Being a parent who cares is exhausting.

Let me explain. There are so many things that you HAVE to care about when you are raising another human being. You have to care about making sure their bodies are properly nourished with food and water. You have to care about them having the right kind of shelter. You have to care about them getting enough sleep. You have to care about them wearing the appropriate amount of clothing to protect them from the elements (or to keep them from running around naked in public places). You have to care about how their excrement is handled. You have to care about good hygiene. You have to care about their health. You have to care about the 1,476 ways they can harm or end themselves because of their gross lack of experience and judgment and general lack of motor control. This is the basic stuff. You also kinda have to care about their emotional well being and development, their ability to learn the skills necessary to function in society, and their ability to cooperate with others and not be self-centered little goblins for the rest of their lives.

Hills I will no longer die on.

As we parents often do, we take even more care than these basic few things, pushing the limits of our emotional bandwidth until something gives, either in small, periodic ways or big explosive ways. There are “hills that we should die on” for sure, but I just wanted to share a handful of hills that I’ve chosen to abandon. I have simply stopped caring, and my heart and my children’s ears are better for it.

1. I don’t care if you wear mis-matched or non-appropriate clothing.

A red sock and a green sock? Are there two of them? Great, get your shoes on, let’s go! A tennis shoe and a boot? Are they the opposite foot from one another? I call that a win! Put ’em on. Yes, that black shirt goes perfectly with your brown sweatpants. Sure, you can wear a scarf, gloves and knit cap in the middle of July! You want to wear pj’s to the store? Are your privates covered? Then, we’re good to go. You want to wear your batman costume (that’s a few sizes too small) out to dinner tonight? Don’t forget your cape! I exercise this lack of care in most cases. I do make the rare exception for a handful of special events or for family pictures, otherwise, I don’t care.

2. I don’t care when you have an emotional melt-down in the middle of the grocery store.

My lack of care in this case is not so much directed at my child as it is at the other shoppers. I don’t care that the horrible noises my child is making are disturbing your perfect shopping trip. I don’t care if you have opinions or thoughts about why my child is having a meltdown or what I could have done to prevent it. I don’t care about what kind of parent you think I am. My child is obviously having a problem, whether it’s making a scene so he can get what he wants, or that he’s legitimately sad, upset, frustrated, overwhelmed, and is still learning how to handle his emotions. I either need all of my emotional resources focused on helping him through his emotions, or to steel myself against giving into an unhealthy request for attention, and either way, I don’t have any cares left to give you Ms. Disapproving Glare lady. Sorry. Not sorry.

3. I don’t care if you say inappropriate or embarrassing things.

Go ahead. Make your uncensored observations about the world around you. Yes, daddy’s belly is getting big. Yes, that is a hairy man over there. Yes, that lady is wearing a LOT of makeup. Oh, you are test-driving some interesting new words there. Go ahead and take them for a spin. Words can be powerful. What a wonder it is to speak and to watch the room react. You just said one word and the whole place became alive with chatter, laughter and gasps. I might give you some mild corrections/suggestions for now, but there’s no way I can explain to you in this moment the complexity and importance of good, healthy communication. I’m just going to have to demonstrate it for you over time and hope that you catch on, the way that you caught on to my, not-so-healthy speech patterns.

4. I don’t care if you accidentally break, spill or destroy things.

You tried SO hard to carry that cup of milk from the table to the kitchen sink. You made it a whole 3 feet before you spilled it all. Good job! You wanted so badly to bring me my favorite coffee mug, but your fingers don’t work sometimes and it shattered into thousands of pieces against the tile floor. It’s the thought that counts. You peed all over the carpet, instead of into the toilet which is just 10 little baby steps away from where you’re standing. You wanted to practice your throwing inside this time, with rocks you found outside. You didn’t realize, as you jumped on top of my head, that I was wearing my glasses, and they crunched under your butt. I don’t care. Okay, I care… but not so much that I freak out. These things are just things. This is the first and one of the most important lessons I want to teach you WHEN things break, and they will break. I can only teach this to you if I don’t blow my top. In time we’ll get to those lessons about motor skills, appropriate uses of items, and not jumping on daddy’s head.

5. I don’t care that you NEVER use toys/games /things according to the instructions.

Yes, you can mix the Star Wars Legos with the Lord of the Rings Legos, they totally go together. Sure, you can make up your own rules to Monopoly, collect all of the money, have multiple player tokens and own all of the houses. You’re right, the plastic pipes holding together that soccer net do come apart and make excellent swords. As a matter of fact, yes, all of the long stick-like things are actually swords. While I appreciate the imagination required to invent games and build toys that children will enjoy, I hold a much, much higher appreciation for the imagination my child uses when the toys stop being things that have a single function, and become tools that he can use in a world he has invented.

Don’t spend your care on things that don’t pay off.

I hope this gives you permission not to care. I hope that letting go of some of these things helps you to discover a deeper appreciation for and understanding of your kids, and the way they interact with the world around them as they learn and grow. I hope you laugh more. Our kids are hilarious in their lack of experience, knowledge and coordination. Enjoy it while it lasts. The more we are able to stop caring about trivial things, the more care we can give to the things that really matter.

What do you not care about?

Do you have examples of things you’ve simply stopped caring about? We’d love to hear about them. Leave a comment and let us know about the hill (or hills) you’ve abandoned.