Is Your Type-A Parenting Style Ruining Your Family-Life?

It's official; I've cracked. Dropped My Basket. Lost The Plot. A few bricks fell out of my load. It's all my fault.

My type-A ways are screwing my life all up.



For the past four years, I have had lofty goals of being the perfect parent, wife , homemaker, and writer. In the process, I driven myself mad.

Thanks to the back-to-school madness, looming holiday season and some strange summer sadness,  The. Plot. Has. Been. Lost.

Recently, while looking at my endless 'to-do' list, I felt so overwhelmed. I had no idea where to start, so  I tried to prioritize. I started to realize, half of the stuff was unnecessary.  All the unnecessary cleaning, organizing, hand holding, emails, life-sucking friendships, and ass wiping have to stop!

After four years of trying to provide the cleanest, safest, most organized environment for my family, I've learned three things:

1. I do a lot of unnecessary crap.

2. I'm so crazed about getting things done the second they need doing, I jump WAY too soon.  What's more, I get pissed at my husband for not jumping first. #FAIL I'm so bad about it, FTD has a joke with me about the Dishes Police, and how they don't exist.  He thinks I am afraid the dishes police will come get me if I don't wash the dishes right after dinner.

3. I need to cut a ton of bullshit out of my life. Starting with life-sucking friends and ending with not being so anal about keeping my house spotless.

Here's the thing, I am a great mom. I know that. And while all the extra cleaning, organizing, planning and prepping are great, it's not all that necessary.  Most of all, the time I waste overdoing it,  I could be spending with my family.

I've started to let things slide, like cleaning the kitchen.  I seriously used to clean it spotless after making each meal. That could be 5 times a day. WTF???

No more obsessing about my son's routine, how much tech-time he's had and if I've played with him enough today to be a great attentive mother.

I'm not going to let life sucking friends monopolize my time. They can drive someone else crazy. I can't let their problems take away from my life and family-time.

Needless to say, I'm relaxing and not over thinking EVERYTHING anymore. Ok, so I do still kind of worry, but I really want to stop being so crazed about being the perfect everything. Especially, before school starts and I overextend myself to the point of wanting to throat punch the PTA princess.
These days with my family are so precious, if I don't make some changes, I will miss out on the best moments.

Are you Type-A Parent, too? What about you? Are you overthinking everything?  Or better yet, have you started to let go too?


April is an award-winning writer and blogger. Her work has been published in over ten countries and four languages. From books to newspapers, to print/online magazines and everything in between, you can find her work. For more on April, Visit AprilMcCormick.com