Kid-centric

It's funny, as a kid you take certain things for granted and only when you become a parent yourself do you discover how difficult some of those things are. What I've realized is that my parents were extremely kid-centric. I define kid-centric parents as: parents who schedule outings/activities during weekends and vacations for the kids first and the parents second. Here is one of my favourite examples of the kid-centric parenting style. For years my parents forced me to do cross-country skiing. To this day, the very thought of going cross-country skiing has absolutely no appeal. As a kid you think to yourself what could be worse than cross country skiing. As a parent of children I realize my parents could have decided to do nothing with us at all and let us stay home to entertain ourselves. The very fact that my parents went to the trouble of choosing an activity that included the kids can be a thankless job that that requires time and money. Now that I'm a parent I realize I've become kid-centric as well. So when I see parents who plan adult events where kids are invited that are not kid-centric, I realize that being kid-centric is not something that all parents do, which I find a bit sad. I'm not saying that my entire life revolves around my children. I have multiple activities that I do throughout the week by myself and for myself. But I do ensure that whatever activity is planned, the kids are either taken care of, or if they're with me, that the activity I'm doing will entertain them as much or more than it will entertain me. Really though, the fact that I'm a big kid at heart makes choosing activities a lot easier. So I'd like to thank my parents for always thinking of their kids first and I hope I can live up to this high standard with my children.