B-Parenting: When OK is Good Enough

Recently at a family gathering we coined a new phrase, "B- Parenting."  It's the concept that what we are doing as a parent might not be entirely perfect but it's good enough.  Above average in fact if you consider a C grade as average.  Here's some examples of B- Parenting:

*Brushing off a dropped pacifier and sticking it back in your baby's mouth.
*Plopping your toddler down in front of the Disney channel for three hours because you're at the end of your rope
*Letting your teen sleep till noon every day in the summer because at least they're home, right?
*Allowing your five year old to wear jeans underneath her princess costume which is covered with her winter coat and a tutu because, well, you just want to make it out of the house without a fight.
*The Wendy's drive thru for dinner.  Twice this week.
*Cold cereal the other five nights...
*The living room is clean just in case someone stops by, but the kitchen looks like a bomb went off and for heavens sake, don't go upstairs!
*Admitting to your child's teacher that there is no way you can commit to your child doing their kindergarten homework this year because it's kid number 5, you've got a newborn at home and how important is it to learn to color inside the lines anyway?
*Letting every kid be on a device for a 12 hour road trip because this is the longest stretch of silence you've experienced in the last year and you'll take what you can get.

All of those are examples from my own life.

We could spend a whole lot of time worrying about all the "shoulds" in our life:  I should be cooking nutritious meals every night, I should be reading to my children from great works of literature, I should be able to keep a clean house, I should be more patient, more fun, more like so and so down the street.  Right now I could list off about 15 things that I should be doing at this point in my life, but what if what I'm doing is enough?  What if it's ok that cooking is a challenge for me, my kids dig their socks out of a sock basket (or the dirty clothes on a really bad day) and some of my kids dislike reading?  Isn't it more important that we like being together, they are good examples to their friends and they see that Dave and I trust them to keep the house from falling apart while we go away for the weekend?

Here's the thing--as a parent you have to figure out what is REALLY important.  And that answer can be different for each of us--for each of our children even.  It's easy to look at someone else and thing "what in the heck are they doing?" Or even worse, to think "I should be a better parent like so and so." But it's not really our place to judge--parenting our own children is plenty of work.  Because here's a secret:  most of us, probably even all of us, are B-parents.  And the good news is, that's above average:)