The No-Win Parenting Solution

I have noticed in my 31 months of being a parent, that the advice for parenting these days is designed to make you feel like a failure.  Your child hasn't achieved the gold-standard of sleep (a.k.a sleeping through the night) by the time they're 3 months old?  Fail!  They're not crawling by 6 months?  Fail!  Walking by a year?  Fail!  Not eating a well-balanced diet?  Fail!  Not potty-trained by the age of two (or earlier)?  Fail!  I could go on and on, but you get the picture. 

The worst part about this is we all buy into it!  And perpetuate these messed up ways of thinking onto each other, which only makes us all feel worse about our parenting skills. 

Who makes these crazy rules?  The people that write the books.  Have you been to a bookstore lately?  The pregnancy/parenting section is one of the largest non-fiction sections in the store, and probably the most diverse.  There is a book for everything...probably even on subjects you haven't even thought of. 

I want to write a book because apparently that's what you need to have some credibility.  Or a study of some sort.  If I could say I was published, I might be able to have some influence.

I am going to title my book "Relax Already".  Or how about this:  "Listening to Your Gut:  A Lost Art".  Seriously, what has happened to us?  Our mothers didn't have all these so-called resources, and for the most part, I think they did quite fine!  Sure, my mother was painting with lead paint days before she gave birth to me, but I think I turned out okay!  It seems to me that peeing on a pregnancy test and seeing that positive result means we need to check our brains at the door and start following the rules laid out for us by all of these other so-called experts.  What I want to know is when did I stop being an expert on myself?  And once I actually gave birth to this little person, clearly I couldn't be an expert on him either.  I'd never done this before!  How arrogant of me to think I could actually cope without reading a million books on how to get my baby to eat/sleep/talk/walk......

I'm not saying the authors of these books don't have some good suggestions.  Some of them have excellent advice and when you're at the end of your rope, sometimes you just need a new way to think of things so that you can see your way clear of the problem.  My advice has always been "take a little from column A, a little from column B, a little from your gut, and somewhere in the middle you'll find the right way to do things".  I can tell you what worked for my little man when he was a baby, but your baby's personality may not be like his so it may not work for you.  I guess my issue is when women take the advice of the author of Book X and allow it to supercede their own gut instinct.  Just because a well-known, multi-published author tells you to let your baby "cry it out", doesn't necessarily make it the right decision. 

Don't get me wrong, I've fallen prey to the competitiveness of other parents, and the stress that comes with each new "milestone".  I wasn't worried about the fact that the toddler wasn't walking, but it still bothered me that he wasn't keeping up with his peer group.  Of course, now he's walking fine, so all that energy I expended on comparing him to his friends was wasted energy.  Hindsight is 20/20 though. 

I am the expert on my own children.  Barring one week vacation this past summer, I have been with the toddler every day since he was born -- so 31 months and counting.  I've been with the baby every day since his birth, nearly 6 months ago.  I know their personalities (well, I'm learning them day by day) and I know what will and won't work with them.  So judge me if you will for the fact that my toddler is still in diapers, or for the fact that he still sleeps in a crib, or that the baby doesn't sleep through the night.  I'm okay with it because I know they'll get there.  I'm not going to read some book to tell me I'm doing something wrong, or that I could be doing something better.  My gut tells me I'm doing a pretty good job already.