Dear Aviva,
I feel that my husband and I don’t always see eye to eye on our child rearing. My disciplining ways don’t mesh with his, one reason being that I am a former educator and he has no previous experience with children. I feel that I am constantly telling him how to parent. I get exasperated with his lackadaisical ways, and I feel that it is confusing to our children when I say one thing and he says another. How do we get on the same page?

-It Takes Two to Tango

Dear It Takes Two to Tango,
Darn right it takes two! It takes two to parent together, and it takes two to make mistakes. His mistake may be something that needs to be worked on, but don’t think that you’ve got all the right moves. As bad as his parenting is, it is way worse for you to discipline him on his disciplining, especially if it is done in front of the kids.
Why? Because then you’ve restructured the family to have you as the sole parental figure, and your husband as a child under you. Instructing and critiquing him may mold him into the father that you want him to be, but it will eat away at your marriage.
There are times when you will have to speak up, but just make sure that when you do it is not done in front of the kids, or in the middle of him trying to parent. And don’t pull the righteous indignation card on him either. Meaning, none of the, “How could you let him eat that for dinner? I would never give him that—I care about his health!”