The Undermining of (my) Parental Authority

Note: In the process of writing this I realized that I have probably done many of the things I’m complaining about. Please forgive me if you have been on the receiving end, I didn’t know what I was doing at the time.
Also, for those of you who have been supporting me and respecting my parenting responsibility. Thank you so much!

You would think that having two little ones that stay at home 90% of their time and a nanny that is on board with our morals and discipline strategies would make it easy to maintain our authority with them. However, I find myself under constant attack in this area. Either that means we are actually doing a good job and the enemy doesn’t like it, or we need to step it up.

– Almost every television show out there portrays the parents as the bad guys.
– Grandparents (and even anyone over the age of about 60) think they have a license to “spoil” my children, whether I’m standing right there or not.
– Other parents find it ok to break my rules when they are watching my kids even when they know them in advance
– People think its ok to ignore requests I have made regarding my children either because they don’t agree or don’t see the harm in it

None of this is ok. It seems that maybe the Mormons have it right. Don’t let your kids hang out with kids of other people who don’t share your morals and rules. It sure would make it easier. I wouldn’t have to explain why so-and-so gets to eat candy at 8:30 when I don’t let daughter have any. Etc.

You don’t have to agree with me in order to respect my authority over my children. In the same way parents shouldn’t argue about rules in front of the kids, there is a time and place to have a discussion about why you have certain rules or why you think certain things are allowable. And an agreement can be reached regarding how you can treat my children and how I can treat yours. But no matter what, we should have each other’s back. If a parent says no to something in front of another parent, that person should not say “It’s OK” or “That’s not what I would have said.” That’s undermining. They should support your decision. When I ask my children to call people by their titles in order to show respect, like “Mrs. or Mr.”, it doesn’t help when the person says, oh, they don’t need to do that. Yes they do. I’m the parent and I’m trying to train them to respect other people. Grandparents ought to know better. They should be our biggest advocates for doing a good job. They should be supporting us and providing wisdom into areas we are struggling with, not undermining the good work we have been doing.

So what to do? I don’t know. I feel like the battle is just starting and I have no idea how long and tiring the war is going to be. . . maybe I’ll become a hermit until my children are of marriageable age.