Dad’s Facebook Post Candidly Explains Why He Puts His Kid on a Leash

When you become a parent, you not only enter a world full of cute cuddly kids. You also enter a world of pure judgement””the majority of which comes from other parents. I’m not entirely sure why that is, but parents are some of the harshest critics out there. We judge people for how they feed their kids, how they dress them, how they bathe them (or bathe with them). We judge the way you discipline your child (or don’t). We are judged for where we bring our children to and how our kids behave. And few things bring on the judgement police like putting a kid on a leash.

Blogger Clint Edwards, who runs the site No Idea What I’m Doing: A Daddy Blog, recently decided to post something a bit controversial on his Facebook page. It’s a photo of him out with his daughter at the farmer’s market, except the little girl is attached to a leash. Here’s what he had to say:

“She’s a wild child, and this thing has already kept her out of the road and from sticking her hand in an ice cream machine, along with keeping me sane,” says Edwards in his Facebook post.

“The real difficulty with having a wild child is that you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Because the fact is, if I didn’t put Aspen on a leash while at amusement parks, the zoo, a crowded mall, or the farmers market, she’d be the lost child announced over the intercom. She’d be the kid popping up in every Facebook feed for wandering into a shopping center parking lot, unattended. She could be the child climbing into the tiger cage. Because I can’t, for the life of me, keep her from moving.”

Edwards knows this is the only way he can really maintain some semblance of control, even if it means getting dirty looks from passersby. But frankly, he doesn’t give a damn.

“I’m keep this kid safe while maintaining my piece of mind, and that is 10-percent worth it. Because the reality is she’ll calm down. She’ll figure it out, because all kids do. But until that day comes, I’m going to do whatever I can to keep her out of danger, even if it means a leash.”

Here’s the full post below:

Right on, dad. I know prior to having children, I was quick to glare at parents who gave into the leash. But as mother to a rambunctious 3 year old, I get it now. I really do. And while I haven’t run out to buy one myself, I no longer pass that kind of judgement.

I wasn’t the only one who agreed that yes, as a parent you have to do what you have to do, but there were some who just felt the urge to chime in and tell the world how perfect their parenting is… ya know?

Hopefully more folks start to get it, too, and think twice before throwing their own shade.

(Image: Facebook / No Idea What I’m Doing)

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