Parenting Disagreements

There can easily be anger over differing parenting styles. Everyone has their opinion on how kids should be raised. If you aren't doing things the way they want it, they will criticize you to no end. 

I have mainly lived in Texas and California, and I have noticed each state has its own very different parenting style. In California there is a hippie parenting style. The child has mostly total freedom. Anything goes, for the most part. Children are treated more like fellow adults in California. Overall, the child and the parent are more happy, I think. In the south, it is for sure more of a dictatorship. The child has to do anything the parent wants, and that is just how it is. 

I had this conflict with my ex regarding his parents, and I could with my current man over his family. It seems in the south, children worship their parents, and I don't understand it. I have never worshipped my parents. People don't do that in California. I suppose they are more inclined to worship their mate. But in the south, it's all about family. The loyalty is always to the family, which can make it hard for men to ever let go of their family and start their own family. Those apron strings are always there. 

I think with my ex mother in law, she was very aggravated by my hippie parenting style. She wanted me to have more control over my daughters, which is basically why I let her take over. She thought she could do a better job, so I let her try. I felt if she didn't like how I was raising them, then it was her turn to lead them. I can only hope she is doing a better job like she assumed she could do. I think it was a culture issue though. It was the CA culture vs. the Southern culture. 

Ok, maybe to some degree I was lazy or too soft. I didn't have the personality to be super firm with my girls about potty training and switching to sippy cups and getting away from bottles. This annoyed my ex mother in law, but at least I won't ever have to worry about her again. 

If you have a different parenting style from those around you, hopefully you can all still get along. Hopefully a compromise can be reached, rather than just parting ways. 

The main issue is in laws need to let go of the control, and parents in general need to. Let your adult children be adults. You don't need to micromanage them all the time. No child is raised perfectly. Grandparents like to imagine they were the perfect parents when they were younger, but they weren't. No one is a perfect parent. No one gets it perfectly right. We all have to just cut each other some slack and stop fighting about how kids are raised. As long as they are safe and well fed, little else should matter.