Maybe we’re all more alike than we’re different…

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

So I’m a little worried that some of you may have gotten the wrong impression from my post yesterday about how I have not yet yelled at my girls. (Also, please remember that my girls are only 3 years and 7 months. I imagine that I won’t be able to keep this record for ever.)

A few hours later, Janice published her perspective on the trouble with tempers.

But I thought I should round out the picture a little more.

Neither Janice nor I claim to be star parents. Very, very far from it. We both often feel extremely inadequate as mothers and homemakers. And despite being twins, we sometimes differ as parents.

As Janice mentioned in her post, we feel we compliment each other well and when we do disagree or have different experiences, it’s fun for you get two different points of view.

So I thought I’d stop and ponder how Janice and I differ as parents…

A Few of Our Similarities

1. Janice and I both love our children more than we can ever describe.
2. We’re both Christians and believe that raising our children as Christians is the most important gift we can give them.
3. We love breastfeeding. Janice nursed Jackson until he was 16 months old and I nursed Julia until she was 25 months old. Olivia and Sophia will likely nurse until after their first birthdays.
4. We both are weak at setting boundaries with our kids and in other areas of our lives.
5. We both hate housework and, to be honest, we’re messy and we lament how our poor kids have little chance of learning to tidy up behind themselves.
6. We’re both terrible at getting our kids in bed on time. We’re awful at judging our time, and more nights than not bedtime comes and we’re still ‘almost done a post’ while stories are yet to be read and teeth still need brushing.
7. As crazy busy work-at-home moms we both had to admit we needed help when we had our new babies. We both had to weaken and hire nannies to help with our children and housework so that we can still run our online businesses and work at home. It would be nice to do everything ourselves as we did before the new babies arrived, but it was clear that we ought to get some sleep instead of working all night.
8. Janice and I both think we’re open to various parenting ideas and we try to not be judgmental about our friend’s parenting styles. Some of our friends strictly follow attachment parenting while others disagree with the concept. Some of our friends spank their kids and others hate the idea. We like to let a parent choose what is best for her family and we don’t bother judging them. We’re busy making our own mistakes and trying to figure out what works for our own families.

A Couple of Our Differences

1. I co-sleep with my girls. Janice let Jackson sleep in his crib as a baby but from about 18 months until 3 years, he also was a co-sleeper. Janice’s 7 month old baby Olivia currently sleeps in a crib.
2. I lean towards attachment parenting more than Janice. This was especially the case with Julia whose temperament really seemed to benefit from extra holding and closeness. A barrier to Janice wearing Jackson was that he weighed more at 1 year old than Julia does at 3 years old. Carrying him all day wasn’t really an option for Janice. He’s now 4″4′ and 70 lbs at 6 years old.

Wow. Now that I list that out, it looks like we’re twins after all. I can’t even come up with more than two differences and those two are strongly influenced by other family factors.

I bet if we all made lists like this, most of us would find out we are all more alike than we are different. And I suspect many of the differences may arise because we’re all parenting children with unique temperaments and personalities.

In the end, I think we are all moms who love our children and we’re all doing the best we can. So let’s give each other a virtual pat on the back and say, “Way to go, Mom!”.