The Best Parenting Styles: For Happy Parents More Than Brilliant Kids

Just before my first daughter was born, I was looking up how to be the best parent I could. I doubt I am alone in this - we all want our families to be happy, secure, and only have the lightest trauma from dads embarrassing them in front of peers. But there is one article that I read that really stuck with me and made me a better dad.

https://www.fatherly.com/health/parenting-styles-for-baby-dont-matter

There are two main things that made this resonate with me:

• As advice, ‘do what makes you happiest’ is about as easy as it gets.

• There clearly wasn’t a sell here. Trustworthiness +10.

Parenting is like personal health - you’ll find as many sources that tell you one thing as do the opposite. Chocolate will kill you dead as well as help you live longer. Exercise for 30 minutes per session but 10 minutes a day is fine too. Being your kids' friend will help them grow up happy and have an awful life.

With health and parenting, it all boils down to one key thing:

As long as you care, just care in a way that makes sense to you.

If you walk down the street every day, wearing clothes that make you happy, that are you, and that are as outlandish as they come, will anyone really see? If they do, will they remember? And even if you see the same people every day, your best and worst outfits will merge into a general sense of you ‘dressing a bit different’.

So it seems with parenting.

You give them a lot of what makes them before they are born. After that, all of your actions - the best days, worst days, and 6/10 days just merge into one experience of ‘dad’.

If you’re going to remember this more than them, you may as well enjoy it.

Play the games that you can get into, or just read a book while they play around you.

Listen to the music you like on the way to drop-off or talk to them about their favorite color if it excites you.

Just be there.

Just see them.

If you have enough energy to be there, that’s what they’ll remember more than any perfectly planned day. They’ll just remember dad. You’ll remember the day.

So, what does this really mean for the on-the-ground dadding that goes on day to day?

Actually do what you want

Some days you want to go outside, explore the natural world and spark a curiosity in both you and your kids.

Sometimes it is too hot or wet or both to want to do anything.

Either is fine.

Kids are a great excuse to enjoy a bit of the world but no one will enjoy a half-assed trip to the park with a dad going through a crippling case of the s’posed to do’s.

Kids are more sturdy than you’d think to the world

I’ve had friends and known people who ahve been screwed over by the world.

But you know what they were all impacted by? Other people. Not the world.

By all means, encourage friendships (offline or online) that seem productive and positive, but whether your (often figuratively) little one wants to play football or Fortnite, explore the woods with friends or a book by themselves, if the people aren’t bad then they’ll be fine.

Dads company as an option is a comfort even if its not taken.

Dads company as a requirement is often more stifling.

As I tell my youngest when faced with a bumblebee - the most tantilising thing of her entire day - just let them be.

Be more than just dad

If your kids dont need violin lessons, football, ballet, double languages, maths tutoring and piano on Fridays, this rather happily frees you from these clubs as well.

And while its all too easy to plop - jobs are tiring and kids are exhausting - we don’t want to do less, just different. Take up a hobby that interests you for you, not because you want to help your kids.

My friend in a good position at Sony Studios learnt to code because her dad loved coding.

My sister is an amazing photographer having seen her parents lose themselves in their own artistic crafts.

And I got good at maths because it seemed to make my dad happy when I was (and it helped me beat Pokemon).

Enthusiasm is contagious and hobbies help us live longer. That’s a win-win if ever there was one!

Being a parent is an enormous responsibility, and it can be easy to get lost in all the advice and opinions out there. But at the end of the day, what matters most is that you care and that you show up.

Do what makes you happy, and your kids will be happy too. Remember that they don't need you to be perfect, just present.

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