I worked in TV news for more than a decade and during that time I encountered (and often had to interview) more than my fair share of despicable human beings, including parents who paid more attention to their cigarettes than their own children.
There was the dad who told a courtroom full of people that he loved beer more than his son (which is why he threw the kid down a flight of concrete stairs while intoxicated) and the mom who let her drugged up boyfriend silence her toddler daughter with a sawed-off shotgun when the child wouldn’t stop crying.
Those parents epitomize all that is wrong in the world. Their behavior is categorically unconscionable and you would be hard pressed to find an individual who wouldn’t agree with that assessment.
But what about the moms and dads who brag about their parental indiscretions?
You know, the dad who jokes about bribing his son with sugary treats or the mom who willingly admits (with a huge grin on her face) that her daughter hasn’t bathed for days.
I once had a grown woman (a mother with five kids of her own), who was given the task of watching my then toddler daughter, actually have the gall to find humor in admitting to me that she allowed my child to ride 30 miles on a busy highway in the front seat of a car without a seatbelt.
She just laid it out there, smug as can be. Her admission, waving in the air like a giant middle finger. “Yeah, I did it. Screw you!” She didn’t utter those exact words; she didn’t have to. I got her message. Her actions spoke louder than any self-righteous diatribe could ever convey.
And the worst part is that she would probably do it again. Goodness knows it won’t be with my child, but another kid could easily be her next victim because as the woman rationalized, despite her reckless behavior and absolute dismissal of state law, my daughter “survived.”
Actually, I think her exact words following my character assassination of her were: “She’s still alive.”
Well, call me a ridiculously excessive perfectionist, but I don’t subscribe to the theory that if your kid survives childhood, you’re doing something right, end of story.
My kid better survive childhood. That’s not my goal. I don’t want my daughter to merely survive the next 12 years, I want her to thrive and flourish. I want her to be proud of her accomplishments and I want to be proud of how I raised her. Even if I fail to make the right decisions every. single. time. I want to be darn sure that I did my best–always. I want to give 110 percent while parenting her, even on the days when I don’t have the energy to give 10 percent.
Because to me, okay is not good enough.