I’ve been reading a lot of parenting articles on Facebook lately, and they are freaking me out.  The first was about how kids aren’t getting enough time to be free and unstructured, but you don’t need to read it, I just summarized the entire article.  I kind of agonized over this for days.  Oddly, I was mostly worrying about Luke, who has about 10 hours of baseball a week, and nothing else going on.  My full time daycare child is in a great place and I know he has plenty of time to use his imagination and play kick the can or whatever else people did in the article’s Utopian world.  The real question I had from that article was, “Am I Supposed to Quit My Job So My Children Can Have Unstructured Play Time?”  Because I don’t see how it’s possible to come straight home from school, make yourself a snack and play some pickup baseball with the kids on your street when both parents work.  Why did I get irate about this article, when Dave and I both work from home, and Luke comes home from school and plays baseball in the street all the time?   I’m not sure. Because I am crazy?

The next article to freak me out was about American Kids being spoiled.   Again, I was filled with “I’m-doing-it-wrong-malaise.”  But the thing that bugged me about that article was that no solutions were offered.  In retrospect, the title was “Why Are American Kids so Spoiled” not “How to stop spoiling your kids.”  In summary, kids are spoiled because their parents spoil them.  It was a really groundbreaking article.  Sorry I spoiled it for you.

So, all this has lead to a great deal of self-analysis, and as I pondered my parental failings, I remembered that back in the day, I used to ridicule parenting articles.   What, pray tell is the difference between then and now?  Have I lost my mojo? Is losing your mojo too 1999?  What happens now?  I lost my swagger?  That sounds like it needs air quotes.  Did I “lose” my “swagger”?  OMG, I really have turned 39.5 haven’t I?  It’s all over.  Forget I ever said swagger.  I am having a midlife crisis and I lost my mojo.  I think it’s much better that we all agree that the problem is a midlife crisis.  Because what else could possibly have happened in the last 4 years to cause me to doubt my parenting skills?  Dun dun dun: Jack. Nope, it can’t be my sweet, sweet boy.

Summertime goal:  If I must read parenting articles; view them as opportunities to revive my Panic Attack Magazine blog series.