Hope Over Worry

I have such an ambivalent relationship with the Internet. I love it and I hate it, too. Don't you? Disguised under the guise of connectivity, more often than not it pulls us all apart.  It pits us against each other. Against ideas. Ideas that really just don't matter. Period. It's why I have to step away from social media a lot- it's because I don't care where people go to the bathroom....or HOW a child got in a zoo enclosure (just that he did and now he's safe and you people have NO IDEA how quickly children can get into trouble despite the most attentive caregivers)...I don't care if you vaccinate or formula feed or leave your child rear facing in their carseats until they are six years old. I do not care. Leave me out of it.

I'm tired of freaking out reading signs at Walmart reminding me to turn around and go get my baby out of a hot car. My baby is not in the car, but thanks for the brief heart attack.

I'm tired of rubbing sun screen all over my kids to protect them from the harmful sun only to come home and read an article about how all the sprays and lotions cause cancer.

We're coming upon swimming season and although I swallowed gallons of water growing up around pools and at the lake every summer, I will freak out for twenty four hours after any of my kids are around water because of the massive amounts of dry drowning posts I will see. Already, I'm worried. Just yesterday, Abel took off his puddle jumper near the pool. I stood up to sit nearer to him in case he got any crazy ideas and before I knew it, he had jumped in the pool, something he won't usually even do with floaties on. Thankfully, I got to him very quickly but he is very tired today and feels warm and where does my head go? It goes to the extremely rare thing that might happen that I saw on the Internet last summer and the summer before that.

I'm just so exhausted by the list of what good parents do. It's on Pinterest. It's on Facebook. It's on the news. It's in your hearts and minds. More than ever, I will keep the tendency to trust that parents are, for the most part, doing what is best for the kids they've been entrusted with. There's no parent shaming here because I know. Every day, I sacrifice myself to do what I think is best for my children in the moment. 24/7, that's what I'm doing. It's because of this that I know you're not a crappy mom because you sent your kid to school with a lunchable for the third time in a week.

It's a Catch 22 everywhere I turn. Hey, my kids are fed and happy and safe. Do you think 5 popsicles in a weekends time is going to permanently damage them? Me either. If you're one of those parents that their kids only eat the freshest of organic vegetables then that is great! I applaud you. I just also happen to think those other parents who don't follow that strict of a diet or lifestyle are good parents, too.

There's so much out there online that you might lose sleep over....so much that can get you fired up. And for what?

Accidents happen all the time, y'all. It's a consequence of living in a fallen world. I'm just so glad I have a HOPE that is greater than anything this world could provide.