Today's essay is a bit tongue-in-cheek. It's meant to achieve one thing and one thing only: to relieve you and me from a specific parenting guilt.

It's for all of us dads who feel slightly ashamed whenever we fail to follow through on our decisions.

"Papa, can I watch Babblarna on YouTube?" "No."
"Papa, can I watch Babblarna on YouTube?" "No."
"Papa, can I watch Babblarna on YouTube?" "No."
"Papa, can I watch Babblarna on YouTube?" "Fine."

Substitute watching Babblarna (popular educational content for kids in Sweden) for anything suitable for your kid's age. Borrow the car, go out with my friends, get some cash, etc.

Kids have this superpower: they wear you down. They don't mind asking you ten times or more if it's what it takes to get what they want.

It also happens the other way around. We ask our kids to do things; tidy their room, eat their dinner, sit down while they are in the stroller. But they don't comply.

And dads have other adult problems to deal with. So, we come to the figurative negotiation table with a deficit of willpower. The negotiation is unfair, and we sometimes cave on the third ask.

One time, two times, three times. "Ok, I give up."

We fail to follow through. Sometimes, we are too tired to bother. But other times, we feel a bit guilty for giving up. We feel like we have lost (educational) ground.

Lately, when a situation like this happens, I have been telling myself that I'm not giving up. I'm applying a parenting strategy I invented called Giving up parenting.

Giving up parenting means accepting to lose some battles of low significance. We do it to preserve energy. We do it to preserve harmony.

It makes me feel better than simply giving up. And I tell myself that It also teaches my kids that they can get what they want past the initial rejections.