New Mummy Blog: Stop Trying to Label My Parenting Choices

The parenting world has gone mad with labels.

Mums and dads worldwide are OBSESSED with deciding what type of parents everyone is.

Off the top of my head, the labels I can think of are:

Snowplough parenting: Clearing all obstacles out of your child’s way, while simultaneously pressuring them to achieve.

Lighthouse parenting: “Beacons of light on a stable shoreline from which [children] can safely navigate the world” says Dr Kenneth Ginsburg, who coined the phrase.

Tiger parenting: Made famous by Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn book, tiger mothers practice tough love. They are overly strict in order to push their children to academic superiority.

Elephant parenting: The opposite of tigers, elephants believe children should be protected and nurtured rather than pushed and challenged.

Helicopter parenting: Hovering anxiously over your child, watching their every move.

Free range parenting: Letting your child run free, literally. This label is often used to mean parents who let their young children walk to school on their own.

Attachment parenting: One of the better-known labels, this is the umbrella term for baby-wearing, co-sleeping and longer-term breastfeeding.

Outsource parenting: Getting someone else (e.g. a nanny) to do the dirty work teaching your child basic life skills.

The list goes on. It seems a new label appears every day. And I’m left wondering: what’s the point? Does anyone actually fit neatly into one of these boxes?

What's Your Parenting Style?
Sometimes I carry my baby son Henry in a sling. Does that make me an attachment parent? In fact I own three slings, although I suspect for many babywearing purists, they’re the ‘wrong’ type.

But I don’t co-sleep with my baby, out of a crushing fear of crushing him in the middle of the night.

Actually that’s not strictly true – I have been known to bring him into the bed with me if he wakes around 6am, when I’m trying to eke out another precious hour of sleep. I don’t even know if that makes us co-sleepers or not.

Am I a helicopter parent because sometimes I watch my babies sleeping on the baby monitor (or does it just make me Big Brother)? I can’t resist it – they look so utterly gorgeous when asleep, in that limb-flung, teddy-held-tight, red-cheeked, cosy way only children can.

Or am I taking the easy option of outsourcing because my two-year-old goes to nursery and we’ve asked them to help us with potty training?

I’m all and none of the above. And it makes me feel like I’m failing that I don’t sit firmly in one camp or another.

Parenting would be a heck of a lot easier as a fully subscribed member of one parenting tribe, with a neat book of rules to follow.

If you believe what picture-perfect social media is telling you, it seems some parents do manage it. On every mum’s feed there’s the one doing it perfectly; the baby wearing, the co sleeping, the organic-only diet. They’re the one whose kid is pictured tucking into quinoa and rocket risotto with gusto and who doesn’t know what chocolate is.

But behind the smokescreen of Valencia and Lo Fi filters, is it ever really as it seems? There are so many pitfalls and choices to be made with parenting, can anyone stick so faithfully to the plan?

Where Do These Labels Come From?
I’d love to know where these parenting stereotypes have come from. Is it that our society is so quick to label and to judge? Has it been borne from the competitive side of parenting, where one-upmanship is never far away?

Wherever the source, I can’t help but feel it’s a negative; a stifling, restrictive and limiting thing. I can’t sum up my parenting style in a two-word phrase, so why am I trying?

Parenting is complex, difficult, hugely rewarding, wonderful and a privilege. All we can do is try to shape, guide and help our tiny people to become the best they can be, in the best way that we can. You can call me a tiger or an elephant – or a flipping baboon for all I care. As long as you call me a good mum.

[Kim Kardashian And Kanye West Prove They’re Hollywood’s Ultimate Helicopter Parents]

[New Mummy Blog: I Can’t Be A ‘Tiger Mother’]