Like a game of roulette, lately it seems anyone could spin the wheel and land on a parenting technique and consequently, drive yourself crazy trying to live up to its standards.
Don’t breastfeed for a year, you are giving yourself over fully to the evil “tyranny off the baby” which Ann Crittenden poignantly notes has replaced patriarchy, according to the new French feminist tome “Conflict” written by Elisabeth Badinter. Don’t succumb to the pressures of placing the needs of a child before your own, don’t give in to the all-consuming demands of parenthood. You owe yourself more than that. It’s all or nothing. There is no gray area.
Or maybe you’ll land on being “mom enough”, the attachment parenting philosophy oh-so-conveniently invented by a man, Dr. Sears, that defines motherhood perfection as giving over every part of a woman’s self to her child for as long as possible – nurse the baby on demand, sleep with the baby, wear the baby. Sleep, breathe, eat, be the baby. If you don’t do this, your child won’t be happy. He won’t be well adjusted. He won’t know that you LOVE HIM. Oh, and make sure you don’t let him cry. There’s certainly no other research out there proving that crying a bit can actually be good for a baby.
If you’re really lucky, you could land on some of the celeb parenting trends, some even popular in developing countries: January Jones (dry up your placenta, have someone turn it into a pill, then eat it) or better yet, Alicia Silverstone’s preference for pre-masticating – that’s right – chew up your kid’s food then push it into his mouth.
“Here you go darling, let me pass you some soft, gooey bread, I’ve added some Hepatitis B to give it an extra kick. You can thank me later, after all, all the kids in rural China get their food this way, so why shouldn’t you?”
Pre-masticating is rivaled only by everyone’s favorite bombshell supermodel, Gisele’s claims of “elimination communication” – where her baby was potty trained at 6 months old. I’m for sure going to take the word of a spoiled, wealthy super model that she was so attentive and hands-on, that she was able to potty train her child two years before the rest of us. She’s hotter than all of us, so why wouldn’t she be better at parenting, right?
Totally makes sense.
There was a time when all the talk over these parenting techniques made me crazy. Now I’ve decided I absolutely love it. You know why? Because it’s fun to talk about people who are radically different from you. I will never breast feed a child until he is four, let alone put him on the front cover of a magazine doing it. I will never wear a baby constantly. I like to
BE
FREE
from my children. I like to get away from them. And then come back to them because I missed them.
And though my 3-year-old totally believes in pre-masticating, it’s crazy I know, but somehow I’m able to resist the chewed up food she so graciously deposits into the palm of my hand and instead of placing it into my mouth, I toss it in the trash.
As for elimination communication, apparently I #failed that parenting trend too because I just last night got rid of all the overnight diapers – we are officially just now – at 3.5 a totally diaper free zone. Sure, we were diaper free during the day but not at night. Gisele has a better body than me (just barely of course) and also is better at potty training than moi.
C’est vrai.
She’s better than you too. It’s okay.
As for the tyranny of the baby, that 10 pound human oppressing you? What Ann Crittenden writes in American Prospect really resonated with me:
“Badinter is tackling here a profound dilemma: how to reconcile the increasingly burdensome responsibilities of parenting with the pursuit of one’s own personal fulfillment. “In a civilization that puts the self first, motherhood is indeed a challenge, even a contradiction,” she writes. But Badinter fails to grapple with the conflict inside women themselves and with what we might call the paradox of selflessness. Sacrificing one’s own interests for the sake of others can be a deep source of fulfillment. (As the late Texas Governor Ann Richards once said, “Why should your life be just about you?”)”
Amen. Sacrificing our own interests for the sake of others is the daily ritual called life, isn’t it? Setting aside the pregnant teen or two, are there really that many women out there who willingly get pregnant and actually don’t realize that what’s about to happen is a major life adjustment where you are no longer the most important thing that everything revolves around? And while that is the taxing, draining, exhausting, raw nerve part of parenting, especially very young children, it’s also the rewarding, fulfilling, heart-warming, amazing part about it. They go together, those two extremes. Hence our chronic confusion. The constant push-pull between your own needs and the needs of your child. It is what it is. Look, I’ve called my own kid my oppressor but I still don’t view my life as living under the tyranny of the baby. Get over yourself, is what I want to say about that.
And speaking of getting over yourself, I now call up the Dr Sears view of the world,attachment parenting. I thought there was some really great advice in this month’s Washingtonian article Type-A Parents Run Amok. In terms of attachment parenting and never letting a child cry, Ms. Weaver, a clinical social worker explains that children need to learn to cry and parents need to set boundaries: “kids can really benefit when they’re forced to experience an emotion. Otherwise the message is ‘you have an uncomfortable emotion, which is too hard to live with, so let’s quickly find ways to fix it…children need to learn to tolerate their feelings – to know how to process anger, sadness and frustration.”
Unless as an adult, you go through your days and months and years only experiencing happiness and joy, then isn’t it obvious that though they are tiny small humans, babies and young kids also deserve and benefit from experiencing a range of emotion?
My absolute favorite part of the article was when Dr. Levy, a local pediatrician, said “Sometimes less is more in parenting. Read a magazine while you’re in the playroom.”
Now that’s something I CAN do, Doctor. That makes me mom enough.
So while my kids are playing, I’ll keep reading about all these absurd extreme forms of parenting that my guess is, the tiniest percentage of the American public actually practice, then I’ll send some emails and write some more blogs about it.
Cause I’m that good of a parent. What do you think? Are you mom enough?
“Like” WM on FB if you’re good with good enough parenting.
Summer is around the corner and one of the best things about living in DC is there is never a dirth of great theatre to take advantage of with the kids or date night. Today I am highlighting some of the shows I am most excited about…so especially if you also LOVE musicals – today’s post is for you.
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, the award-winning worldwide smash hit Broadway musical, is returning to Washington, D.C. for two weeks only at the National Theatre. Tickets for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast begin at $56.50 and can be purchased online. Tickets go on sale at the National Theatre Box office on Monday, May 21. I am going to see the show on June 12 – so expect my review the next day – and just might be more excited than my 6-year-old. The National Theatre indicates it is age appropriate for those 3 and up.
We grew up on the Music Man in my house – we couldn’t get enough of watching the movie version. Seriously. Madam Librarian, Marian – love her. So for any other Music Man lovers out there, Professor Harold Hill rolls into town May 11 – July 22 at the Arena Stage. I am headed there next week with my mom and sister but will report back not just as a date night/ladies night idea but also about taking the kids. The Music Man is directed by the Arena Stage’s Artistic Director Molly Smith.
Local fun fact: Joining the adult cast are five D.C.-area youth who were cast as a result of an all-day casting call held at Arena Stage. The chosen young actors include Ian Berlin making his professional theater debut as Winthrop Paroo, Heidi Kaplan as Amaryllis and Jamie Goodson as Gracie Shinn. Colin J. Cech and Mia Alessandra Goodman appear as River City kids.
Tickets range from $46-$91 and the show is 2 hours and 2o minutes with an intermission.
Every summer I love love love Wolf Trap, despite the heat, the inevitable t-storms and the disaster of the parking lot when you’re tired, it’s late, and you just want to go home. It doesn’t matter because what is summer without Wolf Trap? I love Children’s Theatre in the Woods, I mean, who doesn’t, right? But now that my girls are a little older, I’m also considering the Sound of Music Sing-Along on August 25. First of all, it’s my 10th anniversary, and they are having a costume contest. Do you think I could convince Mr. Wired Momma to show up in Lederhosen? I think I’ve earned that after 10 years and 2 kids.
But more to the point, how can I resist my Favorite Things: a lawn, a picnic, my kids, a starry night and Julie Andrews and the ever-dashing Captain Von Trapp? Oh: and of course, Mr. WM dressed like this:
What fun summer plans do you have? I dare you to show up at Wolf Trap dressed as the lead nun on August 25……
“Like” Wired Momma on Facebook because the summer fun ideas are just starting……
“Mommy, your mouth smells like hynie,” noted my 3-year-old as she slumbered over my face and settled into bed between me and my husband bright and early one day.
“I heard that when kids sleep until 7am, their mommy’s mouth smells like sunshine and roses,” I grumpily shot back.
The sarcasm lost on her as she fretted over how quickly we could wake up and turn on Jake & The Neverland Pirates.
Little did I know that she was right. My mouth actually was worse than hynie mouth – my tooth was rotting and bacteria were invading my gums. It had been percolating for god knows how long. Why? You ask.
BECAUSE I ALWAYS HAVE TO CANCEL DOCTORS APPOINTMENTS.
After months of doing the calendar dance with the receptionist, I begin to wonder if my children have late night meetings, with flashlights, hovered over the calendar, whispering together, colluding over how best to sabotage my next doctors appointment.
If I busted out my night vision goggles and snuck upstairs one night, I’d no doubt stumble into this scene: Around 2am, huddled together under a blanket, with the three-year-old dutifully wearing a watch – you know – because she can tell time and should be trusted to report it with accuracy. In hushed tones, she glances at her watch and remarks: “It is 65:23, time to get started. Let’s review the minutes covering our last few successful efforts to thwart mom’s efforts to go to the doctors. What’s next on our list?”
Beaming with pride over her own genius, the oldest is heard bellowing – because she’s completely incapable of a hushed quiet indoor voice ever “Mommy promised to go on my field trip next, that’s what’s going to make her reschedule her next dental appointment!” and just like that evil laughter and high fives erupts across their innocent bedroom. Evil plot to destroy my health meeting now adjourned. Mission inevitably accomplished again. I retreat back to sleep, defeated again.
Meanwhile the Mucinex germs we see dancing around in commercials are cheering loudest of all. They’re settled quite cozily into tooth #30 wreaking havoc in my mouth like my children do to my planned doctors visits.
The irony here is this – should one of my children need to get to a doctor – we are there in a hot second. Yet somehow I just can’t seem to get myself there. True, I am never in a rush to get weighed – but setting that aside – any kind of routine visit is pretty much the last thing on my list.
As we approach Mother’s Day – I’m wondering if that isn’t the gift we should be giving to ourselves. Schedule – and KEEP – your damn doctors appointments. I don’t say any of this to sound like a martyr. It’s just reality. Sick kids, field trips, unexpected work trips, shit happens and you have to cancel a doctor’s appointment. Or in my case, I was doing a decent job of going to the dentist for routine cleanings but I fell short on one key area – needing a crown (oh – and flossing).
Reason #1: It cost a lot of money.
Reason #2: The appointment was going to take a lot of time. Who has the time?
Reason #3: I had no pain.
Reason #4: My X-Rays were all fine.
Reason #5: What’s the rush?
Remember those Mucinex germs doing the samba in my mouth at night as my children colluded against moi?
Apparently that was the rush because since getting fitted for a temporary crown 2.5 weeks ago, I ended up shuttling between two different dentists almost every day for two weeks, most of the visits were unexpected emergency/pain related reasons – and I could pretty much open a side shop of killer pain meds based on the “hot tooth” explosion that happened to moi.
I sarcastically went into a root canal wondering if it was going to be worse than child-birth.
After two weeks of trauma – at least child-birth doesn’t last two weeks is all I can say.
So this year for mother’s day, while I agree that you are this:
I also think the gift we should all give ourselves is scheduled doctors appointments that we actually show up for. Don’t reschedule them. Don’t avoid it. Don’t fall for the excuses. Let the husband handle the sick kid or the field trip that day. Just go to the damn doctor.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Oh, and for Mother’s Day, give yourself the gift of moi, on Facebook. Your future self totally thanks you.