If anyone insists on a label, she’ll keep it simple, “whatever works today,” served with a messy bun and yoga pants. At school drop-off a couple of years ago, someone casually asked her her “parenting style”. The question froze her. Style? As in a messy bun and yoga pants, or some official way you’re supposed to raise a child? Curiosity and insomnia teamed up that night and sent her down a search rabbit hole. She discovered there are names for everything: attachment and authoritarian, permissive and helicopter, free-range and uninvolved, tiger and even hummingbird. Article after article implied you should pick a lane, wear the badge, and never drift. It felt like being asked to slap a label on her forehead so strangers could decide if she was doing it “right.”
The more she read, the clearer it became that this one-size-fits-all approach didn’t fit her life, or her kids. Research is valuable; experts can offer tools, but none live in her house. They don’t know her children’s quirks, how her son shuts down when he’s flooded, or how her daughter rallies when she feels understood. Labels might work on pantry jars and jeans, but they’re clumsy on humans who grow and change every month. She kept returning to one simple truth: the only real experts on her kids are the people raising them. There isn’t a perfect parent or a single “correct” method.
There are good days and blowups, wins and repairs, lessons learned and adjustments made. Thank goodness no one told her about “styles” before she had a newborn. Survival was enough without weighing every cuddle against a theory. So she does what makes sense in the moment. Some days, she raises her voice because she’s out of tools and patience, and then circles back to apologize and try better. Some days, she scoops a sobbing child into her lap because little people sometimes need a big anchor. Some days, she steps back and lets them handle the playground politics so they can find their own courage.
Some day, she steps in because everyone deserves to know someone has their back. Sometimes there are consequences when choices go off the rails; sometimes a gap-toothed grin earns mercy. Occasionally, dinner is ice cream because it’s been that kind of day; other nights, nobody leaves the table until the broccoli disappears. On a rainy Saturday, she may allow a movie marathon to catch a breath; on a sunny afternoon, she clicks off the screens and sends them outside to chase light. Sometimes “because I said so” is enough; sometimes she explains the why carefully. Sometimes she kisses the scraped knee for ritual comfort; sometimes she says, “Up you get, try again,” because resilience matters.
Sometimes she loosens her grip so they learn to stand alone; sometimes she squeezes tight to remind them they’ll never have to. What looks inconsistent on paper is actually responsive in practice. It’s the consistency of love, safety, and values, wrapped in flexibility about tactics. She reads, experiments, and keeps what helps. She throws out what doesn’t. She resists the pressure to cosplay as a helicopter or a tiger when neither fits the child in front of her.
When people push for a neat definition, she smiles. The beauty of parenting, she’s learned, is that you build a way that fits your family and let it evolve as your kids do. There will be messes and second-guesses and moments you wish you could redo. There will also be belly laughs, midnight snuggles, and a thousand small chances to choose connection over performance. Labels won’t raise her children. Showing up will.
She also permitted herself to change her mind. If yesterday’s strategy didn’t work, she and her partner debrief after bedtime, tweak the plan, and try again in the morning. She’ll text a friend for ideas, skim an article, or trust her gut, whatever helps the real child standing before her right now. When she slips, she owns it, apologizes, and models how to repair. When the kids surprise her, she celebrates out loud so they hear what went right. It isn’t tidy but honest: minor course corrections, steady love, and the courage to keep learning together.
