Parenting has been in the news a lot lately. Well, more like lack of parenting. First up, we have Octomom back on the magazine covers proclaiming that she lost 142 lbs, with her "get-pregnant-with-eight-babies-then-give-birth-to-eight-babies" diet. It's a pretty easy diet, except it takes at least nine months, and then you have eight babies at the end. But if you are sick of Atkins, I suppose you could try Octomom.
Next we find out that "Jon and Kate, the Musical" is going to be cancelled. It isn't actually a musical, but it should be. I would watch that. Other than that, I don't have much else to say on the tabloid tragedy that is the Gosselin family. Except, have you ever noticed that "Gosselein" kind of sounds like "gosling," as in baby ducks, and they have lots of children, just like ducks, except the ducks are far better parents? Yeah, me too.
Finally, we have Balloon Boy. If you take your child on the Today show and he is so nervous he almost gets vomit on Matt Lauer, you get up and leave; you don't keep trying to get your reality show. Of course, that is just my opinion, and I am biased. I don't like watching other people throw up. Also, I don't like watching other people pretend their children are floating away in a giant shiny balloon like a misfit Willy Wonka character, using up emergency resources and Oompa Loompas and whatever else they used up. That could also be one of my personal biases, though, too. Oompa Loompas are a little scary.
But here is the thing. All this focus on "reality" parenting has revealed another parenting issue, one that can no longer be brushed under the rug. The big "mainstream media" is afraid to tell this story, but I am not. There is an epidemic in this country, and it is huge. Are you ready for this? Most parents are... good. There. I said it.
When you read the paper or the internet or magazines or watch TV or do just about anything else, it is pretty easy to start believing that parents, particularly moms, today are awful. They are "helicopter moms" and "neurotic moms" and "best friend wanna be moms." These moms in the media today don't care about anything but their precious little ones: They never say no; they sign them up for too many classes, like kinder-karate and tiny tots taxidermy; and they take them to see horror movies all the time. They DO sound AWFUL!
But when I look around at the moms I know, I don't see any of that. In my roster of mommy friends, there are moms who go to church and moms who don't, moms who voted for Obama and moms who didn't, married moms, single moms, two moms, moms who like Twilight and moms who- wait, you didn't like Twilight?! The point is, when I think of all these moms I know, they are all good moms. They care about their kids, they also care about other people, they teach their kids manners and discipline and not to cheat at BINGO. But all that is so boring. Who wants to hear about people actually doing what they should be doing? Not CNN or Fox or the Today show. If you don't want to put your life on a reality show, they seem to think your life must not be reality. It probably wouldn't get good ratings to put those kind of families on television, but at least it would be more real. And it should be a musical. I would watch that.
~Lexie