How to achieve balance

It never ceases to amaze me how hard it is to make the right decision.  From lifestyle choices to what we eat and drink, it seems that its almost impossible to be perfect.
What matters for one family doesn't seem so important for others, so as parents we all walk this tight rope of trying to do the best for our children.

A great example is organic food.  Its expensive, but its supposedly good for you.  Perhaps stops cancer forming.  Better for the environment.  If you are buying meat or poultry, perhaps a better life for the animals.
Yet the price is restrictive for some, and lets face it - sometimes its nice to have a big perfect apple with no scars or animal marks.
On the other hand you could feed your children a wonderfully balanced diet - not too much red meat, plenty of fish and their 5 plus a day of fruit and veges.  Dairy - where to get the calcium from.  Cheese, processed or standard?  High fat or low?Buy milk from the farm gate - unpasteurised perhaps?  Or maybe you want to go vegan and look at soy or rice milk.  But then again, are lots of soy products good for your kids?
When you give your children their veges, do you count potato as one of them?  Are you ensuring they get leafy greens as well as those veges high in starch?  Do you try to give your children a "rainbow" of food each day?

Do you give your kids juice - organic or not, or do you simply give them water?  Are you filtering the water?  Are you drinking from a fluorinated supply?

Enough of food, how about immunisations?  Are you a conscientious objector believing that MMR causes austism?  Or perhaps you think that the mercury will harm, or perhaps the monkey brains is not much trot?  Do you accept that the HPV vaccine (gardisil) will actually prevent your daughter getting cervical cancer?

What about birth control.  Rhythm or condoms?  OCP or IUD?   Vasectomy for him or tying tubes for her?

Schooling - private or public?  Home school?  Extend or hold back?  Gifted and talented - encourage or mainstream?

Co sleeping?  Controlled crying?  Baby wearing??  Attachment parenting?  Pram?  Front facing, rear facing?  Booster after 5 or in the front seat?

Sports, Music, Ballet, Speech and Drama.

Vege gardening at home?

Free range eggs?

Make your own clothes or buy them?

Electric car or walk?  4WD or motorbike?

I don't know about you, but all the choices we have in life, and all the inherent judgement associated with life choices bamboozles me.  Of course I want to do the best for my family, but I get overwhelmed with the number of right decisions.  I haven't got the energy to get it all right, so I look for balanced based on my perception of acceptable risk.

We vaccinate - Against pretty much everything (except that stoopid HPV one).  We even pay for the flu jabs for adults and opted for Chicken Pox for the kids.  I understand there is a bit of discomfort for the kids, but I do believe for the general population that vaccination is for the community.

My decision is right for me, but wrong for so many others.  Sometimes though - I just don't have the energy to fight.
Can't we all just get along?  Accept others differences and leave it at that.

Now I'm off to feed my kids dinner.  Its white rice cause they like that, and its cooked in the microwave cause thats how I get the best result. They are having devilled sausages from homekill sausies cause they are yummier and have less crap in them, and I made the sauce from scratch because I never quite know whats in those packets.
I'll give them some veges, maybe some frozen beans and raw carrots - none of them organic or from the garden at the mo.
And I'll probably give them water or low fat milk to wash it down.  A piece of fruit for pudding.

Wow - all that decision making means I need a large glass of wine to recover.......