On Motherhood

[ailbhe]

Caveat: I have a slight temperature and a not-slight headache and a medium-slight sore throat. So this may not make any sense. You have been warned.

Today's Miss Manners

calls for people to stop telling mothers - potential, expectant, new or established - disaster stories. There's a lot to be said for that. I myself have, in the very recent past, posted a number of comments in various places along the lines of "Congratulations! As to your original question - I don't know. As soon as you contemplate becoming pregnant, everything you do is wrong, somewhere, so do your best. You can worry about what you eat now, what you feed them later, what you teach them to feed their children after that - as long as you're worried sick you're doing it wrong, you're probably doing fine."

I like being a mother. It's complicated at times like this - Rob is finding it hard to do all the daytime babycare as well as his usual evening stuff, and he's getting visibly more tired by the hour. But I like it. I like breastfeeding and cuddling and playing and feeding and eating and walking and clapping hands. And every day, through my own fault because I persist in reading news, I discover that I am doing something to ruin my child's life forever.

Ho hum. It somehow fails to make me feel like a failure, or want to do anything different. I think most of what we do is fine. So does Linnea.

(Today she rejected a banana in favour of breastmilk. I feel so honoured!)

Comments

[ckd]

Every time I see another of these warnings, I wonder how any of us ever survived to adulthood. I didn't wear a bike helmet when I learned to ride, my parents both smoked (but have since quit), my mother was still smoking when she was pregnant with me, etc, etc. Yet here I am.

[ailbhe]

Of course, it is also true that child mortality rates are dropping all the time... which makes the advice hard to ignore. Luckily, one can't follow it all at once.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

Very true. This reminds me of a post that Celeste made a few weeks back about seeing pregnnat first time parents shopping in Mothercare. Everyone in her NCT class said they felt like rushing up to them & telling them all the horror stories about giving birth & looking after a newborn, whereas Celeste said it made her remember the excitement of being pregnant & the fun buying all the first purchases.

[ailbhe]

I always want to rush up and tell them how great it is, how much fun it is, and that they need to remember that they are important too, as well as the baby. But I never do. Well, almost never. I *do* always start with "congratulations".

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed myself watching first time pg mums in Mothercare once when I was queuing up to use the changing room to try on nursing bras.

I had to wait so long that I ended up being engorged & couldn't even do the bras up!

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

L&I always advise new parents that all those books are a great source of ideas, but none of them are Rules. You do what works.

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

I too completely refuse to feel guilty or a failure! What we do works for us, mostly!

Libby Purves, in 'How not to be a perfect mother' says something like 'Your baby is perfectly all right. It likes you' Never mind that its nappy is four sizes too big and it's wearing its big brother's jumper with the sleeves rolled up....'

[megpie71.livejournal.com]

Essentially, the two rules of parenting are these:

1) No matter what you do, you're doing the majority of things right; and
2) No matter what you do, you can't do *everything* right.

To this can be added the corollary: no matter how badly you think you're doing, the majority of human beings come out of childhood fairly well-adjusted and well-behaved.

Possibly the ideal parenting manual would have the words "Don't Panic" in large friendly letters on the cover. Or possibly not. Parenting is the process of taking a bundle of genetic material, and both with and without its co-operation, producing a human being.

Parenting manual

[ailbhe]

Panic You know you want to

Re: Parenting manual

[ruthi.livejournal.com]

*lol*

[k425.livejournal.com]

It somehow fails to make me feel like a failure, or want to do anything different.

*applause*
Every day I look at YoungBloke and think "well, he's happy, he's growing, we're doing something right".

So what if he doesn't sleep through the night; wants to nurse every hour or so when I'm at home; is smaller than average; turns his nose up at almost everything I cook; only says three or four words; is developing the art of the toddler strop? He's happy, he's growing, he's learning new stuff every day.

OldBloke and I may not be doing things how other people would, and we may not be doing things 'right' and we may be doing some things entirely 'wrong' but YoungBloke's happy, he's growing and he's learning new stuff every day.

Sounds like the same is true of you three!