I think it was a family friend who casually told me to have fun when we bumped into each other at the shopping mall. I was highly pregnant with my first baby and it didn’t seem like advice at the time. I didn’t think much of it then, but looking back on it now, it was probably the best unofficial parenting advice I have ever received.
Parenting, like everything in life, is all about perspective. It’s what you make of it. It is really your choice to view the tasks of parenthood as things you have to do or as things you get to do.
This tiny piece of advice has seen me through some of the most challenging experiences of parenthood: sleepless nights, hospital admissions and home schooling.
We used to pretend we were checking into a hotel each time my son had to be admitted into hospital due to his severe asthma. We had hospital/hotel check-ins at least two or three times a year and had to make the most of them. In every perceived negative we found the joy, blessing and fun.
We were eventually told that we had to home school our boy because of his asthma, and it was one of the most difficult decisions we had to make as parents. This was going to radically disrupt everything we had planned for our lives. I had to put my legal career on the back burner to stay home and teach, which I wasn’t even sure I knew how to do.
Once we wrapped our heads around it, we approached it with our usual attitude and chose to fully embrace it, and ‒ you guessed it ‒ have fun. Our home schooling years were some of the best and now most treasured moments of my parenting journey so far.
So, whether you’re about to become a parent for the first time or have been a parent for years, just have fun.
About the author: Tatum Jariden is an advocate and mother of 3 children. She blogs at themommyblogga
