The holidays are full of challenges—braving the 45-minute line at Santaland, being sure to wrap the gifts from Santa in separate wrapping paper (I will only make this mistake once), feigning joy over the gift of a hand painted pastel trash can—but nothing is quite so tough as parenting with an audience. When visiting the in-laws or outlaws or whatever you’ve got, you are put in a unique position as a parent. Sure your parenting is on display anytime you leave the house, but while you might not give a crap about what the disaffected nanny squad at the playground thinks, you may care what your mother-in-law thinks.
There seems to be two roads you can take when parenting in public, just be yourself, firm, consistent, and no nonsense (read: yelling, time-outing, and threating to take back Christmas presents, “You just made my naughty list.”) Or you can go the more Taoist way, be a reed in the river, bending, choosing almost no battles because, after all, it is vacation. Inevitably, you come off as either domineering or permissive, being too much of a helicopter control freak or an invertebrate parent who is raising a spoiled brat. It is not that you are insecure in your approach to childrearing, but that you are concerned with your kid and her reaction to your parenting choices harshing everyone else’s holiday mellow.
For me, I take the worst of both worlds, vacillating between the two options, not wanting to make a scene and therefore backing down from battles I would normally take to the mat; or swinging the other way dogmatically enforcing marginal rules that I could let slide for the holiday season.
It is in moments like this that bad habits are formed; a small person ends up sleeping in your bed to avoid some late night screaming. TV before breakfast quickly becomes the norm. Lunch dessert is suddenly a thing. And when you arrive home, the vacation let down is that much more powerful. But maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe part of what makes vacations special is that the rules are all topsy-turvy. Maybe that is ok, and if the extended family is looking to judge you let them, as long as you still have a good time or there is lots of champagne to off set your not-so-good time. Vacation is a time to break rules. It is a chance for us all to take a break from our usual roles, which gives our kids a chance to see us in a different light. As long as we don’t let those vacation habits continue at home, as long as no one is still brushing their teeth with a candy cane, we will be ok.
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Sarah Moriarty is a writer and editor. Sarah’s writing has appeared in such hallowed places as her blog, her mother’s email inbox, the backs of Value Pack envelopes, and a waist-high stack of mole skin journals. In addition, Sarah has contributed to F’Dinparkslope.com, WhattoExpect.com and edited fiction for Lost Magazine. A resident of Brooklyn for the last eleven years, Sarah lives with her husband, daughter and a dwindling population of cats. Check out more of Sarah’s work at sarahmoriarty.com.