A Word on Advice

Between the issues we had when Madison started kindergarten and the issue we are having with Kennedy and preschool I have learned a bit about advice. The fact of the matter is we all have a basic philosophy on parenting and how we believe we should raise our children. In this basic philosophy there is a lot of flexibility and room to improve and adjust BUT when you ask the general public (as in a random plea to your FB "friends" or whoever may be reading your blog) you realize you don't really want just anyones advice. You want the advice of people who have a philosophy similar to yours and who believe in the same kind of fundamental parenting you do. This has been a really great thing for me to realize. I spent so much time second guessing things with Madison when I sought oodles of advice from various people (all of which ended up being completely different advice) when I really should have just listened to my own inclination and instinct. I knew what to do, it just took me a while to get the courage I suppose. Everyone has advice (and often it accompanies judgement) but nobody knows your children as well as you do and nobody else knows what is best for them except you (except, I suppose, in some messed up situations).

So, I wrote the above post several weeks ago and never finished it but thought I would post it anyway. I think I'm going to change my blog a bit to focus less on my personal stuff and just more pictures of the kids and the fun stuff we are doing. I'm not a very open person (that's an understatement, really) so I'm not sure why my blogs tend to get so personal. For the first time I'm feeling uncomfortable with how personal they are, probably because I have felt some judgement for different things from people I have talked to that wouldn't have known anything had I not mentioned it either here or on FB. I think I need to take some privacy back. Who knows, although I'm fairly private I do get frustrated and opinionated so this might be a temporary change until I can't shut my mouth (or stop my fingers in this case) any longer. Until then enjoy the pictures of my beautiful girls.