A Mommy Story

I hate it when parents choose to tell other parents that a certain parenting style is the ONLY way to parent, and every other way is wrong. Well, Queen of Spain had that happen to her yesterday. It seems she got a nasty e-mail criticizing her parenting choices, and she fought back by re-affirming her choices publicly.

Several moms gave their views on the matter, but then the original troublemaker (Mr. Anonymous – gotta love a person who stands up for his beliefs so much that he refuses to identify himself) decided to tell us all that we should be following Babywise and deferring to our husbands to make parenting decisions. That’s when the real fun began.

But the original post was what really hit home for me. Queen had been attacked on her parenting choices, and decided to fight back and defend herself. She points out that often we moms are hyper critical of others parenting choices, but we play all nicey-nice to each other and then stab them in the back when they’re gone. She made it clear that her choices worked for her, and she was sick of being called a bad parent for making those choices.

Queen bared it all for the Web to see: co-sleeping, no cry-it-out, nursing on demand and child-led weaning. I’m glad to see that, other than Mr. Anonymous, no one picked a fight. Even when he acted as troll-bait, the firestorm that followed was directed at him, not at Queen and her choices. We could all agree to disagree, and we could all agree that guy was a Fucktard (love that word, by the way).

Personally, I find I don’t get all that upset over parenting choices. Probably because everything I believed when I was pregnant never came about once Cordelia was born.

I wanted a natural birth. Cordelia, on the other hand, didn’t feel like coming out. At all. Ever. She remained in a rare complete breech position, requiring a c-section to get her out. I wanted to nurse her right at birth. But due to the c-section, she was taken from me and I didn’t see her for the next 3 hours.

I wanted to breastfeed. I believed in nursing on demand and child-led weaning. But Cordy had other ideas. She refused to latch on for more than 10 seconds in the hospital, and by the second night of little nourishment, her blood sugar had dropped so low that the nurses informed me that she must be given a bottle. She loved the bottle, of course, and there was little turning back after that. We did eventually get her to breastfeed, but she had to be supplemented with the bottle, which she preferred over me. By 4 months, when I went back to work and faced a bastard of a manager who wouldn’t provide me anywhere to pump other than a dingy single-stall bathroom, I conceded the battle. Cordy didn’t like it, I was a stressed out mess, and with no ability to pump during the day, my milk was drying up. The white flag was up.

I was all for co-sleeping. And for the first 4 months we did co-sleep most nights. Then I decided to try her in her crib in the other room for a night. She slept through most of the night, when she had been waking several times a night before. It was clear that she wasn’t waking us up – we were keeping her awake. Cordy wanted her space, preferably in a different room, away from the snoring. Now she insists on sleeping in her crib, alone, and will not fall asleep unless everyone else is out of the room. 15 months going on 15 years, I tell you.

Every beautiful idea I had in my head while pregnant of how I would parent my child was smashed by the cold reality that this stubborn baby girl of mine refused to comply with my wishes. I started to realize that there was no single parenting style that worked for every child. No one-size-fits-all mentality. Each child is different, and the best way to parent that child is to do whatever works best for parent and child.

Parenting is not a static art. It’s a science continuously in flux, with thousands of variables that must be accounted for and adjusted for each individual. The best parents are those that can recognize what works and what doesn’t work for their children, and fine-tune their skills to find an acceptable path for everyone. Forcing a certain parenting doctrine on a child will only lead to misery for both parent and child.

As for me? While nothing I wanted worked out for me, I’m still thrilled with my stubborn little girl and all she stands for. She gave me a harsh lesson in expectations, and while I would still like all of those original ideals I had to come true for any future children, I also recognize that they may not. I will simply need to go with the flow and adjust where necessary. Zen Parenting.

Oh, and I’m so waiting for the day when Cordelia has a daughter just. like. her.