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Fear of Parenting
Let's see. How have I screwed up today?
I have to admit to hope mixed with dread when Today's Parent magazine hits my mailbox. That's because even as I pull of the pristine, plastic wrap, the question is already forming in my mind: "So, how have I screwed him up this month?"
With stories like "Expert Advice on Toddler Nutrition," "Why Kids Need to Hear NO," and "When Good Parents Have Bad Teens" screaming at me from the cover, how can I not feel that they're here to help? Or do I mean judge? And expertly I might add.
Having just had my son, I signed up, like most new mums I know, for a subscription to what I hoped would be my ultimate guide. I'm searching for the mythical "right way." But ironically, the more information I get, the more that way seems to meander through a very muddy swamp.
Mothers in fisticuffs
Now don't get me wrong, Today's Parent, Parents Magazine, Martha Stewart Kids and others of its ilk didn't come out of nowhere. Instead, they answer new parents' desperate desire to do a good job. And let me tell you, that desperation can be palpable. There's nothing more disheartening than a "Mummy and Me" walking group degenerating into fisticuffs over the merits of liquid versus powdered formula, or the pros and cons of lavender in your baby wipes.
Take the latest debate raging over toddler formula, or "liquid nutritional supplement," as Enfagrow likes to call it. Toddler formula, unlike infant formula, is for the 12 to 24 month set who are transitioning to solid food. Last month, Today's Parent devoted five pages to the story including a large photo of an adorable sippy-cup toting tot and a nutritional information chart comparing formula to whole milk. The story showed its bias towards milk by asserting that the company was only playing on parents' fears that their picky toddler is going to starve to death (take my son, Bob, and his occasional two Cheerio lunches).
But in all fairness, isn't that fear what the whole magazine is based upon: the overwhelming sense that through some minor oversight on our parts, our delightfully robust progeny will wither away to nothing? The final kick in the head, if you will, came in the next issue in the form of a letter to the editor. It was one mother's mini diatribe on the article admonishing the magazine for its bias (not to be outdone, they named her letter "Product Endorsement").
So, if I thought I knew what to do before, I definitely don't now. And the hype can fly at me from other directions as well, from places I never expected. Annoyingly, from my mother, my husband's mother, our childless friends, the mother of six at the grocery store, the octogenarian who wears her bra over her blouse (the mind reels). And I just have to grimace, ok, smile, and take it all in.
When talc attacks
One of the most frightening places for the circulation of parenting propaganda can be a prenatal class. Picture if you will a multicultural smattering of parents-to-be crammed into a suffocating hospital classroom. To be fair, at that point in my pregnancy, my skin was more suffocating than the room. And infuriating. And embarrassing. But that's a whole other story. Anyway, during this day-long indoctrination into "correct parenting," a debate arose about baby powder.
"No, you mustn't use powder on your baby," chirped one mum.
"But we've always used baby powder," said another.
"Talc is the main ingredient in baby powder and it's a mineral," said yet another.
Then, just to put the fear of God into me, the dreaded "C" word was whispered: carcinogenic. So I fled the room and raced home to jump on my computer. And there I found it, on the Cancer Prevention Coalition's website. That exposing kids to this "carcinogen" is "unnecessary and dangerous." I quashed the urge to fly around the house like a mad woman hunting for all the "killer powder" I had just received at my baby shower. The next web search yielded slightly different results but it was still not looking good: it concluded that there was no hard evidence to suggest that talcum caused cancer in infants.
Ok, not so much of a panic. Step away from your CDC approved decontamination suit.
Dr. Spock is in the house
But a third site was the worst. One word screamed at me from the page: asbestos! Did I dare await the definitive answer to my carcinogen fears to rid my child's life of this terrifying specter? I think not! Just to be on the safe side, I decamped to my parents' house while my husband cleansed the house of the offending item. I suggested the scorched earth method but he thought that was overkill.
So what can you do? Do you follow the so-called experts or do you fly by the seat of your pants like your parents did and hope you produce a kid no more or less messed up than you are? As Dr. Spock said in Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care, "Don't take too seriously all that the neighbors say. Don't be overawed by what the experts say. Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense."
Now there's an expert who makes some sense.
As for me, I hope that Bob survives my bumbling attempts at parenting. If those endeavors are anything like my adolescent shots at lovemaking, things will get better with time. He's living proof of that.
Vancouver writer Melanie Wood is a recent escapee from the film industry. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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- Canada's Economy, Deconstructed (by a 12 year-old)
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- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Death In Remand: 'A Gut Feeling'
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Alberta Fills Pipes with Corrosive Denial
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- How Our Immune Systems Exaggerate Fear
- BC biotech company seeks approval for GM apple
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- Why Blackberry's Embrace of HTML5 Is Good Karma
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- Death in Remand: A Jail Crammed with Risk
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Should You Run from that Medical Test?
- 'The Dictator'
- Death in Remand: Stacked Deck
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tonib
6 years ago
Comments on "Fear of Parenting"
Just remember that the objective of "parenting magazines" is to sell advertising. They're marketing to you the parent because it's hard to sell "stuff" to the non-consumer in diapers. I've never read a parenting magazine in the 8 years I've been a parent. The covers throw me off as fear mongering and baby and me groups are just plain scarey. Just because people have kids, doesn't mean you have to hang out with people you don't like or have nothing else in common with.
allan
6 years ago
Melanie, take it easy, because you have a lot of parenting ahead of you yet.
What I'm trying to say is don't beat yourself up. It's obviously you are already focussed on the correct priority.
Just stay with him and it gets better, in fact as you bond and get to know his ways the right answer will often simply show itself.
What ever you do avoid feeling guilty over something you read or someone insisted is this or that.
If you err, it's a lesson learned.
Besides, you didn't take young Bob on a ride around the block a few times before birthing, so they aren't going to give you a parenting licence anyway, so just fake it.
Just tell them "I've got experience and credentials to prove it."
annabanana
6 years ago
As the ancient adage goes: Parenting is the most difficult job you'll ever have. I can well remember those early weeks and months of being a new mum - huge issues around breast-feeding, having to use formula when my milk supply was reduced due to medical concerns. I found I had virtually no time to read parenting mags, yet my own creativity, like Melanie Woods exploded.
Nine years later, I continue to have those doubting moments, but have learned to trust my instincts. My daughter was acting up and being quite rude towards me and I stated (while driving her to school) that she might want to think about her behavior. A few minutes later in the classroom as I was about to say Goodbye to her she leaned over and said, "Mom, I'm sorry for being rude and I promise to listen better." I just about fell over! And, this from a child who has Down syndrome.
Coyote
6 years ago
Again, other than financial issues, which were always a bitch for me and the Mrs., during the early years when we hadn't quite finished growing up ourselves, the child rearing part seemed to more or less take care of itself. Mind you, all daughters was definitely a bonus-, (girls do exhibit earler common sence, in my experience) and maybe my being still of a time of the more or less "traditional" patriarchal male. 8-)
She was the good cop. all soft, warm, understanding and forgiving. I was the bad cop you did not want to cross when Mommy said, I'll tell your father. It worked. And though "she" complains about it today, (You were too strict.) she used the arrangement to her advantage all the time. :-D
Dr Spock? Who the hell is Spock? The guy on Star Trek with pointy ears, I presume.
It worked, and they all have certainly no more hangups than nearly everyone seems to get from their parents. And like most males, I did mellow over time with age and moderated testosterone levels.
Enjoy it moms and dads. It mayn't seem like it, but it passes quickly and is suddenly over, leaving you wondering where all the damned years went.
(Especially for we males who, then at least, spent so much time outside the home chasing support dollars, and other than being the "Dark Force", left much the rearing of the kids to the Mrs. She was better at it and better positioned to do so Which DOES NOT mean I couldn't have done it. There's fair numbers of screwed up moms out there too, who shouldn't be left to look after a puppy.)
anne cameron
6 years ago
I was thirteen when my baby sister was born. Seems to me that ever since I've been busy; siblings, my own, some adopted, some fostered, some acquired...I have taken an anger management course, read articles, read books, even took a "children the challenge" parenting course.
Most of it is bumph, designed to sell books or sell "needed" items.
The best advice I ever got came from my Grandmother, Sarah Graham....you cannot spoil a child by loving it...never take orders from children...children thrive on their parents' mistakes...
Good luck to you and to Bobby... and do yourself a favour...PLAY with him!!! Sometimes we're so busy being "adult" we forget to play.
Right now, Lilli is 16 months old, and she loves to play "peek-a-boo" with Grandma. (I'm so old anything else would be too strenuous!!)
G West
6 years ago
First, take a deep breath. Then another. Soon you'll be breathing normally again.
No matter how hard you try your baby's going to: cry inconsolably some nights; catch a cold and run a temperature; fall down and skin his knee and live through a whole lot of other minor (and not so minor crises). You're not the first person to go through this. Trust your own judgment - it got you this far and, when in real doubt - call your mother.
Best of luck.
Colin
6 years ago
Well we just survived our first year with our baby girl. Wow what a ride!!
The first rule of dealing with babies I have learned is that there is no rules, each baby is different and needs to be approached with an open mind.
My wife could not produce breast milk, despite being hooked up to the hospitals industrial sized milking machine. The “breastfeeding Gestapo†were harassing her endlessly in the hospital and afterwards. I had to kick them out of the room because they were driving my wife to tears. Also we had a C-section because of the size of the birth canal, yet the nurses and doctors at the hospital still wanted to go natural birth despite the recommendation of our family doctor that had examined her. Apparently the hospital had set “goals†in natural childbirths and breastfeeding and we were hurting their average.
Our daughter also had Acid reflux which had us taking some frantic trips to the emergency till it was figured out. A doctor at Children’s diagnosed her, but It was another parent and a friend that helped us find the right medicine and how to minimize the effects by angling her bed, change pad, etc.
I do find all the free magazines useful, I give them to my daughter so she can tear them up, they might last a day or two.
We just got back from Malaysia, visiting my wife’s family, during the trip our daughter got badly bitten by mosquito’s in an area that had a “Dengue Fever alert†A couple of days later she had a 40 degree Celsius fever and we thought she had Dengue Fever, so we had to postpone our trip home and wait for the blood tests, which cleared her, (thank goodness)
Is it worth it? When you walk in and her eyes light up, she puts on a big smile and says “Da da†with her arms up in the air, there is nothing else like it!
Being a parent sometimes means having to tell the world to F*** O** and stand up for each other. Take everything you hear with a big bag of salt and listen to your kid.
Avicenna
6 years ago
My parents (thankfully) never heeded the parenting notices from people who don't know how to raise children themselves (pleae, Martha is an ex-covict...) - and they broke every law about raising a child who "knows the value of the dollar". I was told at 15 (when all my friends were working to buy junk they don't need) and I asked should be flipping burgers too - my mom innocently said "Why? You'll be working your whole life - enjoy your youth". So I did that - managed to score a few scholarships to university because I wasn't working - travelled the world - and escaped most of the pitfalls of discontent. My parents have a couple of kids who actually believe that home is where we can get unconditional acceptance and at the end of the day it is the only thing that counts. Of course, my grandparents fixed all the pragmatic issues of raising kids and working - so the real answer is three generations are always better than two.
lomay
6 years ago
Let's see...What have you done well today? Melanie, you've already had the best advice: trust your instincts. You know your son the best, and you know what will work for him and what won't. My oldest child is a picky eater - wouldn't eat red sauce until she was 9 (no spaghetti, no pizza, etc). She still won't eat vegetables, yet she's a happy & health 12 year old. My youngest is "high spirited" - I can't discipline her the same why I can the other two.
You will find your way. Trust yourself.