In my last NNAT post, I said that today’s NNAT parents have a thing or two to learn from June Cleaver. Here’s what I meant by that:
Yes, “Leave it to Beaver” was just a TV show, but it was representative of an era when, as so often happened to Beaver, a child who got in trouble would face his parents for reprimand and correction. But the beauty of the show is that neither parent was portrayed as omnipotent. On the contrary, the series often showed the parents debating their sometimes-divergent approaches to child rearing, and, in many cases, confronting their own mistakes. These were not perfect parents and, as a result, parents everywhere enjoyed watching Ward and June wrestle with what it meant to be a “good” parent.
For instance, in one episode, June exclaimed, “Wally, don’t they teach you any manners at school?” to which he replied, “You know, that’s funny, Mom. At school they’re always saying, ‘don’t they ever teach you any manners at home?’”
Admittedly, we NNAT parents are no longer living in a “Leave it to Beaver” world. To the contrary, parents today are raising their children in a society engulfed by a 24-hour news cycle, endless gossip about celebrities of questionable talent, and a Twitter stream that never shuts up!
The most important message for NNAT parents like you and me is this: UNPLUG! And, I don’t mean completely unplug from the world and join a cult or go live in a cave or lock your family away from societal influences. What I mean is, the next time you feel like you “don’t have the right answer,” whether related to the NNAT or not, don’t compare yourself to some celebrity mother who always seems like she has her act together. Instead, ask yourself: what would June Cleaver do? And my guess is that she would ask for help. And that’s something that NNAT parents like you and me need to be willing to do as well.
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