Parenting is hard.  In case you didn't know.

If you could create an effective if/then flow chart of parenting do's and don'ts, you would become the most famous person in the history of the world forever and ever.   Monuments would be erected of you.  Dr. Who would probably have an episode dedicated to you.

I used to think that having the internet was such a huge blessing because you have all this amazing parenting advice right at your finger tips.

But after a few years I've realized it's not so great because you have all of this parenting advice right at your finger tips.

It's like having nine million mothers in law yapping in your ear, giving you conflicting advice and judging you all the while.  *Note: not my mother in law.  I adore her and her advice.  End Note.*

And then I made the ultimate mistake of posting on FB.  This only exacerbated the problem.  I had no idea so many people had such strong opinions about how to raise kids.  Oh wait, yes I did.

I actually had to take a break from FB.  We were having relationship problems.  I spent way too much time with it, and in return it made me feel worse about myself and the state of the world.  I think Satan is winning the round entitled "Social Media".  The whole #IstandwithCherish debacle was the last straw.  That poor woman.  The world is so cruel and shows no mercy.

But back to parenting.  Even with having the added blessing of prayer and personal revelation, I still stare into the parenting abyss, completely dumbfounded by the total lack of guidance reaching out to me.  I know I have experience, I know I should know this stuff, but I just don't.  It's that math test I swear I studied for and totally flunked anyway, all over again.  So I binge watch Friends and eat copious amounts of foods that aren't good for me.  Rinse and repeat.

I actually Googled "nervous breakdown" just to see if I'd find a picture of myself.  I wasn't listed, but give it a few more weeks of hours upon hours of homework with tired kids, 40 more loads of laundry, and endless sleepless nights spent with useless worrying and I think I might make the headline, "Mother of 4 head explodes.  Parenting Flow Chart could have saved life."

How have thousands of years of parents done it?  Seriously.  I want answers.  And they had to deal with things like famine, plagues, oppression, pig poop, lack of clean water and all other manner of ickiness that I just don't even have to worry about.

Our lives are so different from theirs.  Their little babies died and here we are just murdering ours because they're an inconvenience to choices we consciously made.  Somehow we have an excess of babies.  Just doesn't make sense.

Our worries are so different from theirs, too.  We have to worry about too much information.  Too much offense taken.  Too much homework.  Too much skin showing.  Too little mercy, love and understanding.  Because we're not busy with all that pig poop, we have more time to worry about nice houses, coiffed hair, pretty makeup, perfect clothes.  This is what we're doing instead of taking that extra time to serve, love, show mercy, and play with our littles.

Wait.  Is that an answer?  I don't know!  I'll go try it out and see how it works and let you know.  In the meantime, if you have any parenting answers, feel free to share them.  Especially if it's in flow chart form.

This was a depressing post.  Let me leave you with one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite ladies, Marjorie Pay Hinckley.  She was a neat woman who professed that she didn't have all the answers but I swear she did!  Mostly she relied on our Heavenly Father's love and personal revelation and the sweet atoning sacrifice of our Savior.  She made it look so easy.