Motherself

Do you co-sleep? Schedule feedings? Baby wear? Ferberize? Home school? Spank? Send your kids to public school? Unschool? The questions go on and on. Whatever the age and stage, mothers are often asked to take a philosophical stance on child-rearing– and debate issues so seemingly serious that they sometimes even damage friendships between women. I have been asked where I stand on these issues, and all I can say is, I don’t subscribe.

I don’t subscribe to any one particular parenting philosophy, though of course I make choices like anyone else. If I had to create my own parenting philosophy, it would be: trust yourself, and do what makes sense for your own family. I just want to be myself as a mother. I want to respond to my children and all the sticky family situations the best I can, and really feel that is good enough. When I try to fit into some other mold, I just end up failing.

I remember when my first child was a newborn, hearing the adage “sleep when the baby sleeps”. But I couldn’t. I am an adult, and somewhat of an insomniac at that, and I just can not sleep in 30 minute increments on and off all day, and also squeeze in a shower and a granola bar. Add in an older toddler with my second newborn, and the advice seemed laughable. Why then, I wondered, did people keep repeating this mantra to me? It felt like a set-up.

One of the best changes I made when I became pregnant with my second child was to stop reading pregnancy and parenting books. If I didn’t know what I was “supposed” to do, I would just have to figure it out.

Everyone is different, and some moms really benefit from the advice of parenting experts. I just wish we could all give as much credit to our own internal wisdom. I am not talking just about “motherly instincts”, which also get over-rated, in my book. A new mom doesn’t always feel her instincts about caring for a sick child when the fear of doing something wrong overwhelms her completely. But I do think that when we give ourselves a little mental break, we see that no one else can really live our lives for us, so no one can really tell us how to handle each particular situation that arises with our children. And as lonely and scary as that may be sometimes, it is also liberating, and allows us to shoot from the hip a little more. Not such a bad thing.