What mother doesn’t want her husband (or the father of her children) to be a better dad? And what father hasn’t wished that his wife (or the mother of his children) wouldn’t give him more support as a dad?
What mother doesn’t want her husband (or the father of her children) to be a better dad? And what father hasn’t wished that his wife (or the mother of his children) wouldn’t give him more support as a dad?
Today is National Spouses Day. It’s a day to acknowledge and honor your spouse. To say “thank you” and show your spouse how much you appreciate him or her.
I am grateful we, as parents, have something like National Spouses Day. So often we only pay attention to our children and how we are parenting them. We can easily forget that parenting is a team effort. Paying attention to the other member on that team is just as important as paying due attention to our kids.
We can easily forget that parenting is a team effort.
Sadly, when we do pay attention, it can often be in a negative way rather than a positive one. We are quick to judge the each other’s parenting styles. How they discipline, how they love, how much time they spend with the kids, etc. We don’t often thank them for the good they are doing in our children’s lives every day.
I understand the temptation to do this. For the first ten years of my marriage, I worked hard to identify everything that my husband needed to change in order to be a nicer person to live with and a better parent. The second decade, I tried to change every one of those things, and during the third decade, I gave up on all of it. Interestingly, that’s when we started to really get along. (Surprised?)
