I don’t know why that is.
When it comes to parenting, the gloves are off. Everything is fair game. Every little decision from what you feed your kid (Organic? Breastmilk? Gerber? Vegan?) to how you got your kid (Planned? Unplanned? Fertility Treatments? Adoption? Fostering?), even how you deal with your kid’s defecation (Cloth? Disposable? Elimination Communication? Potty Train at 2? at 4?)and foreskin (Snip it? Leave it?)is the basis for judgement of your worth as a parent.
I am so weirded out by the parents who wear there parenting style like some kind of gang affiliation. For example the "I’m a baby wearing, co-sleeping, raw-fruititarian, learn from our ancestors the chimps and don’t use synthetic plastic combs for your kids, be natural and pick the nits out with your teeth, NATURE MAMA." Or the "I lock my baby in a plastic cage, let them scream till their blue, teach them whose boss at six weeks old, never pick them up because they will be spoiled, they will speak only when spoken too HARD ASS MAMA."
What is the fucking deal, ladies?
Being a mother is HARD. Most of the mom’s I know realize that we don’t have kids for our own entertainment. If I want entertainment, I will pay $7.00 for two hours of peace in the dark haven of a movie theater. Or maybe I would get a nice relaxing massage. Or maybe, in my wildest dreams, I might have unscheduled, spontaneously occuring sex that does not have to take place on the living room floor because a certain toddler refuses to sleep in her own bed, never mind in another room.
It is difficult task to watch a tiny person (who you happen to worhip) discovering that the world does NOT, in fact, exist to meet her every tiny desire. Dealing with the tantrums that result from this realization is like pouring hydrogen peroxide in your eye. Ever tried it? It is torturous (don’t ask). As moms, I think most of us think about the person we want our kids to grow up to be and we try to figure out how to get them there. It is not easy. It is not always fun. Sometimes it just sucks. But when the going gets rough and the kid throws your $20 tweezers in the toilet AGAIN, you have no choice but to hitch up your pants and get back on the Time Out horse.
I think it is the difficulty of motherhood that makes us so vulnerable. Everybody knows, especially other moms, that the stakes of parenting are high. Everybody wants to think her way is the right way. And it seems that the collective belief is that if OUR way is the right way, THEIR way must be the wrong way.
The worst part about this evil mother-judgement is that we internalize it and start to question ourselves. Even though her fears are tinged with the pain of infertility, when I read Karen’s post about her fears of adoption at the Naked Ovary, it reminded me of my own internal parenting-failure critique:
Will my kids hate me because I am white? Will they wish that I wasn’t? Did we make the wrong decision moving here? What if my adopted kids don’t feel as valued as my bio kid? What if my bio kid doesn’t feel as wanted as my adopted kids? Will Miss M carry psychic scars because I wasn’t happy about my pregnancy? If I don’t let her have another cookie, will that be the trigger that makes her grow up to be schizophrenic?
When I start to get too carried away with my paranoia, I force myself to remember how I felt when Miss M was a tiny baby. When I looked into her tiny little face and saw that there was no limit to the adoration she had for me when I was holding her and feeding her and cuddling her. I would look at her and see her impish grin, and feel…nothing.
Yeah, that’s right.
I felt NOTHING.
No warm maternal glow. No rush of overwelming love. Not much of anything really. For months and months and months.
I thought I would feel that stuff on the first day, but it didn’t happen. I waited through the first month. Nothing. I waited and waited and waited. I finally resigned myself to being the most unfeeling, undeserving mother EVER in the HISTORY of MOTHERHOOD (Admit it. You agree. I must be the worst. mother. ever. What kind of mother doesn’t love her baby?)
But finally about six months in, turned around and there it was. I loved her.* Somehow when I wasn’t looking, my heartstrings got all tangled up around this tiny little person and I knew we would be ok.
Maybe I won’t always be the perfect mama. Hell, I would be suprised if there was ever a SINGLE day of PERFECT mothering in my whole life. Heh, Miss M is not even two and she has already eaten enough nitrate-laden hotdogs to damn me to the Mothering Hall of Shame forever.
Maybe I won’t always know how to give my kids exactly what they need precisely when they need it, but (universe willing) we will have long lives together to figure it out. Sure, my kids will grow up and wish I had done some things differently — just like I wish my parents had done some things differently. That’s how it is with kids and parents, it is just the nature of the beast. But I hope they know I am doing my best.
My kids’ opinions are the only opinions that really matter to me. The Judgemental Mama’s can just go screw themselves.
*Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t ever DISlike her. I didn’t mind her, I thought she was alright, I appreciated the effort she made to let me get a full night’s sleep, but I was just kind of ambivalent about the whole thing.
