You might not think it to look at us, but my husband and I have a combined 96 years of parenting experience. We have a 26-year-old son and a 22-year-old daughter, with their own styles of being kids, and my husband and I have our own styles of being parents; the combined age of our children multiplied by the number of parents equals 96 years.
In this 96 years of parenting, we have learned a great deal about parenting models and strategies. Like any good ‘90s parents, we bought the trendy books (you might have some of the updated versions of the same ones on your bookshelves) which tell us, in essence, how to be the most effective parents.
The most important thing we learned is that those books actually function better as items on the bookshelves meant to impress, than they do as advice guides. It does look pretty awe-inspiring when a person walks into a family home and sees row upon row of books on parenting and childhood development. At least you know you’re in a home where the parents are sincere about trying to be good parents.
Like most well-intentioned parents, we actually read some of these books. We’d sit together in the post-bedtime silence, when our son was finally finished calling for glasses of water and bandaids and another hug, reading to ourselves. (I should mention that by the time our daughter was born, we were way past reading parenting books). I’m sure our son, who was likely still awake, wondered what we were doing, because every so often, one of us would spew forth an expletive of one kind or another: “Yeah, that’s not going to work!” Or, “Oh, yeah, right – in their dreams.” Or, “Ewww... that is really gross” (in response to suctioning snot out of their noses, which we thankfully never ever had to do!).
The problem with these kinds of books is that they make the assumption that all parents and all children are created equally. In an ideal world, maybe we are. But our world is far from ideal. Take the concept of the “Time out chair”, a popular form of discipline in the world of the 90s. (For the uninitiated, a child who misbehaves is sent to a special “time out chair” and must sit on the chair, by themselves, presumably to contemplate remorsefully the consequences of his or her actions, for a specified time, after which the punishment is finished and the child returns to whatever he or she was doing before). I have spoken to parents whose children love the time out chair – who knows, in the busy space of the day care, maybe it gives children some peace and quiet, some time to ponder on the large questions of life (like “Why do we have elbows?”).
Similarly, for my children, being sent to their rooms was not really punishment. When we were upset with them, and lecturing and berating them, they were only too glad to go to their rooms for a while. They went quietly and willingly, closing their doors behind them, and ended up staying in their rooms for hours because they rediscovered a previously forgotten favourite book or toy. Personally, I always think that the whole purpose of sending them to their rooms was defeated when I actually had to convince them to come out again.
Anyway, after much deliberation and discussion, my husband and I developed a new style of parenting. We call it the WWF parenting style. I know, it sounds a bit violent, but although bodyslamming and choke holds might sound pretty tempting in some parental situations, our style isn’t actually related in any way, shape or form to wrestling or physical violence. Our parenting method is “Whatever Works, Fine”.
We actually stumbled upon it by accident when our son was beginning his quest for independence at the age of 7 months (when he started to crawl). We had friends who babyproofed their entire family rooms, putting those special safety plugs in the electrical sockets, moving breakables above baby level, blocking off the doors. I was in one house where the parents went so far as to remove every object from their family room, except an old sofa and the box of baby toys. We felt this was a rather drastic step to take, so we decided we would leave our home as it was and deal with babyproofing as necessary. We found ourselves weighing the value and the potential for inflicting injury of every item we owned, especially as our son started teething. If he was chewing on the furniture or on a book, we intervened. If it was a dishtowel or a spoon, more often than not, we’d say “WWF.”
I confess, WWF parenting is not actually an original concept. It all goes back to common sense. We ask ourselves a series of questions; for instance, if a child is playing with an object other than a toy, we ask “Is my child likely to damage the object?” and “Is the object likely to damage my child?” If the answer to both questions is “No” (assuming you are not unrealistically trusting your toddler with your mother-in-law’s favourite Royal Doulton figurine), then we say “if the kid is happy, and if he’s not causing any damage to anything, WWF”.
Admittedly, the WWF parenting style, like most others, has its limitations. One absolute necessity is keeping it a secret from your children. Once they know what “WWF” means, the jig is up. And if used indiscriminately by parents, the WWF method can actually produce children who are, in modern terminology, entitled, and prone to temper tantrums when they don’t get their own way. The temptation is to say “Whatever Works, Fine” in every situation, from shopping for the latest brand name blue jeans with your adolescent daughter, to giving a child candy before dinner to keep him happy. The real purpose of the WWF method is to prevent parents from overreacting to situations without good reason. To go back to the teething child, is there any good reason that he shouldn’t chew on your dishtowel? If it’s clean and it’s relatively lint-free, then no, there isn’t. Our WWF method is merely an attempt at preventing us from becoming the kind of parents whose automatic response to any request or action from our children is “No.”
Those parenting books really did look pretty good on our bookshelf. And there have been situations where we have referred to them, and even followed their advice. However, our 96 years of combined parenting experience have proven to us that the best parenting method is still good, old-fashioned common sense. WWF.
