Do you ever feel like giving up on being a good parent? - Page 2

[dogretro]

I'm fairly certain that teeth were designed for the sole purpose of slowly driving us insane. I had great teeth as a kid: no braces, white, some cavities but nothing catastrophic. My childhood dentist did point out to my mother and I that I had exceptionally "groovy" teeth, which greatly contributed to more cavities. A dentist I had as an adult said that some cavities occur b/c grooves on the biting surface can be smaller than one brush bristle, so there is no way to clean out the plaque or bacteria. This just happens, nothing one can do about it. Maybe one's saliva is more germ-killing, or another's diet is less sticky, so bad things don't happen to them *shrug*

My teeth have always been prone to breaking, starting at around age 12. My mother didn't believe me when I told her there was "something" massively wrong w/ one of my baby molars & my dentist *never noticed it*. The hell? It never hurt, it was just gross, and eventually fell out. The irony is that the permanent tooth that came to take its place needed a crown at age 14. I just had yet another tooth painlessly break this week & the dentist bonded it together today (I'm 9 mos pg, can't get it super worked on yet). I've had 11 teeth root canaled. I brush every day w/a $100 dentist specialty electric brush. Floss every day & rinse w/ Listerine every day. Husband does the same thing. Doesn't matter, our teeth are still shit. I'm certain that we eat too much sugar (I always have). Still, even when taking a more natural route to dental health, things went downhill (more rapidly, actually). I don't even bother about it anymore, just wait for the day I can get dentures :)

{{{hugs}}}, mama. We do the best we can and it's still sometimes not enough *sigh*

[purplerose]

in my situation, healthy foods, rare junk, but a 100 pound 10 year old. the asshole family doc said, in front of her, stop drinking sodas and be more active so you  can impress the boys at your prom. wtf??? besides trying to raise my girls to not give a duck about "impressing boys", 1.soda/junk is rare for her and 2.the only time she is inactive is in her sleep and sometimes at school! she's a star softball player, runs and jumps around *all the time*. she now thinks she is fat and it breaks my heart. her legs are hard as a rock. (that doc is gone and her current doc is big and goofy.)

besides a healthy diet, i have a child with allergies who was breastfed, and had a horribly clingy non-sleeping unhappy AP baby. i know how it feels to say, "why bother?" also when you tried to raise kids gently, and they turn 15 and sneak/lie, it doesn't help :/

[meemee]

Originally Posted by purplerose 

i know how it feels to say, "why bother?" also when you tried to raise kids gently, and they turn 15 and sneak/lie, it doesn't help :/

THAT is teh true test of parenting. you know its not THEM. its the evil hormones in the body. THAT's when you hang in there and keep your mouth SHUT - meaning no emotional outbursts and degrading your child.

coz sometimes in their 20s they realise, and feel terrible and come home.

and then you have your baby and you go and 'worship' your mama for all that she did - no matter how big or small her mistakes were. 

i have walked this exact path and i know it. the worst thing i have ever done is make my mom cry when i was a teen. to date i regret that and no matter what i do, i can never forgive myself for that. 

however my parents were AP. they both taught me to NEVER ever GIVE up on parenting. no matter what. and i can say with conviction - even if my dd becomes the next serial killer, i will be there for her always visiting her in prison. 

[LitMom]

Lately, I've been telling my kids that if something optional isn't fun for me, I don't do it. That means whining about wanting a sweet snack? Not gonna happen. Asking nicely, and behaving like kids who can sit and chat or read in a starbucks? Sure, sounds great, let's go! Of course, EVERYTHING can't be something I'm going to enjoy doing (like getting home today, which was a nightmare) or hard parenting lessons, but day to day should be fun or at least non-stressful, or else I need to change something up. That's my goal now, anyway. Is it a happy time or memorable though challenging situation? Do we absolutely have to do it? If no to both, bow out!

[sparklefairy]

For me, it's become a matter of just doing the next "right" thing and redefining what it means to me to be a "good" parent. A "good" parent can have kids with cavities. A "good" parent is a human who has human children, which means that none of us are perfect.

Note that this doesn't mean just taking an "it's all good" attitude and doing whatever. Although sometimes, that is the next "right" thing to do...
 

[spughy]

I agree with a lot of the "let it go" advice, but I wanted to throw it out there that when you've done everything "right" and the results have been decidedly non-optimal, then logically what you were told was "right" is possibly not so much.  Or, not exactly.

I was raised by a dentist and a dental nurse (now called hygienists).  They were rabid about dental health.  They raised me and my sisters on organic vegetables, wild game, and while we did eat grains, my mom made all our bread and soaked the grains beforehand.  And, despite my parents having crappy teeth (my father had lost all his upper teeth and several of his lower by the time we came along and my mom's mouth was riddled with fillings and root canals) my sisters and I are now 40, 38 and 36 and we have exactly zero cavities between us.  So genetics CAN be overcome with diet.  But the trick is, it has to be the right diet, and I think that is more individual than we've been led to believe, even by more enlightened folks like Weston Price.

Tooth decay isn't exactly caused by bacteria - it's caused by bacteria eating through tooth enamel.  That happens when enamel isn't replaced fast enough or is persistently thin, usually from birth.  That happens when there's insufficient mineral content in the diet or in the body due to insufficient absorption, or insufficient ability of the body to make enamel from what it's got.  I don't think there's been enough study on the latter two to say definitively what the answers are there, but insufficient absorption can be caused by gut irritants leading to leaky guts.  And those gut irritants can be almost anything, but the big culprits are grains, dairy and excess omega-6 fatty acids - as far as the research goes NOW.

What I'm getting at is that the advice to simply eat whole foods and avoid sugar is just not sufficient for your kid - but whether you'd be able to figure out what's missing or causing problems is a whole 'nother story.  And while generally, a strict paleo diet with none of the culprits would probably do a lot to stem any further decay, it's hard to do that and you'd have to ask yourself what matters most to your family.   The cavities aren't your fault, and while there are people out there who would see this as a challenge and turn themselves inside out figuring out HOW to fix their kid's enamel problem... that's a hobby in itself.  If, as it sounds, you are kind of done with this issue, then just be okay with that!  It's all right!  As someone else said, 4 cavities is hardly the end of the world.   Probably you did great limiting it to just 4.

Parenting seems to be all about picking your battles.  If this is one you want to pick, great - that's your choice.  If not, that's okay too. 

[treegardner]

We have had struggles with teeth too. DS needed his first dental surgery at 2 and had another this year. His front teeth are all capped, he has 2 crowns, and has had to have 1 tooth extracted. I was devastated. We BF for 3.5 years, he doesn't drink juice, not a lot of junk, overall, pretty healthy diet. We found a great pediatric dentist who knew it wasn't diet related because only his top teeth are like this, the bottom teeth are prefect. He said that DS had demineralization and that it may be linked to my morning sickness during pregnancy. I lost 10 lbs in the first trimester because I couldn't keep anything down. He said he has seen numerous patients with this same issue that also had terrible morning sickness.

 

[queenofchaos]

Everyone has pretty great advice for dealing with the 'why bother?' feelings, but I wanted to say that I really get the whole guilt trip the dentist lays on! I have had go rounds with the dentist because I refuse fluoride and they try to convince me my kids have cavities WITHOUT doing xrays and no visible signs of cavities because of my refusal. It's pretty ridiculous really. For a long time my kids had no cavities, but now one kid gets them and the dentist really lays the guilt trip on. Well, I know I am doing the best I can and have valid reasons for not doing fluoride, so they can just bite me! Sometimes, you just have to take stuff with a grain of salt.

[ilovemygirl]

Originally Posted by queenofchaos 

Everyone has pretty great advice for dealing with the 'why bother?' feelings, but I wanted to say that I really get the whole guilt trip the dentist lays on! I have had go rounds with the dentist because I refuse fluoride and they try to convince me my kids have cavities WITHOUT doing xrays and no visible signs of cavities because of my refusal. It's pretty ridiculous really. For a long time my kids had no cavities, but now one kid gets them and the dentist really lays the guilt trip on. Well, I know I am doing the best I can and have valid reasons for not doing fluoride, so they can just bite me! Sometimes, you just have to take stuff with a grain of salt.

You know that's interesting. I never even thought they might be lying but they might. My dh took her and they didn't do x-rays and last time we were there (maybe 8 or 9 months before) they told me everything was great. 

I've been looking for someone to give me a second opinion anyway so maybe I'll get lucky and they were full of it to begin with...