I was asked what I mean when I talk about the “toolkit” philosophy.

This is what I’ve come to call my approach to parenting issues. Both my approach to each of my very different-from-each-other children and my approach to providing and receiving parenting advice.

We each have a parenting toolkit. And the tools that work for another parent might not be a good fit for our toolkit, or the tools that work so amazingly for us might work very poorly for another parent.

A blacksmith, an electrician and a plumber each have very different toolboxes. Some of their tools might be the same and some will be very very different. And a plumber that works on houses in Ohio will have a different toolkit from a plumber that works on high rises in New York City.

One of the things that drives me completely nuts about most support groups is the attempt to convert people to The One True Way of Doing Things. When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. And when you try to use a hammer on something that’s not a nail you’re going to get really bad results.

So it is with parenting advice. When I try to force a tool to work when it’s a poor fit to my children or to my life.. It tends to make things much worse rather than better.

I remember with my first child I tried so hard to make poor-fitting tools work because of the dire forecasts of doom related to things like co-sleeping. I felt so guilty and like a failure when I couldn’t use certain tools successfully in my life with my child when someone else could use them in their life with their child.

Imagine feeling like a failure when your attempt to use a hammer instead of pliers didn’t work. Or when your attempt to eat soup with a fork was met with failure. Imagine feeling like a failure for not being able to knit with a crochet hook instead of knitting needles. Imagine feeling like a failure because your little compact sedan can’t fit the same number of passengers as a school bus. Or because you can’t park a school bus in a parking spot designed for car.

Parenting is hard. So we seek out advice and information and sometimes we find things that fit /so/ well and click so perfectly that it makes life so much easier. Then sometimes we find something that simply does not work and makes our babies scream as though they are being dangled upside down by their toes over a boiling pit of fire breathing tiger dragons with lava of baby-eating spiders.

Since human beings are so drastically different from each other, some of those things that work SO perfectly for another family are that boiling pit of fire breathing tiger dragons with lava of baby eating spiders for my family. And the things that work SO perfectly for me might be something that make another mother and baby so miserable that no one can stop screaming.

Imagine being horribly allergic to flowers- they give you hives. Now imagine some dude on the internet told your husband that the best present was flowers. And that if he didn’t give you flowers he was a horrible husband and you would divorce him because ALL women love flowers. Now imagine your husband brought you flowers. Horribly hive-inducing flowers of sneezy eye-watery horror.

Imagine loving classical music but being told that dubstep is much better and being forced to listen to dubstep all.day.long.on.endless.repeat. All because some other person somewhere loves dubstep so you should too.

Right. Doesn’t work too well.

Humans are wildly different from each other on what they like and dislike. Babies are little humans. Some of them are going to LOVE their crib. Some are going to scream bloody murder if they’re not in constant contact with another human being. Some will love pacifiers. Some will gag if you try to give them one. Some moms love breastfeeding. Some moms tolerate breastfeeding. And some moms would rather be thrown in a pit of tigers than breastfeed.

My first child hated noise and found “shush” sounds to be infuriating. He liked to fall asleep in perfect stillness. He was a boppy-napper on my lap. He loved co-sleeping and being worn. He liked being naked in a diaper with bare feet. My second child hated being still while falling asleep and would not nap on a boppy and wanted to be bounced gently with slow shush sounds to get to sleep. He loved being worn and hated co-sleeping. He liked being in 100% cotton footed pajamas. My third child loves nursing to sleep some of the time and hates it other times. She hates slow bouncing and slow shushing sounds. Her bouncing needs to be deep knee bends, rigid and fast. Her shushing has to be harsh and full of static. Loud and firm. She likes to sleep in a diaper and a shirt with bare feet and legs.
Had I tried to use the same toolkit for each of them I would have had three very screamy unhappy babies.

Parenting tools are awesome. Coping mechanisms are awesome.  Statistics and data and studies and personal experiences are awesome. Sharing is awesome.

But my awesome might not be your awesome.  The tools in my toolkit might not work well in yours. And the tools that you find essential might just feel like clutter for me.

“That doesn’t fit in my toolkit” is a perfectly valid thing for someone to say about a parenting tool that simply doesn’t work for them.  It doesn’t mean that the tool is a bad tool or a bad idea. It means that it’s not what they need for the kids that they have in the life that they have where certain things work and others do not.

This is what I mean when I say that the support groups I run operate on the “toolkit” philosophy. It means that we’re all talking about our toolkits and the things that fit into our toolkits. We’re helping other parents figure out what fits into their toolkits. I often find myself recommending things that NEVER work for my kids. Why? Because the things that are in my toolkit don’t seem to be helping another mum and the things that never worked for me seem like they might be a better fit. 

Mommy wars over parenting tools are as silly as a blacksmith, plumber and electrician getting into an argument about over what tools are the “best” tools. The best tool is the tool that works for the job.

The best parenting tool is the tool that works. And the tool that works will depend on the child and the child’s family.