Treating parents like babies
July 16, 2009 by Mum Admin
Filed under Fun & Games, blog
By Lenore Skenazy
If you’re a mother, you might recognise the sentiment “sweet wishes” from the passive-aggressive baby industry that wants you to feel so completely, even dangerously unprepared for the challenges (they’re always challenges) of parenthood that you’ll read its magazines, buy its products and take its advice. Ka-ching!
Here’s a tip from an article on flying a kite with your kid: “Choose a sunny day when there’s no chance of lightning.” You mean, don’t fly kites when there’s a funnel cloud headed for the driveway? Got it. Or how about this pointer from a parenting magazine on how to delight your baby: “Lean in close and kiss her nose.”? Kissing my baby. Why didn’t I think of that?
And here’s my favourite recommendation from a book of “Baby Must-Haves: (a tome on items you simply must buy unless you want baby to be seriously deprived). You’ll get more bang for your buck with a toy that can be played with in more than one way – for instance, a push toy that can also be pulled.”? Now, you’ve got to feel sorry for the poor writer who had to come up with something, anything to say about a pull toy. But can you think of a push toy that can’t be pulled? Can you think of any toy that can’t be pulled, besides a cranky daddy trying to watch a sports channel?
These tips treat parents as if we were the two-yearolds, so wet behind the ears that we need an expert to tell us which games to play, which toys to buy, what to say to our kids and what to feed them. This talking down to parents is big business. The whole gestalt is enough to convince moms that today’s children, unlike those who came before them, do not have their trajectory well mapped out simply by being born human: cry, crawl, toddle, walk, grow up, breed and cry some more.
No, this generation won’t make it without a whole lot of help from specialists, safety gear and Internet searches. But why? Are our children more vulnerable, and we less competent than any previous generation in history?
Parenting culture
Of course not. But that’s the message we get. We live in a time when parents worry about their offspring’s safety, development and health and you name it more than ever, thanks to a parenting industry that relies on turning us into nervous wrecks. It begins even before the baby’s born. There are books and books about what to eat during pregnancy.
As my doctor told me: Just eat like you normally would, only a little more – and add some folic acid. That kind of counsel is too reasonable for the parenting-industrial complex. Taking a chipper-butchiding approach that set the tone for a generation of parenting advice, the What to Expect When You’re Expecting pregnancy guide goes so far as to remind moms-to-be that “each bite” is a chance to give their babies the perfect start. Which must mean that not making “each bite”? nutritionally stellar risks ruining your kid forever.
There’s no rest for the weary parent in this high-alert world, especially after the bundle arrives. Take the baby bath thermometer. The cheapest one looks like a rubber duck. Place it in the tub and if the bathwater is too hot, these words magically appear on its tummy: “TOO HOT.”?
You’d have to be convinced that you’re incapable of testing the temperature with your own hand before you’d buy the gadget. But that’s what that crafty duck is out to do: undermine your confidence in your childrearing
capabilities.
(Forget that the instructions on the package remind adults to “ALWAYS” check the temperature with their hands first!) It’s hard to feel secure about being a good mom when every decision is fraught with consequences.
Things have changed dramatically in a single generation. The worries that make us hyperventilate didn’t even faze our moms. It’s just that then people didn’t see every tiny parenting decision as a big deal.
They didn’t sweat the way we do because they were reading Dr Spock, the child-care guru of the 1950s and 60s, who famously began his book Baby and Child Carewith the words: “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. Not, Freak out! Your baby is at a super-important stage and you must devote every fibre of your being to helping him ace it.”?
Today is a day to thank those moms for all they did. It’s also a day to thank the current crop of moms, stuck trying to do their best in the face of a parenting culture that’s insisting, “You’re not doing it right!”? Yes we are. Or at least we’re doing it right enough, thank you, and the odds are very much on our side.
Lenore Skenazy is the author of Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry
- This article was originally published on page 23 of The Mercury on July 13, 2009
Being a mother : By unknown Author
We are sitting at lunch when my daughter
casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of ’starting a family.’
‘We’re taking a survey,’ she says, half-joking. ‘Do you think I should have a baby?’
‘It will change your life,’ I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral.
‘I know,’ she says, ‘no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations….’
But that is not what I meant at all.
I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what
she will never learn in childbirth classes. I want to tell her that the physical
wounds of child bearing will heal, but that becoming a mother will
leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable.
I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper
without asking ‘What if that had been MY child?’
That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her. That when she sees
pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse
than watching your child die.
I look at her carefully manicured nails and
stylish suit and think that no matter how sophisticated she is,
becoming a mother will reduce her to primitive level of a
bear protecting her cub.
That an urgent call of ‘Mom!’ will cause her to drop a soufflé or her best
crystal without a moment’s hesitation. I feel I should warn her that
no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will
be professionally derailed by motherhood.
She might arrange for child care but
one day she will be going into an important business meeting and she will
think of her baby’s sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of her
discipline to keep her from running home, just to make sure her baby
is all right.
I want my daughter to know that everyday decisions will no longer be
routine. That a five year old boy’s desire to go to the men’s room rather
than the women’s at McDonald’s will become a major dilemma.
That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children,
issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against
the prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that rest-room.
However she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself
constantly as a mother. Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure
her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will
never feel the same about herself.
That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child.
That she would give it up in a moment to
save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years -
not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish theirs.
I want her to know that a Cesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will
become badges of honor. My daughter’s relationship with her husband will change,
but not in the way she thinks..
I wish she could understand how much more you can
love a man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child.
I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she
would now find very unromantic.
I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel
with women throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and
drunk driving. I hope she will understand why I can think rationally
about most issues, but become temporarily insane when I discuss the
threat of nuclear war to my children’s future.
I want to describe to my daughter the
exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike.
I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is
touching the soft fur of a dog or a cat for the first time.
I want her to taste the joy that is so real, it actually hurts.
My daughter’s quizzical look makes me realize that tears have
formed in my eyes.
‘You’ll never regret it,’ I finally say.
Then I reach across the table, squeeze my daughter’s hand and offer a silent
prayer for her, and for me, and for all of the mere mortal women who stumble their way
into this most wonderful of callings.
This blessed gift from Allah!
Being a Mother.
this was really inspirational. thanks so much for sharing