I Am Such A Great Parent

As I write this, these are the ingredients that are currently digesting in my two-year old's stomach:

sorbitol, gum base, mannitol, xylitol, glycerin, natural and artificial flavoring, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, soy lesithin, and coloring.

Times 14. Yum.

Because I thought he knew better, I trusted my son's judgment and gave him a pack of gum to hold while we were driving to pick up my daughter from school. He acted like a two year old and ATE the entire pack before we made it back home. I read the ingredients and considered calling poison control, but was afraid to be laughed at or scolded. They would be right to do both. I cannot believe this happened to a boy whose mother makes an extra effort to avoid anything sweet or artificial and gives grandparents a long lecture when they send her kids home with a lolly pop. If you told me this happened to your kid, I would seriously judge your ability to parent. So go ahead and judge.

This wasn't the first time I acted foolish like that though. I also trusted my daughter with a permanent marker because she promised not to EVER use it only to find that she wrote her first and last name in red permanent marker on her creme colored night stand. She wasn't even clever enough to hide the identity of the offender!

Trust is a tricky thing. Trust blinds a lot of parents who naively believe that their child is an angel and would never ever do anything to betray that trust. Working with teenagers for the past ten years, I've seen this more times than I can count. And yet, having mutual trust is essential to a healthy parent-kid relationship.

So, can parents ever trust their kids 100% of the time? Should we reserve some trust no matter how great or old our kids are? I would love to hear your guys' opinions on this as after yesterday, I am leaning toward controlling everything they do for a long time.