Parenting perspective from past generations

I really enjoyed this talk by Raul Gutierrez. He walks the audience through a few generations of his family and what each generation's childhood was like. This is a wonderful perspective to keep in mind when you're a parent. It's easy as modern parents to feel like we need to do a lot for our kids. How we raise them, how much we play with them, how much we talk to them, etc feels so crucial. That with every parenting decision we make we are defining their childhood and therefore who they will become. It can be stressful. And one thing I do to combat the stress is to remind myself that people have been parents for thousands of years in thousands of different ways, and everyone basically seems to turn out ok. Raul's portrait of his family is a wonderful reminder of that.

One thing I think about a lot is the amount of time I spend with the Pepper. As a working mom I feel like I don't get a lot of time with her. I feel guilty for not being aorund to play with her. I worry she feels neglected or abandoned for my work. I hope she knows how much I love her even though I sometimes have to walk away from her. But then I think about how much time I get with her compared to previous generations and I feel reassured. Reassured that kids are ok and can still thrive even if their parents don't do everything perfectly. Because really, no parent ever has.

His thoughts on creativity and the space that is needed to allow for it is also great. I love the emphasis on quiet time, and on the time to ask questions and talk. After listening to his talk I downloaded his company's app and it's pretty cool. I don't expose the Pepper to technology much yet but we did spend a good 15 minutes with the app on the iPad learning about the mouth and what happens when you don't brush your teeth.And it was surprisingly fun!

Video via Swiss Miss.