Parenting philosophy

I've been reading some of the back-postings of Wil Wheatons' blog. Some cussing, but it's well-written and generally interesting. One of his posts, on parenting, resonated with me.

I sometimes refer to The Kid as ''my buddy'' -- but that doesn't mean I won't be stern with her, as needed, out of fear that ''she won't like me.'' Setting boundaries (firmly but with fairness) is a huge part of what being a parent is all about.

This was echoed in the first part of the final paragraph of WW's blog entry -- slightly edited by me:

I have prided myself, these last ten years, on never trying to be a ''friend'' to [name of his two kids]. I have always taken my responsibilities as a parent very seriously, and I believe that trying to be your kids' friend is one of the fastest ways to screw them up. My thinking goes: they make friends at school, and they need parents at home. But this never meant that I didn't want to play whiffle ball with them, or introduce them to geeky games, or anything like that. I guess it's a parenting philosophy that one either intuitively groks or doesn't, so I won't spend a lot of time trying to explain it.

(SOURCE: http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2006/02/less_than_you_t.html)


Ayep!


--GG