In today's society, we all are expected to fall into certain standards. Where I come from, in a smaller town, people expect you to be their version of an ideal parent. You are expected to send your kids to a good public or private school, vaccinate them, put them in disposable diapers, not fuss at them in public while at the same time they should be acting like perfect saints. Those are all great things if that is your thing.

My outlook on parenting is a bit different from these things, though. My son is four. He's wild and crazy like most four-year-old boys are. He loves cars and monster trucks, but he also loves YouTube videos. He watches YouTube videos on my phone or on his grandparent's iPad. He doesn't watch anything bad, just silly cartoon videos or other kids playing with toys. Society doesn't think that kids his age should be allowed phones and things like that. I can assure though that he has learned a lot from those videos. He is better at counting, learning his alphabet, and has even gotten better at talking because of them!

I still babywear even though he is four now. Trust me I have gotten some wierd looks and bad comments while I am out and wearing him. People think I am babying him and not letting him be a normal kid because I don't let him run through the store like a wild child. He loves to be wrapped up on my back. He can see further and we get to cuddle, all while he is safe and close to me. To me that beats him running out into the parking lot while I try to push the buggy and keep up.

Now my husband and I do discipline a bit different from one another. He works second shift, so he is gone from around 2pm until after our son is in bed for the night. I work mornings so they have until the time he goes to work to spend together. My son responds better to his dad if he uses a firm tone of voice with him when he is misbehaving. That doesn't work for me as I am a generally quiet and calm person. So if he misbehaved all my husband has to do is use a firm voice and he will start to behave. On the other hand, I usually have to resort to time out or a tap on the hand. Society now-a-days believes that you shouldn't be firm with kids. You should reason with them and not raise your tone with them, and definitely do not tap their hand or spank them. That would never in a million years work with my wild child. He would continue doing what he is doing and ultimately end up in harms way from it. Growing up my parents yelled at me if I did something bad, or spanked me, and I'm not scarred from it. Personally, I believe I grew up to be a respectful adult. I respect my elders and authority because my parents weren't afraid of what society thought of them.

My husband and I both have tattoos. Nothing major, we both only have two right now, but those two tattoos give people an impression of us that is less than grand. I have a big cupcake on my arm since I love to bake. My husband has his favorite guitar on his arm. We also have a matching key and lock. just those two measly tattoos make people think we are trashy, or bad parents. To us it is a way of expressing ourselves. Same as the music we both love to play. We recently started a band together called Disguised as Animals. he plays the guitar and I play the bass guitar, along with one of our close friends who plays guitar as well. It is a passion we both share, and our son loves to watch us play! We are growing his knowledge and love for music and have been since day one.

Now my son isn't old enough for school yet. He could be in preschool right now, but the only ones in our town that don't cost a fortune had waiting lists so long that I should have put him on them before he was even conceived. I haven't yet decided if he will be attending public school or if I will be homeschooling him. I believe that he would do better in a homeschool type setting where we can focus on things he enjoys and I can teach him things on his level. My five or six-year-old doesn't need to know how to multiply triple digit numbers. He doesn't need to know how to write in cursive. He will learn all those things in due time, when he is ready for them. I will know he is safe and that he is learning things the right way.

I know many people don't believe the way that I do. It doesn't bother me. All I want out of life is to know that my son has grown up happy and has learned to be a wonderful person. He will learn how to respect women from his daddy. He will learn to love and respect his surroundings and nature from his mommy. He will learn to stand up for himself from us both. He will be a respectful member of society no matter how he is brought up. Any child, no matter how their parents decide to raise them, has the potential to be the next president, the next Gandhi, the next Rosa Parks, so long as we teach them to have respect and to stand up for what they believe in. So to all the parents out there, you do you, and raise those babies to be amazing people! Who cares what anyone else thinks!