just as much as I do. I want to give them a life that they will not look back on with resentment or frustration.

Instead of reminding myself I only get 18 summers with them, I like to remind myself that I get 18 summers to prove to them that I’m someone they WANT to spend time around and come home to during the holidays.

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