Last Updated on December 10, 2024
There is nothing more tricky or difficult to navigate through than your friend’s parenting techniques that you may just downright disagree with. While of course there are much worse things to disagree with, when it comes to our parenting styles, that are supposed to align with our morals and values; therefore, if we see a difference in how they teach their children these things they are going to keep with them for the rest of their lives, it can create some friction in the friendship.
While you aren’t going to meet eye to eye with your friends or families parenting techniques, for example, you might disagree on what programs they let their children watch. While this is a minor thing, it’s not enough to be worked up on it for long and might be more of a passing thought. What I want to discuss is issues where they don’t agree with how they might communicate with their children and so forth.
These matters are extremely important in forming a whole human into the person they will be forever so it’s not shocking to not agree with practices and methods that you wouldn’t for your children. You might be wondering why this is a topic I wish to discuss and it’s because I have and I’m sure 90% of people have also felt when it comes to witnessing their friends’ or family’s parenting techniques.
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The Nitty Gritty
My friend has two kids under the age of 3 and before she had these two beautiful babies, we had been friends since we were in high school. She was always so mellow with everything, just very easy, going to the point where you could say she was blaming most things. While this is just a part of her character, you would say that it’s translated into her parenting tactics and has become labelled as a ‘lazy mom’. While this sounds horrible, it is true and something that has been on my mind for a long time.
The reason why this bothers me anyway is because when I do decide to have kids, I am worried about play dates and potential personality traits that my kids may pick up from her kids or herself.
The label or insult being thrown about ‘lazy mom’ isn’t nice at all and while this might be something that is thrown about often by internet trolls and whatnot, it’s not a label I would issue unless I genuinely thought it. A lazy mom in my eyes is a total lack of engagement with your children, such as hard talking to your children, no quality time, leaving them alone, and not doing things for or with them to teach them skills.
It’s basically to me like having kids for the sake of it and not doing anything that comes with it than the bare minimum. You don’t need to have a bucketload of money, space or time to not be a lazy parent; it’s all the little things that add up and build up over time for me to realise she was just not bothered about doing any of the necessary things to be an engaged parent the children can rely on.
So what I noticed about her parenting is that she never truly acted like she wanted to spend time with them or do anything for them to the extent where I was concerned about not only what the kids actually do but that they have no sought-after monitoring in place and without a parent that is interested, that can be a recipe for things to go wrong, especially as they grow older.
This has been extremely triggering for me from my experience and it’s been something I have wanted to address.
My Story
I would personally know what lazy parenting is like from my experience with my parents, who unfortunately suffered from a serious case of lazy parenting. We rarely ever left the house together so I felt like my entire childhood was essentially spent in the house environment, which became really boring and made me resent my parents a lot as a child. I didn’t want holidays or anything; sometimes I just wanted to go to the park, which was a 5-minute walk away from our home and my parents always refused to take me for no other reason than they couldn’t be bothered. When I also used to ask to do anything, whether it be a walk I was met with shouting, complaining, short responses and just nothing positive ever.
While I am grateful for my parents and they have given me so much to be grateful for, like a rough over my head and food in my belly, when it comes to what else they could have done and methods in which we communicated, I would have benefitted a lot from it. As I noticed in my adulthood, I have become a little short with my temper because they always communicated with me like that, and it’s not a nice trait to have picked up.
I always wanted to be in one of those families that did road trips, walks, camping, literally anything because, as a child, you want to go outside and explore like all of your friends are. Even as an adult now, it’s hard to get them to spend quality time with me and my siblings; they cancel plans often and I do get it but I always say to myself. My dad shouldn’t have been a dad just because you can tell he never truly enjoyed it. While he loves us, he doesn’t prioritise spending quality time with us.
I always hope I don’t take those traits from my parents and apply them to my parenting. While it’s hard enough as it is trying to juggle everything when it comes down to it, being a lazy parent isn’t on the cards for me because I hate to be lazy, and in a way, it has allowed me to sympathise and find crafty ways to have fun without spending a fortune, from driving to new city centre car parks and going on a window shopping trip to hiking, and just spending quality time with my kids will always be a priority.
