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I read somewhere recently that to be an "expert" on a subject you have to dedicate 10,000 hours to its study and practice.
Hmm. My oldest kid is over six years old. So on his sixth birthday I had logged 52,560 hours of mom-time.
This makes me a parenting expert.
Bwahahaha!!
I know my children. I might think on some days that I am at the very least an expert on my OWN children. Then I start to feel smug.
But then they go and surprise me with some new "thing," and I'm back at what feels like square one.
My fourteen-month-old, for example changes his sleep habits so often that the day I think I've got it down, he shifts his bedtime by two hours, or changes when he absolutely must nap. I'm left scratching my head and saying to him, "WHO ARE YOU?? Where did you come from?"
It's a challenge.
And when there are multiple children with vastly different needs, personalities, thoughts, etc, well, it gets real hairy real fast.
Expert? I suppose MAYBE I'll be an expert on my own individual children by the time they are graduating high school, but then they'll go away on missions and change all over again.
It's a real struggle keeping up with these small people with full-sized spirits.
So, I am not an expert. But I try to be attentive. I try to know my kids. I try to be prayerful.
I hope they forgive me for not being an expert by 10,000 hours of parenting.
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Morgan blogs about life with all boys. She finds it cathartic. Visit her at The Ing Family.
