Thank You For The Lessons 2012

“Thanks to you I’ve learnt a lot about parenting”

With the madness of the Christmas rush over and the new year just beginning I thought it time to reflect on a few lessons learnt over the year.

Firstly and most importantly is to make sure you actually measure the space a particularly large toy is supposed to fit into before you buy it otherwise you may end up with a large item of pink plastic furniture permanently in your living room.

Almost as important is to listen to all songs any toys may make before committing valuable battery resources. We had a plastic iron that had uncontrollably loud and distorted song that we had to listen to all day. Thankfully the batteries accidentally fell out overnight.

The year has been an interesting one. The life of a Stay at Home Dad is certainly busy and challenging but also with massive rewards that can’t ever be quantified. I have also come to realize that the role grants a unique perspective on parenting.

In addition, the publishing of some of my own parental rants and ponderings on the popular Mamamia website has bought a much wider audience than I could ever have envisioned and with that comes much greater criticism of my own opinions and parenting techniques.

It is never my intention to hurt anyone or to pretend that I am some kind of expert. My aim is to raise some of the confounding issues surrounding parenting that nobody seems to want to talk about or are too afraid to ask.

If something I say stings you personally please try to take the time to ask yourself why it does, rather than directing your hurt at me. I am not looking to bash poor parents, only old ideas.

I find that most things are not said due to fear of repercussions.  Rather than looking ignorant, opinionated or judgmental it is sometimes much easier to keep quiet. I can understand that fear as I too have felt the wrath of the general public whenever I dare to ask a “stupid question”.

This site and the comments it attracts has taught me so much about different parenting techniques and really has connected me to an amazing pool of parenting knowledge supplied by all of you. I am happy to cop a bit of flak for the issues I raise if that is the net result.

I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to comment on any of the articles on this site as I always maintain that the more people I talk to the more I learn. A spirited debate encourages thought and promotes knowledge and better parenting skills and isn’t that the aim?

So anyway, thanks for being part of the discussion in 2012 and here’s to making some more noise in 2013!