If you also like to waste time on Instagram, you will have ended up watching a very specific type of parenting videos, even without intending to, because the algorithm knows you. Their content varies depending on who records them, but more or less there are images of children having a lot of fun and of adults playing with them as if there were no tomorrow or as if they wanted to appear as very good parents in a reel from Instagram. And the underlying message is always: “You will only be your children’s favorite person for 10 years, you have 13 summers to spend together, the magic will last eight or nine Christmases (the Tooth Fairy’s teeth no longer specify them), one day You will wake up and there will be no toys thrown on the floor or messy shoes in the entryway or children’s sheets or a urinal in the corner of the bathroom. Appreciate what you are experiencing, because in no time your children’s childhood will be over and you will cry bitterly, crying “I miss the past.” The summary of all this is the phrase that the grandparents you may have encountered during your upbringing may have uttered: “The days are long, but the years are short.”
The majority of parents who leave comments on these videos see the light immediately and would like to change their approach to life forever. Many would like to take their children out of compulsory schooling and abandon their jobs to spend together 24 hours a day, until Those fast-growing children will become sullen teenagers who want to get out of Erasmus. But wow, there are also more realistic parents who do not allow themselves to be affected by emotional manipulation for various reasons.
First, childhood passes, everyone knows that, you don’t need to be reminded of it on social networks. And if you are doing it so badly that they have to make a nice video to explain this obvious thing, maybe you should rethink your life priorities.
Secondly, you can dedicate all the love and quality time to your descendants, but… Do you remember the pandemic, when you spent all the time in the world with them? No matter how much beautiful music you add to it, that was unsustainable in the long term. Something that is little said about quality time is that it has to be for both, and the adult must have met the basic essential needs, in addition to having a certain peace of mind. Because with hunger, sleep, urgent work and a bad mood, your moments together will have little quality and peace.
Yes, the toys scattered throughout the dining room visually represent your children’s childhood, but let’s not forget that it also represents stepping on small pieces that get stuck in your foot, tripping over something stupid, or getting overwhelmed because the house is a mess at five. minutes after picking it up. You can also value childhood with a tidy living room, and if one day you miss seeing your children play, think that in the future you may also see them play with their children and you will be able to have everything messy again.
Furthermore, not only children grow. We also. Should we also make an emotional video with the countdown of lush hair, the possibility of taking a durum without feeling sick, the ability to kneel and stand up again without your knees creaking or getting dizzy, the energy to travel in the summer for eight hours straight with a simple sandwich in your body?
Life is change and evolution. Your babies grow and will no longer fit on your shoulder when you carry them to sleep, perhaps you will no longer be the center of the universe and the person who has all the answers. OK. But if you do it right, you’ll be able to hug them and love them when they’ve grown into interesting teenagers and tender adults. You will be able to share vacations with them without having to carry the stroller by hand because there are no elevators, pack their suitcase or take care of everything. You will enjoy seeing how they live their own lives and even their own upbringing. There will even come a time when they will take care of you.
The important thing is to give love, trust, support, be there whenever they need you, not overwhelm yourself trying to live 24 hours a day, a reel perfect and utopian Instagram.
Each stage is beautiful and exhausting. Enjoy parenting, of course, always, but every day and at your own pace and according to your personal circumstances. And don’t add pressure against the clock as if it were the mechanism of a bomb about to explode. You are already tired and overwhelmed enough that the tourist syndrome of “I’m only going to stay three days and I have to see 80 museums” sets in and you cry every summer or every Christmas thinking that it will be the last, that the innocence of your children fades like the photo of Return to the future.
It is commonplace that you don’t value what you have until you lose it. But I think that only happens to stupid people who don’t know how to value anything, who need you to remind them in elections that they have to vote, that garbage has to be recycled and that parenting has to be enjoyed.
For people like this, the summary would be: stop watching videos on Instagram about the importance of being present and pay attention to your children now.
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