Me: Choosing to parent differently than the majority of the parents around me has been hard. Trying to maintain the changes, while also defending them has been hard.
Friend 1: You shouldn’t have to defend it.
Friend 2: But she does, and she did. When it looked like she was making a rod to beat her own back with the way she was parenting him, I tried to stay quiet because it was better to stay quiet. But occasionally I couldn’t or didn’t stay quiet and I questioned her choices, her parenting. I warned her of all the bad things that would come from giving in to him all the time.
Me: I won’t lie. It was hard to be doing something so different from everyone else, something I wasn’t 100% sure would work.
Friend 2: I was sure the whole time it wouldn’t work.
Me: I think on my best days I was about 75% sure it would work. On my worst days it was about 5%
Friend 1: But you still shouldn’t have had to defend it.
Me: Seeing someone do something different is hard to process. It is hard to look at something that seems completely counter-intuitive and believe it will work.
Friend 2: I didn’t believe that stopping fighting would cause him to stop fighting.
Me: Yup, especially when you feel like fighting is the only way you can get someone to do something, anything.
Friend 2: Exactly. It just didn’t seem right. I thought if you didn’t fight him, he would just walk all over you.

Me: And look at him now.