Good job, Mom
October 6, 2009
In Austin there is a lovely hike and bike trail that provides a 3 mile loop with a stroller-friendly trail. I have been strolling my babies on this trail on and off for the past 3.5 years, and every single time, without fail, a man is sitting up on top of a little hill playing his guitar. And every time I pass him, he yells out, “Good job, Mom!” It doesn’t matter the time of day or season of the year, it doesn’t matter that we have never had a true conversation, still he sends off these well wishes to every mom he sees.
Now, yes, he is a little kooky, and he can’t tell my good days from my bad, but I have to say, every time I hear these words, I feel my spirits lift just a little. Random, unconditional compliments tend to make people smile. And how often do we hear those three words, anyway? So what if today you did kind of a crappy job. Overall, you are essential to the growth and development of another human being, and that is something truly grand.
Good job, Mom.
A New Culture of Motherhood
October 5, 2009
Sometimes being a good mother seems akin to being some sort of robot Buddha-mom. We are told to remain compassionate and centered while we calmly offer reasonable choices, set age appropriate limits, engage in enriching edutainment, allow free creative play, model loving and respectful relationship skills, and prepare healthy, organic, allergy-free meals. We are meant to do this all with an attitude of joy, since childhood is “over before you know it”.
What pressure! Are there any human beings out there? You know, ones that leave their TV’s on, lose their cool with their children and spouses, feel grumpy at 6am, order take-out 2 nights in a row because they are too tired to cook? Of course there are, but somehow it seems like we are always falling short when we do these things. When I let my 3-year-old play on the computer for 2 hours straight, the guilt weighs heavily. But really, if we are all human anyway, why are we trying to be anything but human?
I am not advocating for losing idealism and dropping the goals that help us strive to be the best we can be. But what about a goal of letting go of this harsh grip on perfectionism? Wouldn’t it be just fantastic to create a culture of motherhood where being real was being a great mother? One of my coaching practices is to ask moms to email me daily with a confession and a congratulation. A confession, to let go of the guilt and self-flagellation that comes with never living up to our expectations. And a congratulation, to remember daily all the amazing work we do. It’s just a beginning, a small step towards a larger goal of creating a community of mothers that value themselves. If we can find meaning in the process of motherhood, rather than feeling like we are failing at the product of a perfect mother, we might just have some more fun on the job.
Let’s not imagine the future therapy of our children, the one where they will be complaining of how they have been done wrong by us. That’s just in our imagination anyway. Instead, let’s congratulate ourselves for our creativity in making things easier.
Parenting Philosophies
September 20, 2009
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.
Living now
September 14, 2009
Recently I was reading a book about motherhood, and came across this quote from The Captivity of Marriage by Nora Johnson:
“The old illusions of what life was supposed to hold, the restless remains, the undefined dreams do not die as they were supposed to. Probably every educated wife has found herself staring at a mountain of dirty diapers, and asking herself desperately, ‘Is this all there is?’ And at the same time she is embarrassed by her dissatisfaction; she of all people, with her intelligence and realistic view of life, should be able to rise above it. But the paradox is that it is she who is least able to. She lives for a better day. Things will be easier when this baby is born, or that one toilet-trained, or the children are all in school, and she will have time to be pretty and intelligent and young again.”
Believe it or not, this passage was written in 1961. And almost 50 years later, many moms can relate to this same sense of frustrated passion. I know that when I first read it, I immediately resonated with the feeling of waiting … waiting for life to begin, waiting for the job of motherhood to get easier, to give me time to pursue my own goals again. The problem is that even when certain elements get easier — the baby sleeps through the night, or the child leaves for school — some form of distracted busy-ness seems to always continue. And so if we don’t somehow slow down inside ourselves enough, we miss out on our lives in the present.
I don’t know about you, but I want to engage with my life right here, right now. I want to appreciate my children and feel deeply moved by the work I do in the world. I can not be the same young, carefree woman I was before I had children (and doesn’t that woman seem even more free in retrospect, anyway?) And so it is up to me, and to you, to find out who we are today.
