Lazy Parenting or Sanity Preservation?

I often find myself plagued by the question – am I a lazy mother? Today I brought the tiny lady to the park and she ended up playing sticks with another little boy. By playing sticks I mean throwing random bits of wood into the fountain and creating lots of splashy wet fun! Needless to say tiny lady ended up soaked to the skin and in need of a full change of clothes. Luckily we live five minutes away so this wasn’t a big problem.

But later I found myself wondering was this just an example of lazy parenting? I knew if I stopped the tiny lady from participating she would inevitably throw a strop. I’ll be honest I wasn’t in the form for a battle to see who was boss today. I couldn’t face her throwing herself on the ground and screaming while I made ineffectual gestures at picking her up. I felt tired just thinking about it. So yes I let her play in the questionably dirty water.

The same thing had happened earlier. The swings and slide were wet. Another mother cautioned her daughter against going down the slide while I quickly dried it with a ball of tissues to avoid a possible meltdown. She still managed to get wet but I found myself just not caring. I wondered was this just mere laziness or have I managed to become a bit more chilled out about things? When she was tiny I used to change her clothes if even a speck of dirt got on them; now not so much. She spends her days covered in various forms of gunk and USG (Unidentifiable Sticky Goo – a substance that just seems to grow around toddlers). Her hair…well the least said about that the better. She starts off with a cute pony-tail and hair-clips. By the end of the day her hair is down in her face, sticky looking and the hair-clips are long gone (side note – where do all these hair-clips disappear to??).

I have given up the fight; the battle to have a well-presented child. I see these other little girls all cute in their little (clean) outfits and hair up just so. I must admit I get a bit jealous when I compare them to my little mound of messiness. But that’s who she is. She hates getting dressed and don’t get me started on trying to do her hair. So I throw on whatever is easiest, don’t change it unless it gets really, really gross and I don’t bother too much when her hair becomes a tangle of ick.

Laziness or just a way to maintain my sanity? I’m still trying to decide.

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