{"id":1826,"date":"2011-01-03T11:14:04","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T18:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=1826"},"modified":"2025-11-02T21:37:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T04:37:14","slug":"my-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=1826","title":{"rendered":"My Job"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve said it before (but no one reads the older posts, lol.\u00a0 No one is as compulsive about going back to the beginning and following a bloggers journey as I am!)<\/em> but I’ll say it again…\u00a0 I have a different idea about the definition of my job as a parent.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In a way I’m like my Dad who took his role of “father” as seriously, but only when he actively chose to get involved in us, which was rare.<\/strong> Like most kids, we were parented by our mother with our father peripherally involved.<\/strong> Probably what made me a dominant female who married a man who preferred me that way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So when I had my own kids I took to it a little like a job.\u00a0 There were a million tasks to be done, decisions to be made for the little guy (s) and constant need-answering being demanded.\u00a0 Which I’ve always been good at doing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet when I look back on my style of parenting I can categorize it as different from my friends on a few levels.\u00a0 I realize that we all parent the same way, basically, but we do it with different levels in each category.\u00a0 For Instance:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Caretaker:<\/em> We’re all in charge of the basic needs of our kids.\u00a0 Food, shelter and the basic healthy well-being of each.\u00a0 You know, like any unemotional system.\u00a0 Here’s your grub, brush your teeth, go to bed, wake up, here’s your grub, off to school.\u00a0 Most parents, men especially, find this the easier road to master.\u00a0 Because its just management.\u00a0 Constantly changing as the years go by Management, but management just the same.
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The Teacher:<\/em> We’re also supposed to be training our kids to be ready for adulthood, a task many completely forget.\u00a0 It’s impossible to imagine or plan for this when they’re under 3 years old and since those are the primary trust years I always say pamper the shit out of them during those first 3 years.\u00a0 But once they are older…. oh, welcome to the REAL world!\u00a0 You can start them off with “helping” Mommy which can turn into chores which can turn into responsibility.\u00a0 Which I covered in these 3 blogs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kids and Money #1<\/a>
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Kids and Money #2<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kids and Money #3<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Loving Parent<\/em>:\u00a0 As “MOM” our job is to love them like few others do.\u00a0 We have to give them all the levels of love.. unconditional, conditional, loving- you- while- still- being- the- heavy, silly love, playful love, I-almost-lost-you-and-can’t-live-without-you love… and every other aspect of love you can experience.\u00a0 We feel that and shower our kids with various ones at least once throughout their lives.\u00a0 Including the I-Love-Who-You-Grew-Into love.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What I noticed, is some people express their Parent Love in Caretaker form.\u00a0 They shower the kids with whatever thing they want.\u00a0 Some do it because its easier than dealing with correcting the whining behavior\u00a0 over and over again.\u00a0 Some do it because they want a better childhood for their kids than they had (was it really THAT bad? Are you a mass murderer?)\u00a0 And some do it because they feel its the best expression of them as a Loving Parent.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The truth is we all like to feel we do each part pretty well.\u00a0 But we do some parts better than others.\u00a0 I excel at The Teacher and I’m pretty damn good at The Loving Parent but I was a better Manager when they were little. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, part of being The Teacher is out-sourcing some of my management responsibilities to the\u00a0 kids!
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve said it before (but no one reads the older posts, lol.\u00a0 No one is as compulsive about going back to the beginning and following a bloggers journey as I am!) but I’ll say it again…\u00a0 I have a different … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-narcissist-secrets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1826"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3234,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions\/3234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}