I’ve mentioned before that I used to read a lot of parenting books. According to one collection of them, I’ve fucked up a handful of parenting practices I’ll call Group A but I’ve done all the things in Group B right. According to another collection, I’ve done everything in Group A correctly, but I’ve fucked up everything in Group B. 

As you can imagine, I’ve been conflicted about this for a long time. As mommy blogger after mommy blogger says, each in her unique, compelling, and totally interesting voice, I’m tired of being judged and labeled. It’s been almost a decade since Jesse was born. It’s time for me to be my own person, to embrace my own labels for myself, and to sing my own song from the top of my own imaginary mountain like that lady in the Swiss Alps with the nuns and Nazis and all those crazy kids. 

After intense and extensive research, reading and meditation, I’ve reached the enlightened conclusion that I am (and will always be) a child-directed anti-authoritarian attachment-helicopter free-range self-directed-discipline parent. (Is there a parenting book for me out there? Well?) 

It took a great deal of mindful mindfulness to get here, but thanks to this epiphany, nothing has changed for me today.