A Great Article

I ran across an awesome article on BlogHer.com.

I think every parent should read it.

Why Our Parents Put Us To Shame

Of course I'm not going to fully include myself in all of the bad parenting mishaps that are pointed out in the article for the following reasons:

1. My Kids LOVE to play outside. If it wasn't so crazy hot right now, they'd be outside almost all day long. We ditched cable months ago and while we accidentally have it back now, we hardly watch TV and video game/electronics time is doled out in small portions.
2. We cook meals, all of them. AND we send out kids to school almost every single day with a lovingly packed lunch that has some fairly healthy options.
3. One thing the author didn't point out was how most children these days have no idea what chores are or how to do anything but I'm basically the task-master at this house and force my kids to work, work, work *hehehehehe* (a child has not fully experienced childhood until he/she tells their parents - I can't wait until I'm a parent and then I'm going to make my kids do ALL the work just like you make ME do ALL the work around here, harumph!)
4. I know who my neighbors are and basically what's going on in the neighborhood.
5. I force my kids to ride their bikes to and from school from day 1 of kindergarten. I see tons of parents driving back and forth when they live even closer than I do (and I live less than 1/2 mile away from it).

A few of the ways I'm full on guilty of lax or bad parenting:
1. We own several video game systems and several computer type systems. Do we really need so many? Most of the time I severely limit the playtime but I'll admit that if I have a headache or just don't want to "deal with that child" at the moment or I need to urgently get something else done then I will let them play away as long as there's no fighting or arguing going on - sometimes for hours.
2. Three of my kids have some kind of handheld gaming system - Nintendo DSi, iPod Touch, Mp3 player, etc... I did, however, make them buy these things themselves with money they earned doing odd jobs for $1.00 a job and they had to sell stuff they already had but weren't using.
3. While most of the time we don't watch a lot of TV, somedays I will just let them watch it ALL DAY LONG. Oops.
4. Don't tell, but I let my older kids drink caffeinated soda from time to time too. That wasn't mentioned in the article either because I'm sure kids only drank water and juice back when I was growing up (I know that's all I drank!). I know it's not good, it just makes them crazy.

I admit that I do think it's crazy when some random kid from the neighborhood shows up at my house wanting to play because they can hear my kids in the backyard but I have no idea where they came from, who their parents are or even what their phone number is so I can at least call the parent to let them know what's going on. I don't think I'll ever get over that.