The Annoying Blog

I admit it, I read a lot of blogs. Sometimes I stumble upon them randomly, through homeschooling sites or something, and sometimes I search them out, as in the time immediately after Sophie died when I needed, desperately needed, to find people who had also lost a child. I read the blogs of friends, family, blogs for writers, blogs for parents, blogs for easy vegetarian recipies...sometimes I even read blogs of friends of friends for no reason at all.

There is this one blog that drives me nuts (I know, I know, why read it?? I don't know! I just don't know!). It is a homeschooling mom of four kids who range in age from (I'm guessing here) 2 to 10. She is definitely very relaxed and always talking about letting her kids be and how they will learn what they want to learn when they want to learn it (this method of homeschooling is called unschooling). She says they are all developing their own personalities, with no help from her, and that they have basically no limits at home on anything--from TV to video games. She says that trusting them to make their own choices is the only way and, from what I understand, they always make the right choice. Yeah, right. But to read her blog, it sounds as if her home is always filled with love and light, laughter and joy, peace and harmony. And on days when I'm having a good day and I want affirmation that my parenting style is good, I love reading her blog. But on days when I'm on edge, the girls are fighting, the baby is whining...I find her blog annoying. Why? Because I just want to scream at the computer, "You MUST have days like this!!! You have FOUR kids!" I mean, really, there MUST be days when dinner is late, kids are arguing, it is raining, and you feel like the world is falling in on you. Because we are all--all of us--HUMAN.

Of course, mothers are generally known to be the worst when it comes to comparing ourselves and our children and I guess I just feel slighted when another mom is always raving about how perfect her life is. And if her life really is like that, I guess I need to try harder. Don't get me wrong, I'm am blessed, so blessed, to be able to be home with my kids and homeschooling and living a connected, simplified lifestyle that I deeply believe in. But I have bad days--and that is the truth. There are days when, no matter how connected I am as a parent, the kids are annoying. Not on purpose, and I totally accept that they are doing the best they can to get their needs met in a way that makes sense to them. Great. But it can be annoying. Admit it!

So I'm sorry if anyone out there reading this ever feels like less of a parent because my life seems so perfect. It is as perfect as it gets...but nothing is ever perfect and nobody should feel like they don't live up. I should probably stop reading that blog, huh?