Good cop, bad cop, and the beautiful challenge of balance in parenting.
I consider myself a fun loving person, pretty easy going and up for spontaneity. Active and social describe me, and generally feel like I operate with a handful of basic rules. While I am type A and sort of a control freak…. no one notices that really, right? My kids and husband would say the same thing, right?!
Doubt it.
Most likely not.
Okay, no.
They love me, don’t get me wrong, but let me just highlight a few things that would change if the destroyer of fun (that’s me, the bad cop) wasn’t around to keep things under control.
My husband loves sweets, he would turn down a bowl of queso in a heartbeat for good dessert. I think that’s just crazy in terms of priorities but to each their own. My kids love sweets, too, and so when they ask the question if they can have ice cream after dinner (every night) or ANOTHER cookie even though they’ve had three gets an immediate answer of “SURE!” That’s when I swoop in and crush dreams, because I think the three cookies you had is enough. And maybe we can swap out that every night thing from ice cream to vegetables. I like that idea!
How about bedtime? Stick to the schedule – nah, let them stay up and finish watching that movie they’ve seen 150 times. What difference does an hour or so make? Oh, EVERYTHING. The correlation to how sluggish and grumpy they are the day after doesn’t ever seem to stick. The good cop doesn’t have to deal with my 7 year old crying in the bathroom because I couldn’t get her side ponytail to look absolutely perfect. Where’s my husband then!? Probably giving my son another pour of syrup for his pancakes.
On the occasion we do need to discipline, efforts are made, but seeing the consequences through is HARD. Someone has to do it though, if you don’t they’ve got us pinned and they’ll get away with everything. From staying in your room the full hour to following through with early bedtimes, no iPad time, etc…one of us has to stay strong and see it through! It’s not easy people, I want to buckle all the time when I see their sweet faces and their tearful apologies that it “will never happen again.” Right.
It’s not always fun, and at times frustrating, but if there is one thing I have learned it’s that balance is healthy. I’ve learned that my passion towards certain principles is pretty well aligned with my husband, but at times we will not see eye to eye, and that’s okay. It’s taken time to adjust and I know there are more challenges ahead, but I’ve changed the way I look at how we approach them. Side note — I’ve also learned that I despise laundry, so guess who takes that head on. The good cop. That, my friends, is balance.
I used to get really discouraged at the fact that we slid into these roles, my husband being the more laid back parent, and me a slight helicopter mom. For us, it works. My husband pushes me to lighten up a bit and I push him towards consistency. The kids might get a few extra ice cream cones in their life, or stay up late playing board games with us, but my kids LOVE those moments. We have bad days just like everyone else. However, I find that we’re hi-fiving as much as we can while we navigate these parenting waters.
Good cop or bad cop, my take on it all is to find strength in the role you know you’re meant to play. It takes a village to raise these little people, embrace it.
