The Good Enough Mother
Attachment parenting gurus have a lot of great ideas for parents. In an ideal world, the vast majority of those ideas make perfect sense. But I don't live in an ideal world. I live in my world, which runs amok with chaos, exhaustion, too little time and money, and too many obligations. I have read attachment parenting books, and having read them, I must admit that I found 20 percent of the information to be helpful. The remaining 80 percent of the information left me a twittering gob of self-loathing, guilty goo. In fact, I’ve got half a mind to go home to set that book on fire just to watch it burn.
The entire idea of attachment parenting is a good one. The basic rules are: Respond to your child’s cues in a sensitive and nurturing manner. Pay attention, and respond appropriately. I can not find a single thing wrong with those concepts. Things start to get tricky when a person delves into the specific methodologies of baby-wearing, co-sleeping, and breastfeeding on demand, and how one might or might not accommodate these things into their lifestyle.
Maybe I am overly sensitive, but I know it’s not all in my head….. I mean, come on. How would YOU complete the following phrases? Breast feeding is good, formula feeding is_______. Stay-at-home moms are best, mother who work outside the home are:________. Family bed is ideal, solitary crib sleeping is ______. Do you see where I am going?
Bad, worst, and sub-par. Thus went my own inner dialogue in relation to my mothering abilities. I started out with the best intentions, but soon after my daughter was born, things started to go awry. My breasts didn’t work properly and Maggie never latched on. I couldn’t hack it, and I threw in the towel on breastfeeding altogether. About the same time, I realized I wouldn’t sleep a wink if I continued to wake up every time my baby stirred, and I moved her to her crib in her room. I had to go back to work in order to pay the mortgage. I stopped pumping breast milk and started dropping her off at my in-laws every morning.
I was a failure, and my daughter was going to be permanently stunted because of it. She would never reach her full potential. And it was all because I was a selfish, selfish woman with broken boobs who chose to sleep when I could have been nurturing my infant. Boy howdy, there was a special place in Hell for me. Not only that, but if my moral fiber were stronger, I would be willing to sacrifice my worldly possessions and status symbols and make our household run on half the income we had previously required to keep the machine going. The common denominator in all these failures: Me myself and I.
It occurred to me that the drive to achieve the American dream and contribute to my family’s economic needs while maintaining some semblance of mental health, was directly at odds with the quest to be the ideal, perfectly responsive attachment-parenting mother. The only way to rectify the situation would be to live in poverty, or to win the lottery, and / or leave my husband for some kind of a sugar daddy so I could stay at home in relative economic comfort.
Americans are now in a place where two incomes are required to make ends meet for most middle class families. At the same time, mothers get the screws put to them for every single misstep. How the Hell does that jibe?
It seems that as mothers, sometimes our choices are reduced to the following: Shitty, and crappy. Pick your prize!
Where did we get so far off the mark? Why all the pressure? Are we confused about how much control we actually have over making our children intelligent and healthy? I suspect that’s part of it. A great interview with Angela Barron McBride over at mothers movement really got me thinking.
Here lies the issue of “Hyperparenting�. It is my belief that we give ourselves WAY too much credit for the success or failure of our children. And it’s not just my personal self-centeredness and laziness talking here. Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, uses the word- hyperparenting - to describe the seemingly American phenomenon of micromanagement in parenting. Parents are deluding themselves into overestimating their impact on their children’s development and success or failure in sports, academia and musical aptitude.
This hyperparenting phenomenon can be attributed to unmitigated denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt people. We want to believe we are special, and our children are special, and the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of us are hopelessly average. It’s hard to accept, but really, you either have it, or you don’t. It’s unlikely that Abraham Lincoln’s parents pushed him to join junior toastmasters. Do you think Bob Dylan’s mommy took him to early childhood education music class? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Genius is genius despite the circumstances. The same is true for mediocrity. There are varying degrees of mediocrity but all that leaves us with is a whole lot of light gray mediocrity or dark gray mediocrity. And a few geniuses that were born that way.
So what, may you ask, is my ever-loving point already? I am tired of feeling like a failure! I bet you are too! It is my opinion that mothers judge each other so harshly because we are all ashamed of our own parental shortcomings. That shame is intensified because we love our children so much that we can hardly bear the thought of them suffering because of our own inadequacies. And hey, at least I am not screwing up my kid as much as that lady who makes her three year old eat naked in the sink so they won’t make a mess, right? Right! I bet she didn’t breastfeed either!
I am NOT saying that it’s okay to stop trying. As people who chose to bring children into the world, it is our job to do our very best to give them a loving, safe platform from which to grow and thrive. We owe that to our children. Every child deserves to be loved and nurtured and supported physically and emotionally. Sadly, not every child gets those things, and I would love nothing more than to change that sad fact. At the same time, I want women to stop feeling so much pressure to be perfect. I want mothers to stop torturing themselves over their decisions and circumstances. I want mothers to stop torturing eachother.
When Maggie was tiny, I became depressed because I could not distinguish her cries. I wanted to be a good, attached parent. I wanted to be responsive, but sometimes I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. I was convinced my failure to figure out what ailed her was some kind of defect on my part. I was missing the good mother gene. Plus all that stuff I mentioned earlier about me being self-centered and materialistic and lazy. I was wrecking my baby with my own inadequacy.
A year and a half later I can sit in a room 20 feet away and know by her cry that she just dropped her pacifier over the side of her crib. I wasn’t always able to do that. I didn’t learn that in an ECFE class. I didn’t read it in a book. I learned it by being her mother for 18 months. I learned it by spending time with my daughter and getting to know her. I wish someone had told me that formula when Maggie was an infant. I might have relaxed a little more in those foggy newborn weeks, and actually enjoyed my infant instead of cowering in self doubt and insecurity. You become a good mother through time and experience and dedication. You become a good mother because you care. You don’t have to be perfect. You become a good-enough mother. And a good-enough mother is good enough for me. I am fairly certain it will be good enough for my daughter too.
Comments
great blog. Thanks for writing it; I need to be reminded that mediocrity is ok sometimes!
Posted by: mira | May 7, 2007 12:51 PM
This is exactly what I was thinking...you just named it for me, hyperparenting..I've been struggling trying to figure out whats good and bad, am I a success or failure...observing others and seeing that hyperparenting that you talk about...I don't want that nor do I think its healthy to jump in every 2 seconds or clap because my child said some word she always says. This is it, you've cleared it up for me..as Oprah would say a lightbulb moment...thank you.
Posted by: Amanda | May 19, 2007 6:26 PM
I love this post. You put it so well: we judge each other because we are insecure about our own shortcomings. After two kids and 3 years of being a mother, I am finally starting to give myself a break and not have the weight of every little "misstep" on my shoulders and just enjoy the ride with these babies.
Posted by: Bunny | June 1, 2007 6:04 AM