The Lazy Parenting Technique
They say that nothing good comes easily. Apparently, they’ve never eaten Easy Mac. Or ordered mimosas from room service. Or had a wet dream.
The truth is, most of my big parenting decisions came as a result of doing the easiest thing, or simply doing nothing at all.
When my first kid was about 6 months old, a friend asked how the sleep training was going. Sleep? Sleep training? I instinctively said “Great”—and then hit Google. Apparently, some babies slept through the night! Some fell asleep without a breast or bottle in their mouths! Some napped longer than 30 minutes! Some even did all this in their own cribs! I had no idea.
So then I started reading about how to make that happen. Letting baby cry it out? Gosh, that would be hard. Gradually letting baby learn to fall asleep on her own by moving a few feet farther from the crib over the course of two weeks? Holy shit, that would take, like, two weeks. Putting baby in her crib and waking up, walking to her room, getting her back to sleep, and then returning to my own bed several times a night? No way could I sleep through that. And so I did…nothing.
Next came potty training. Cleaning up accidents, repeatedly asking the kid if she was listening to her body, all that laundry. No, thanks. I just kept the kids in their disposable diapers until the day they decided they were done with them all on their own. (And honestly, I don’t see why anyone pushes potty training. Once the kid is out of diapers, you have to clean out that gross little potty; and remember to remind them to use the bathroom before you leave the house; and get off the highway and to a gas station on a moment’s notice; and start going in public restrooms, at the least convenient times, in the most disgusting places.)
Then there’s discipline. They say consistency and follow-through are critical. Well, I consistently did nothing, and always followed-through with wine.
When it was time to choose preschools, I “chose” the one that was closest to our house. When it was time to enter lotteries for all the best kindergarten programs, I talked to other moms about what a difficult and important decision it was…until the deadlines quietly slipped away and my daughter was enrolled by default in the local school.
The thing is, though, there are enough parenting theories out there that I could get away with my laziness without anybody knowing I wasn’t making well-considered decisions:
I really like the closeness and bonding of the family bed.
I read that pushing children to potty train can lead to resistance.
I think it’s best to let kids discover the natural consequences of their actions.
I love the sense of community that comes from going to the school in our own neighborhood.
And the other thing is: it has worked. My kids sleep well (though my bar on “well” is admittedly low); they’ve only ever had potty accidents when trying to beat a hard level on Mario Bros; they go to great schools; and they’re nice and well-behaved and actually listen to me.
Maybe it’s because all that time I could have spent worrying and thinking and doing productive parenting work was instead spent sitting on the floor dressing Polly Pockets and crashing Hot Wheels into walls. Maybe I got lucky. Maybe there’s something to the idea of handing control over to the universe. Or maybe it’s just still too soon to tell what sort of maladjusted little monsters I’m throwing into society. Who knows.
Either way, had I worked for those successes, I’m sure the joy I feel would only be mitigated by exhaustion.
And I’m not saying there haven’t been casualties. Having babies at my side and on my boob 24 hours a day and defending it as a well-thought-out philosophy probably didn’t help my marriage—but that had a 50% chance of failing anyway. Probably higher if you factor in that I cried when my husband made me leave our wedding to go to the honeymoon suite.
