3 Mommy advice that we need to start giving each other
Ok, I'll admit it, one of the most surprising and aggravating parts about parenting is advice from other parents. But hear me out, I think the reason why they're usually so annoying is that they're utterly useless most often than not, amiright? Oh really, we need to be patient with our kids when they’re throwing a tantrum? That is such a revolutionary idea Kim, I’ve just been screaming at them as my first line of defense up til now but let me go and give that a whirl! Fuck me in the asshole.
But as I'm knee-deep in toddler years with my first (hello, two-year-old-tyrant-opinions!) and about to embark on a second go-around with this whole child-rearing thing, I couldn't help but think of all the lessons I had to learn in the trenches of baby shit (both emotionally and literally) that I wished were more mainstream so that moms could stop feeling guilty, helpless, and just miserable.
So here are some advice that I want us to all start giving each other so that we could all cut ourselves some slack around here!
1. Set your priorities straight: if your baby is alive, you're doing fine
I really wish someone told me this before I found myself on the couch pumping breastmilk naked while crying uncontrollably in those early weeks with my first. I'm pretty sure my husband walked in on me and gave me an expression I'd never seen before, like an "oh shit" mixed with "what am I supposed to do with this?" I know you're not reading this babe, but sorry.
Yes my hormones were raging, and I was pretty okay for the most part, but the thing that dropped me in lows like that was this overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. It's super cliché but I just fell in love with my son the moment the doctors plopped that little gooey cottage cheese covered monkey on my chest in the delivery room, and for the first time in my life I felt like my heart was bursting at the seams with the type of love that felt familiar but so much more intense than anything I’ve known. That sounds all rainbows and unicorns, but what followed was anxiety, fatigue, and doubt, which is a disaster cocktail that keeps fueling each other into a dumpster fire of emotions.
Every little thing made me feel like I was failing him somehow because he wouldn't latch or he didn't like to be swaddled or I was worried he'd never learn to speak because I was a negligent mother who didn't talk to him enough, back from the days he was in the womb. But the fact of the matter is, we as new parents deserve a fucking gold star at the end of the day for keeping the damn thing alive. It literally CANNOT survive on its own because it's utterly useless (adorably so, but still quite incompetent at pretty much everything that is required of it to stay alive). Didn't change the diaper right away because you happened to drift off to sleep? It's not going to die. Didn't realize that the mitten fell off and they scratched their eyelid? The red mark will be gone by tomorrow, their skin is like Wolverine. And yea, it’s going to be fine.
Call it lowering the bar if you want, but I call it setting realistic expectations. Because as a parent you realize that while you had all these dreams about your baby becoming great one day or change the world, when you look at their little face you realize you are going to love this thing even if it never does anything worthy of an award or recognition. You’re just happy for them to be alive. So yes, that is literally your only job too.
2. Look to other cultures for "norms"
This was a big one for me. Luckily I'm bilingual in English and Japanese and grew up with a mom who is SUPER Japanese (just imagine what that means, and you're probably right). I think my fellow children-of-immigrants can relate to this, or in homes that are multi-ethnic. I won't lie, it also leads to a lot of heartache and conflict and full-on hormonal screaming deathmatches with your family too, but when the dust settled from these fights, it made me realize that there is no right way to raise a child.
So when I would obsessively Google what I'm supposed to do when my baby refuses to sleep without my boob in his mouth, or stressing out about what to feed him once he started solids, I also Googled the same query in Japanese. This completely changed the way I thought about parenting best practices, the things "you have to do or your baby will be fucked for life," and the like because I would see completely conflicting information in Japanese culture. It was especially true for those hot-button topics that are so divisive you'd rather discuss abortion laws or whether 9/11 was an inside job (I'm talking things like breastfeeding, co-sleeping, sleep training... you know them). For example, Japanese people don't expect kids to sleep alone until they start elementary school. Yea, that would take a shit ton of pressure off of moms who have kids like mine who refuse to sleep alone.
Now look, I know that we don't live in Japan where they eat sushi during pregnancy, or in France where they drink wine whether they're pregnant or not—so our cultures are quite different, which means that parenting advice may not always translate. What's important is that those countries, despite having committed parenting sins that American parents would fucking CRUCIFY the shit out of you over, have raised healthy, smart, and capable children. That's why I've been reading a lot about how other cultures raise their kids, and it has been transformative. We need to tell more mothers to lean into their multi-ethnic background or learn about different cultures because American doesn't always mean best. In fact, some of our baby best practices have been built on consumerism, not science (are we really surprised?) so fuck all that.
3. Really dig deep and do some self-discovery before the baby comes
This one was like a sucker punch to the gut. If you don’t know already, I absolutely adore Brené Brown and if I ever saw her in person I wouldn’t know what to do and will likely just start sobbing, because she really changed the way I viewed myself and my own ego. I was always kind of weirdly convicted in my beliefs and strangely confident of them, and lived my life without much reflection. It’s not to say that I wasn’t self-aware, but I kind of didn’t care HOW I was doing things or examine that, because I thought I knew myself from my actions.
When you have a kid, and you’re ready to stand up for your beliefs, your decisions, your choices, your BEING, to impart that onto them, you realize that the paper-thin convictions and confidence you had feel cheap and not worthy of your child. You want something better for them. In fact, you want an attitude of flexibility and openness and have to be ready to agree to disagree. Because true confidence doesn’t come from conviction, it comes from a place where you know that there are more amazing ideas out there that you’re waiting to discover and learn from. And that’s really hard to do when you don’t really know who you are, or why you believe the things you do.
In the same way that you can’t love someone unless you love yourself, you won’t be able to know what you’re doing to your kid unless you know yourself. Your triggers, your tendencies, your weakness, your behavior habits, your instincts, your knee-jerk reactions. And it’s not to say that you need to know all of this in-and-out, but you have to start that work and commit to it and know that it’s going to be a lifelong practice for you to continue learning it. We all think that parenting is this external task, but it all comes from your own self first. So make sure the house is in order.
BONUS: Take all parenting advice like additional tools in your tool belt, not an end-all
This may seem like I’ve just negated everything I’ve said up to this point, but the truth is, it’s an attitude that could save your sanity. There is going to be so much information, opinions, studies, and “facts” thrown your way—more than you could ever imagine from the life you’ve led to this point. It is so easy to get overwhelmed at first and take everything as the gospel, but then you quickly realize that there is no universal truth, and sometimes these things contradict each other. So instead, take every new information as an invitation to look over the tools you’ve accumulated, and whether it has a place in your tool belt. Is it going to complement the tools you already have? Does it actually seem better than one of the ones you have, and will you replace it? Are you still unsure about it and will keep it close but not use it at this time? Know that your kid, your rules, and you and your parenting partner get to curate this tool belt together to fit the needs of your family.
Are there advice you wish you heard as a mom that you every one would start spreading?
