Opinionated

I am rather opinionated. I come by it naturally but I also learned to develop stronger opinions after I married Utah Dad. You only have to meet him once to know that he does not back down from his opinions easily.

Before I had children, I had so many opinions on motherhood. The best way to do this and that. I observed mothers in action with their children and I had lists of things that I thought were great, good, annoying and then just plain wrong. Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut during these years and didn't get hit.

After I had my first baby, I realized just how ridiculous I had been and was very grateful to my former self for keeping my opinions to myself. The funny things is, that once I had one child, I was suddenly an expert on parenting. I'd read so many books. I had so many very strong opinions on everything--bedtimes, breast feeding, drug-free childbirth, television viewing, sleeping habits--you name it. And I talked about it all the time to whomever would listen or even pretend to listen. It seems like a life time ago, but I'm pretty sure I even thought that mothers who didn't do what I thought they should were wrong and would ultimately raise horrible children. Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut (to those failure-mothers) and didn't get hit.

Now that I have many children, I have realized how ridiculous I was then. I still have lots of opinions on motherhood. Some have evolved over the years. Others have stayed constant. And I'll share them occasionally. But I now know that the way I do something might work for me and might not (probably won't) work for someone else. And I don't care. I'm sure that the other mother who bottle fed her newborn or let her kid stay up until ten every night or had an epidural and watches hours of television will raise perfectly good children, probably even better than mine.