15 minutes at a time

[ailbhe]

We are bringing Linnea's bedtime back to normal.

Something someone said lately made me think this: No matter how much thought a mother has put into her childrearing decisions, hearing someone else (especially a stranger) state that they do it differently feels like criticism. I'm pretty sure this is true for those of us who practice "attachment parenting" type stuff - lots of carrying and cuddles and snuggling to sleep and always responding to crying and so on - and I wouldn't be surprised if it's also true for the other end of the scale, the cry-it-out gang.

"Oh," says the observing parent as you pace the garden with your infant talking about the moon in a soporific tone at 9 o'clock at night, "We always put Jim-Bob down at 7 pm and he just sleeps. Of course, we never went to him when he was little unless he was hungry." Oh, says the pacing parent, well that's just great, but it wouldn't work for Susie-Mae. So just drop dead, and mind the gardenias.

"You're giving him chocolate? We didn't let any artificial sugars past her lips until she graduated highschool."(You sent her to high school? Why didn't you educate her yourself in a yurt?)

... and so on, and so forth.

Of course, the online journal circle is a particularly fine place for this kind of interaction to spring up, because the tone of interested, non-judgemental surprise doesn't appear in the words as typed. And there's always lots of support for anyone who declares that breastfeeders are perverts creating Oedipus complexes or that formula feeders are child abusers creating eating disorders. But I'm interested to know whether this criticism - defense reaction is as prevalent as I think it is, or whether I'm just overreacting to vitriol in snark communities, or whether I'm just too defensive and need to learn to relax, man, and have faith in myself. Yo.

Today, by 10 am, I had washed, dressed, breakfasted, self and Linnea. Put on and hung out a load of laundry. Hoovered one floor and washed three others (all small). Washed the breakfast / late night snack dishes. Played in the garden with Linnea and played in her bedroom - I gave her the ball-pool balls and we had a great time. And I'd written a pome, and put dinner in the slow cooker, and tidied up and stuff.

I really, really need to stop feeling like I don't do enough. That's not half bad for a morning's work, especially when you consider that I involve Linnea in all that I do (from a sense of sharing and caring, you understand, not because I have no option - it's a parenting style decision so that she grows up a well-rounded individual, not an eardrum-preserving decision so that I grow up without tinitus in the key of whinge).