Today's Parenting Tip: Lower Your Standards

First, let me say this: oh my goodness, do people love to hate Dora. I think yesterday I tapped into some kind of deep painful well for everyone.  I hope it was as cathartic for you as it was for me.  Let's let the healing begin.

But here's what I need to talk about today: it has come to my attention lately that my standards are incredibly low.  And I believe that this is, as Martha Stewart would say, "a good thing." Setting the bar low has really paid off in spades for me. 

Please note that you do not need to have as many kids as the Gosselins to employ this strategy.  You don't need to have tons of kids, special needs kids, or twins to be going stark. raving. mad.  In fact, I suspect that the moms with healthy singletons are worse off, because they still expect themselves to do all the things they're told to by the magazines. (20 Darling Costume Ideas You Can Make This Weekend!  Birthday Parties That Will Make Your Friends Green With Envy!  Cakes That Require an Engineering Degree!) Shut up, Magazines.  Why must you taunt me from the check-out line?  I just want to read People for free until it's time to ring up my Doritos.

Here's a good example: a friend of mine posted on Facebook that "the next kid who whines or causes trouble gets to complete The Great Sock Project of 2010. I have about 100 loose socks sitting in a basket waiting for someone to match them all up!"  All her other friends were cracking up over what a hilarious punishment that would be.  And while my friend is in fact hilarious, and I admire any strategy that results in help with laundry, this one wouldn't work here.  I responded that my kids actually think sock-sorting is a treat and they fight over who gets to do that fun game.  And then the rest of her friends thought maybe I was, you know, crazy.

Crazy like a fox with a hell of a lot of laundry to do.

Granted, all four of my kids could probably be diagnosed with OCD, but you get my point.  It's just so much easier if your kids have a demented view of fun.  I learned this early on from a wise mother of triplets.  She pointed out to me that if you let that many kids pick out what color cup they want with dinner, you will end up causing yourself a huge amount of aggravation over the next eighteen years. 

My triplet mom friend was also the one who taught me the importance of brain-washing.  Every day when her kids got up from their nap, she had them sing "we love our nappy!"  Those kids napped until they were five.  I think they would have kept napping longer but eventually they had to go to full-day first grade.

Taking her cue, my four kids get whatever cup I put in front of them (although I failed at ingraining the nap song).  Sometimes we have little friends over who do get to pick out their cups at home.  My friend Meredith's son was horrified when I gave him a green cup instead of a blue one.  You know what my kids said? "You get what you get, and you don't get upset." He drank his milk.

The great part about my low-expectations system is that when you do give the kids a choice, they're thrilled.  And if you get them to think sock-sorting is fun, well, letting them eat dinner in front of the television once in a blue moon makes you the best mommy ever.  They're not asking to go to Six Flags and whatnot because they think the town library is a big ball of fun-tastic awesomeness.  Whee!

More examples: I'm not that great a cook.  Seriously, sometimes I can't get fish sticks right.  So when I get my act together enough to make a lasagna, everyone thinks I'm Rachel Freaking Ray.  Now, I hate to cook.  With a passion.   So if I'm going to bother to make lasagna, I'm going to make 20 pounds of it so we can have it the next night too.  And my husband is so glad it's not fish sticks, he's like, oh, yay! Leftover lasagna!  I meet women all. the. time. who tell me their husbands "won't eat leftovers."  They would be some mighty hungry husbands in this house.

I've never been what one would call a "clean freak."  Things were a little better before we had kids, what with our house not being coated in a crust of peanut butter, Littlest Pet Shops, and Dorito crumbs.  I do periodically try to invite people over so that I'll be motivated to clean, but generally I try to just keep it to a healthy level of not-too-filthy.  When my twins were born, I used to worry more about it.  All the books tell you to sterilize everything; but with twins ... well, I had to triage what was important.  Sterilizing the binkies was not that high on the list.  Before I knew it they were sucking on the TV remote.

At one post-partum low point, I cried about it to my stepmother.  My stepmother is British, and as all Americans know, British people know simply everything about parenting.  Even when Jo the SuperNanny is telling people how badly they're screwing up, she does it in such a nice warm tone of voice, and brings the terrible mom a cup of tea.  Basically when my stepmom gives you parenting advice it's like listening to Julie Andrews (from Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, or Eloise, depending on which Julie Andrews nanny role you like best).  Anyway, she gave me the single best piece of advice I have ever gotten in my life:

What are your children going to remember? That you had dust bunnies under the couch? Or that you got down on the floor and played with them?

So I got down on the floor and played with them.  And sometimes we play the sock-sorting game. And my kids think I am the best. mommy. ever.