Whose the Better Parent?

I had an interesting conversation with one of my besties today. Nowadays we often find that our conversations tend to drift to parenting techniques. Today's topic was more or less on when it's appropriate to introduce technology to kids, meaning ipods, cell phones, facebook, etc.

Both of us had our opinions, but the thing with us is we are in two entirely different phases of mommyhood. She has toddlers and I have pre-teens. Of course she doesn't see the need to give her four year old a cell phone, where I can justify letting my oldest have one. She doesn't see the need for kids to have a facebook pages, where I can see the importance of letting an older child have one. You say tomato, I say tomahto.

Letting my child have a facebook page has always been somewhat of an internal battle with me. On one hand I think it's intrusive and could potentially be dangerous, but on the other had it's also a good tool for communicating with peers. Plus it's a great way to spy on your kids. After all, it was because of social networking that I was able to stop the party of the year that Buddy was planning on throwing at his vacationing mother's house. Although I agree with allowing older kids to have a page, I strongly disagree with elementary age kids having one.

This got me to thinking.....am I a better parent because I won't let my nine year old have one? Does that make her friend's mom neglectful? I think not! I learned a long time ago, painfully I might add, that you should never judge another person's parenting skills if you haven't walked int their shoes. When I was twenty-one I thought I knew it all and I actually criticized the way Buddy's mom was raising him. Thank God she is a forgiving and non violent woman because if I were her I would have knocked me on my ass!

I think at times we are all quick to judge the choices of other parents. "I would never let my daughter wear that to school", "I would never let my child listen to that music", "I would never let my child stay home alone", "I would never let my son have a girlfriend", the list goes on and on. The truth is you can never say never because you aren't in that parent's shoes.

Here is a good case in point. I remember a friend once telling me an incident involving lunchables. Now there is a good "I would never" subject. Her daughter came home upset from school because of something her friend said. Apparently at lunch her daughter's friend said that her mom called my friend lazy for giving her daughter lunchables. I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of lunchables and I've thought the same thing about parents who send those in with their kids (at least I used to), but here is was that parent didn't know. My friends other child was diagnosed with cancer and was given a five percent chance to live. Fortunately, he was in the five percent and I'm happy to report is thriving and healthy today seven years later. This serves as a lesson though, don't judge a lunch by it contents.

Bottom line is, we are all doing the best we can. Parents don't go into this child rearing adventure thinking I'm going to be the worst parent there is! No, we all go in with the best intentions and cross our fingers that we are making the right decisions on behalf of our precious gems. I am clearly not a perfect parent. I'm sure my children will have plenty to discuss with their therapists when they are older. I'm trying though, we all are. Just remember that the next time you see a six year old with a cell phone, you never know when your "I never" will turn into an "I allow".