http://tnvmomsnetwork.com/?p=2182
XOXO,
Karen
(Note: Because the Tennessee Valley Moms Network has merged into another site with new ownership and I’m not sure how long that site will exist, I’ve moved the full post here. You can still access it above for now.)
The Parent Awards
I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest. And Facebook. And people who share their pins on Facebook. I work all day long, help with homework, then put the kids to bed and finally have some “me” time at 9:42 pm. Not always at 9:42, most of the time much later,but that’s what time it is tonight. I hop online to see what’s going on in the lives of my friends, and *WHAM*, I see them.
The Parent Awards.
Granted, they don’t look exactly like the “Student of the Week” awards your kid gets at school. No, they’re disguised. They come in the form of the Pinterest picture of the modeling clay you made out of food coloring and dust bunnies. Or the fully functioning robot that you and your 5th grader made with just a foil gum wrapper, two Popsicle sticks, and a watch battery. Each Pinterest pin and Facebook post and sweetly smiling picture of the family of six dressed in coordinating clothes… in their own way, each of them says “Look how awesome I am, and coincidentally, look how awesome you are NOT. I and my tin foil robot should get an award for awesomeness.” So we ooooh and aahhh over the craftiness of our dare-I-say, acquaintance list, and in our minds, bequeath them with a Parent Award. Each craft and recipe is then wistfully added to our own “Award-worthy” to-do list. Meanwhile, the Vesuvius of laundry, bills to be paid, and neglected household chores in our own reality leaves us feeling less and less award-worthy about who we really are as women, and parents.
How can we compete? Who has time to tackle every Wonder Woman project put out there? None of us, really, yet we try. We try because maybe someday, someone somewhere is going to pin the Awesome Parent Award on us when we do. It is a popularity contest of the sneakiest way. Those with the coolest crafts and treats get the awards.
We spend hours – yes, I’m guilty – on end looking at those projects and perfect family photos that will make us look cool, get some pins or likes, and crown us the envy of all Internetdom. Something award-worthy. And in that same amount of time, a child in another room simply wants us to snuggle on the couch with her, to reread her favorite story for the 82nd time that week, or build simple square houses out of Legos. But we don’t. We reply “In a minute”, or “Not right now”, or “Tomorrow”. Because surely that simple act of time spent together isn’t enough to win the praise of the award givers. When will we learn that the award givers aren’t our Facebook friends and Pinterest followers? When will we stop trying to build relationships with those who don’t desire them, and nurture the relationships of those who do?
Seeing these projects in my news feeds doesn’t make me feel like I am awesome. It drains my time, robs me of sleep, and makes me spend money I shouldn’t be spending on another something that will just be cast aside by week’s end.
So I’m issuing a challenge. What if for one week, we added up the time spent on all of our award-giving activities… Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.? The following week, spend half of last week’s time on those activities, and the other half on our children. The very ones for whom we want everyone else to think we do such a great job on to begin with.
What if we had an activity jar and pulled one thing out at random to do each week? Or what if you (er, me) finally made it to the park you promised them 3 weeks ago you’d go to? What if you rode bikes, or collected leaves, or identified bird calls? I’m not saying we should abandon our interests and spend every waking minute with our children. They need time for imaginative play on their own.
What I am saying is let’s not be so eager to gather Parent Awards from those to whom we do not parent, and work on spending more time with those we do. And then, the Parent Awards will come from where it really matters – our children.
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