What’s Your Priority as a Parent?

“Get your priorities straight” is something my dad used to say a lot. He meant it in the “get your s**t together and do what you’re supposed to be doing” sense of things. Since I usually do what I’m “supposed” to, it's not anything I had thought about until recently.

Recently, though, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and scattered in a million different directions. I’ve been feeling like I definitely don’t have my s**t together.

I think many of us feel this way. And I think we feel this way more often than we used to. There are probably lots of reasons for it (and we can always blame Instagram).

Then I read something about priorities. More importantly, I read something about the word “priority”. It means “the first thing” or “the thing that is most important”. The author pointed out the irony of using the plural “Priorities”, given the true meaning of the word.

Everything can’t be important.

Everything can’t have the same level of influence, of urgency.

Everything can’t be a priority.

A priority is the MOST important thing. The thing that matters before all others.

So, I want to ask you: What is your priority as a parent? What is the MOST important thing to you in your role as a parent to your child?

If your head is spinning, don’t worry, mine is too. And I’m not sure we have to actually figure out the answer to this question.

But, what I do think is worth thinking about is how to get closer to our priority and clear away some of the clutter that takes us away from it.

Like how to spend more time being present with our kids (instead of being distracted with “to-do”s and devices).

Like how to stay home and play (instead of scheduling back-to-back activities for everyone in the family).

Like letting housework slide a little in the interest of a really cool project that’s happening in your living room.

Like…..what else?

What’s your parenting priority? Will you share it here?