If you wait long enough, you will find a parenting book that endorses your style of mothering.
Mine was just published … the book that argues why laid-back parents raise healthier and happier kids.
Appropriately titled, “The Idle Parent” is a refreshing change to most of the parenting books on the market because this style of parenting can be done by a depressive or those of us with chronic illnesses. Author Tom Hodgkinson writes: “Welcome to the school of inactive parenting. It’s a win-win situation: less work for you and better for your children, in terms of their enjoying their everyday lives and also for their self-reliance and independence.
It’s not that I totally run my household this way–I’m very involved in their homework, in scheduling play dates, and shuttling to lacrosse–but this book makes me feel okay about the days that I can’t pull it all together and let them fend for themselves.
Here is “The Idle Parent Manifesto”:

• We reject the idea that parenting requires hard work.
• We pledge to leave our children alone.
• We reject the rampant consumerism that invades children’s lives from the moment they are born.
• We read them poetry and fantastic stories without morals.
• We reject the inner Puritan.
• We don’t waste money on family days out and holidays.
• An idle parent is a thrifty parent.
• An idle parent is a creative parent.
• We lie in bed for as long as possible.
• We try not to interfere.
• We play in the fields and forests.
• We push them into the garden and shut the door so we can clean the house.
• We both work as little as possible, particularly when the kids are small.
• Time is more important than money.
• Happy mess is better than miserable tidiness.

I wish all you moms out there a very happy Mother’s Day. Don’t forget to relax!

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