Mom Guilt

A few days ago, Q got her 6 month shots. A very nice nurse gave them and oohed and ahhed over how cute Q was--"Look at how observant she is!" she said. "This girl doesn't miss a thing!" she said. And yet, I left the health clinic feeling discouraged and like I was doing a subpar job as a mom. Why is that? Semi-frequently, I come across very friendly, very educated healthcare professionals who make me feel like I am doing everything wrong. These individuals have subscribed to the mistaken idea that there is only ONE way to raise a baby. I got heavy doses of this while in the hospital struggling to breastfeed Q; for each different nurse, there would be a different idea for how I had to do things. One nurse insisted that I only feed from one breast per feeding. Another said feed on one side for 10 minutes, switch, then switch again if needed. Yet another said feed on one side until the baby is done, then offer the other side for as long as she wants it. Foolishly, I decided these polarizing opinions were peculiar to breastfeeding, but really they pervade almost every aspect of baby-raising.

"You're still swaddling?" the nurse at Q's shots asked me with a slight raise of her eyebrow. And then we got into the topic of sleep. "Don't play music with words," she said, "Because your baby is trying to learn language and will stay awake trying to figure out what they're saying. But," she warned, "Don't play classical music either, because studies have shown that it excites our brains." No night lights either. "What you can do," she said, "Is slowly black out the night light with a Sharpie marker--bit by bit each night, until it's completely dark. But it has to be a SHARPIE marker. No knock-off brands or the baby will smell them and stay awake wondering where the smell is coming from." Okay, now we were getting awfully specific. I want to stress again that this nurse was VERY NICE, and I liked her. But think of all the millions of babies all around the world in a myriad of different conditions. Sleeping on rough cots in the sweltering shade in Africa on a summer day. Bundled up in layer upon layer of clothing with only a few hours of sunlight in the day during an Alaskan winter. Babies without air conditioners, cribs, bumper pads, night lights, and CERTAINLY Sharpie markers. Babies jiggling up and down on their mama's backs in a wrap, fast asleep.

We mothers heap so much unfair guilt upon each other and ourselves. We're hesitant to admit the things that almost every one of us feel--by the time Q's bedtime rolls around, for example, I can't WAIT to put her down in her crib. I'm often emotionally drained, I don't want anyone to touch me, and I just want to put her down and sit on my couch and do something unproductive. I bet this is a really common feeling for an introvert. Introverts recharge by spending time alone, but having a baby means that you're suddenly never alone. Don't get me wrong, I love being with my baby. But after a full day with her that starts as early as 5:30am, I am in need of some solitude. Why do I feel bad admitting that? I'm afraid to post pictures of Q in her carseat for fear that some mom will make a snarky remark about the positions of the belt or chest clip (though I've done my research and am, to my knowledge, doing it correctly). I'm hesistant to admit that I still swaddle her, that sometimes I let her cry it out, that sometimes I misjudge the weather and she is not dressed appropriately, and that, yes, I love hamburgers and fries and she just might be acquiring a taste for them from my breastmilk.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of things you can do while still being a good mom:
Breast feed
Formula feed
Pump
Swaddle
Cloth diaper
Disposables
Hold baby over a bucket
Co-sleep
Cry-it-out
Back to sleep
Stomach to sleep
Stay at home
Work full time
Be married
Be single
Be in your 30s
Be a teenager
Give birth naturally
Have a c-section
Adopt 

Sometimes, I have to shake off the guilt and carry on. And sometimes, I need to step back and remember that just because other moms do things differently than I do, it doesn't mean that either of us is wrong or love our children any less.

Charity: A Dirty Word

Give without expecting anything back. It's a simple concept. But charity always has strings attached, doesn't it? We kind of feel that we have a right to judge how other people spend their money. We give a friend or acquaintance in need something for "free," but what we have really done is bought the right to judge their future purchases. If we see them in Tim Horton's drive-thru, we muse, "I wonder how much they spend on coffee a year!" Spot them in a new article of clothing and tsk tsk to ourselves, "Did they really need that new shirt?" And so on. I have occasionally been on both the giving and receiving end of charity, and I like to think I have learned a couple of things about it along the way.

Unfortunately, we do not tend to give of our plenty. We give of our trash. I have definitely been guilty of this. All it takes is one glance at any Diabetes Association donation box around the city to see that people are using it as a means of bypassing taking their trash to the junkyard. Old, outdated appliances left out in the rain. Clothes with stains and holes. The poor know when they're being looked down upon. And what we're really doing is wasting the time of the volunteers and workers who have to sort through all our piles of junk--in addition, we are simply taking advantage of the process to make our lives easier. It's easier just to throw all our old stuff in a box than it is to sort through it and donate the appropriate, well-kept items.

Giving becomes just a little more meaningful when we have to sacrifice to do it. The ultimate, obvious example of this is the story in the Bible where the little old widow puts in her two coins as an offering--two coins that, in her precarious financial predicament, might have meant skipping a meal or two. I know that I don't sacrifice enough. We live in such abundant wealth, it's easy to just skim off the top and give of the extra that we don't need or want anyway. But try giving something that might require you to scale back for a week or two.

And most of all, give with respect and without any preconceived notion of requirements or qualifications that a person must meet in order to be worthy of your giving. By respecting the recipients of charity and by elevating them to equal human being status, we can greatly increase the value of our gifts. Because rarely is it that the recipients of charity JUST need physical items. They are often in a position desperately in need of love and respect, as well.