Just for the sake of all parents reading this and comparing it with their own experience, we need to remember that kids are all very different. And also that other parents usually don't tell the full story and try to show themselves and their kids in the best light (all us humans do that). One might be a great parent, or might just got lucky to have very cooperative kid. And the vice versa, if your kid is hard to handle you might be a bad parent, but it's also quite likely that your kid just has more stubborn personality. So don't be too hard on yourself as a parent - if you care enough to worry about being a bad parent, you're probably doing just fine.
I definitely didn't tell the whole story, but the anecdotes I picked are representative of my parenting technique, which is why I picked them. I think the most important trait when parenting is empathy--reconstructing the scenario in your mind from the child's perspective. I think a lot of people do this with other adults, but forget to do it with children, and especially small children. Perhaps because they assume the child's mind works radically differently from an adult's?
I've also noticed that my kids are "easy" compared to many other children I've observed, but I've also wondered how much of this is luck of the draw and how much is a reflection of their environment.
I also had almost a decade of experience interacting with small children in my job before I ever had any of my own and I still find parenting and maintaining patience to be the hardest thing I've ever done. No parent should ever be hard on themselves for the decisions they've made. The struggle is real and no parenting decision is "wrong." Without a diversity of parenting styles we would not have a diversity of people, which I consider integral to the survival of our species.
Downvoters: can you be more specific? Usually it's obvious on a reread when I've failed to contribute to the conversation and I'll take the downvotes gladly, but this one has me stumped. Do you just not agree with my opinions, or have I come off as too sanctimonious?
No, the votes don't matter. Ironically, in fact, I think I got pity upvotes for the plea, which are not really helpful. What does matter is that I'm expressing myself effectively and the votes usually operate as feedback to that effect.
I'm still curious about the motivations of those downvoters.
Also, I apologize for the meta discussion in this already off-topic thread.
