I’ve only been a parent for about 10 years, so I’m nowhere near an expert on parenting. In all that time though, I was told by people to always pick your battles. What does that even mean, “pick your battles”? Aren’t I supposed to be the parent? Battles are supposed to be between people of equal standing, so I assumed as a parent that I’d have an upper hand by being an adult. They laughed at my stating this, and said I was a naïve child. Maybe so, being a single teenager probably makes me the last person who should comment about anything to do with parenting especially since my first-born wasn’t even more than a fetus yet.

Soon enough, I realized that he didn’t listen when I tried to be the boss of everything. Even worse, I realized that I sounded like a naggy old lady doing so. It did hit me eventually that they were right: it’s way too tiring to fight over everything with your child. Obviously, the serious things you still need to stand your ground. But I learned that eventually you pass some power over to your child. Is it good for them to eat hot dogs and mac and cheese everyday? Not in the least, but it’s better than spending more time fighting with him than him eating. But you can work around that with vitamins and other ways to trick vitamins into you child. Even something like clothes it’s better to bite your tongue than fighting about why plaid shouldn’t be worn with plaid. Friends don’t let other friends wear plaid on plaid, remember that. (Or like I ranted about before, that awful boys in skinny jeans trend.)

If not being stressed about every little things isn’t enough of a reason not to fight your child on everything, consider when you were younger. When your parents said “no”, didn’t that make you want it more? It started not to matter that you wanted it, that wasn’t the point anymore. Now it’s a matter of they told you that you couldn’t have it and you suddenly wanted it more than air itself. Do I like my son in a fedora with skinny jeans? No, definitely not.  But I’ll take that over a heart attack. So remember for you new parents: Pick your battles, you’re better off that way.