All or Nothing Motherhood

All or nothing thinking is what a lot of teenagers subscribe to. "If I can't go to the prom with Jimmy, I WILL die!". It's also what a lot of mothers subscribe to. "My house is a DISASTER, NO ONE is allowed to step though this door!" or... "If I can't have a unmedicated home birth, my whole birth experience will be ruined!" or... "If my child doesn't have straight A's and get into harvard, I've failed as a mother!".

Okay some of those are a little insane. But that's just it. We expect SO much of ourselves and if our children or parenting experiences don't live up to what we think life SHOULD be like, we become guilty and depressed and self-pitying. OR we don't trust ourselves enough to change something that could be changed the second time around.

For instance, I really wanted a drug-free birth. I did my research, I even listened to hypnobirthing cd's (albeit, I fell asleep after 5 minutes EVERY time). When it came down to it, I thought I was prepared to handle whatever came my way. I had a very long labor with all my contractions in my back. I didn't even OPEN my hospital bag. I sat in the tub in the hospital and just tried to deal. When I got to 8 cm after 24 hours....I was obviously going through transistion and the pain just became so unbearable. Someone mentioned medication and I was like...SIGN ME UP. I hit my wall.....I didn't think I could do it anymore. I got the epidural and things were pretty easy after that. The epi did fall out after awhile (even though the nurse who was TRIPPING over my IV and epidural cord said it wasn't). So I did feel a lot of pain after 3.5 hours of pushing. but in the end, I had a HEALTHY wonderful baby boy.

My regrets....1. birthing in a place where I felt scared. I didn't feel comfortable there. I was frightened and annoyed because I couldn't have a birthing tub. The water helped me soo much and I think having a tub would have helped me through the transistion phase.
2. just letting the nurses take over after birth. they took Noah the second night to sleep in the nursery because I was so tired but I WANTED him with me...I woke up constantly in a panic because I didn't have him near me.
3. having too many people in the delivery room. Now that I look back , I should have had just me and Bryan. Having to worry about what other people were thinking/feeling just wasn't good.
4. not trusting my body. I got the epidural because I didn't think I could do it. I was afraid and tired.

Now, I beat myself up about this for a while and now have come to terms with it and I'm fine. BUT because I value natural birth and labor as a beautiful birth process, next time, I STILL want to try to have an unmedicated birth. I could be like, " I will ONLY get the epidural now....what would I have done without it?! ".

But because I don't want to subscribe to this type of thinking where it's all or nothing...or "well, that's what happened that time, surely it will happen again"... I'm going to still attempt what I feel would be a very rewarding birth experience.

At the same time, I now know that if things DON'T go as planned, THAT'S OKAY. It's give and take. We do our best for our children.

The same goes for breastfeeding. or cosleeping. or whatever else you want to analyze. If you don't even TRY to do what you think is best for your baby because you are afraid to fail, you are shortchanging yourself and your child. At the same time, if you've been doing something that you thought was best and it turns out that it just NOT working for your family, then change it! As long as your child is healthy and you are healthy/happy, things will be okay.

I think weighing our decisions based on the "what best for baby" basket and the "whats best for mommy" basket is a good way to look at things. There is also a chart that PhD in Parenting put together which illustrates this point beautifully about how to balance your childs needs versus your own.
See below. Click to enlarge.

If your need to hang out with your friends is coming before your baby's need for sleep or nursing , that's a problem. If your baby's need to go to a play group is being put over YOUR need for sleep or eating....that's also a problem.

In conclusion, motherhood is NOT all or nothing and neither is life. You do the best you can. It's up to you to educate yourself and know the facts when you become a parent. If you are making decisions without learning about WHY or just doing things because "that's how so and so did it", that's not responsible.

We must do the best we can while utilizing all the resources available to us.

Post Response re: disciplining 2 yr old

I was perusing the boards over at Gentle Christian Mothers and saw this posters question. As I scrolled through the responses, I was in AWE of how WISE and RIGHT the woman who answered her post was. This can be applied to kids of ALL ages and parents of all ages too!! SUCH good wise words.


Original Question: "Mama! Throwing things! Help me stop!"
.. He says while wildly throwing things around the living room. What's the deal?! What's with my suddenly deliberately do-what-i-ask-him-not-to-do child?! And then he makes sure I'm watching and asks me, almost excitedly, to help him stop?!

It's driving me NUTS. I DO NOT LIKE disobedience. I'm just beginning to realize that it makes me REALLY angry on the inside I "accidentally" grabbed him by his hair today as he was running off to hurl something else

And then all the while I think he's acting out because he's terribly emotionally traumatized and somehow that must be all my fault.

WISE Mama Reply:

My first impression of this scenario is that he wants your interaction. He's basically asking for you to physically interact with him.... almost like saying "come play with me". I would not view this as a negative thing at all.

As for the "I hate disobedience" part... I am not convinced that a 2yo CAN be obedient in the true sense of the word. Obedience is intentionally submitting your own will to someone else's, based on an established relationship of trust. (Jesus said "if you *love* me, you will keep my commands" ie. submit your own will and obey me) A toddler can't possibly understand this concept, most of the time they aren't even really clear about what you want or the why's behind it. What most parents think of as "obedience" at this age is actually "compliance". I do not think it is developmentally appropriate to expect a 2yo to be obedient OR compliant with any degree of consistency. To expect or demand this is going to set you up for a lot of frustration and conflict with your child. I honestly don't believe God hates disobedience nearly as much as we humans do, or for the same reasons. God ASKS us to obey, he encourages, guides and corrects us through his Word and his Spirit towards that goal, but he does not expect or demand consistent, instant, or unquestioning obedience. You might want to ask yourself WHY you hate disobedience so much? I know for myself, I used to get angry about it because quite honestly, it makes my life a lot more difficult when my kids don't obey me. It is a lot harder when I have to work at getting my kids to do what need to be done or stop them from getting into mischief. It makes my job as a parent a lot harder... and I resented my kids for that. Why couldn't they just obey? Didn't the Bible say that's what they were supposed to do? Turns out, I had unrealistic expectations. I felt like they SHOULD be obedient, therefore because they were NOT, they were being "bad" or "deliberately defying me", and that gave me the right to be upset with them. The fact is, little ones are just not good at complying all the time, and many of them will require more patience, time and attention than others. That's MY JOB, and if I just accept that and stop being frustrated by my own misguided expectations, then I can treat them the way God expects me to. If I am so busy being offended that my child won't do what I want, I can't focus on teaching them the right way to behave the same way God teaches *me* to behave.

Between you and your child, who do you think God is expecting the higher level of behavior from? If you, as an adult, can't stop yourself from getting angry and frustrated, then how can you reasonably expect your 2yo to keep his own behavior in line? If you can't submit your own will to God in order to display the patience and gentleness He expects you to, is it fair to expect your child to willingly submit to you? Because if you are not walking in love towards your child, you are not being obedient, either. This is something God frequently convicts me of... I need to get my own behavior in line with his will before I can start telling my child to do the same. It is far too easy to want THEM to obey, so I will not have to stretch in the areas of being patient, gentle or kind to a child who is getting on my nerves. It's so much easier to eliminate the source of annoyance than it is to deal with my own weaknesses. But is that really fair?

If your child is wildly throwing things around the living room and asks for your help to stop... show him the character of God and gently help him stop. He does not sound at all "traumatized", he's acting like a normal, active, 2yo boy! I don't see this as "acting out" at all, since every one of my boys acted pretty much the same way at that age, and my youngest one will, too, at some point. All that is required is to gently go to them and help them... if it is a real need for physical activity, then help guide him into a more appropriate activity that will allow him to get this out without hurting anyone or damaging anything. If it is just a cry for attention... then do what you can to make sure his emotional tank gets filled up. Find out the reason behind the behavior and work on eliminating it and the behavior will resolve itself. This is NOT an obedience issue, it is just a matter of finding and meeting your child's needs. Obedience does not really become an issue until your child is much older and can really comprehend what they are doing. For now, establishing a close, loving, trusting relationship is going to set a good, stable foundation for later obedience. I wish I had known this when my oldest kids were little, I got their compliance (through punishments and threats), but I lost the opportunity to teach them real obedience, and when they got older and punishments lost their effectiveness, there was nothing to base obedience on. The bonds of love and trust were not there, so they had no reason to obey me.

Gentle Christian Mothers website statement of parenting beliefs

I agree with their statement of parenting beliefs and think I'll use this model to start making our own statement of parenting beliefs.


Our Parenting Beliefs

1. All children are a gift from God. Psalm 127:3
2. The husband/wife marriage relationship is the scriptural model for creating a family.
3. Life begins at conception, and unborn babies have a right to life and should be nurtured and loved. Psalm 139:13-16
4. Babies deserve the most natural and gentle birth possible.
5. Babies communicate through crying, and their cries deserve a quick, nurturing response.
6. Parents should not put an unnecessary emphasis on schedules.
7. Children greatly benefit from lots of physical touch, and babies can not be held too much.
8. Breastmilk is God's design in infant nutrition.
9. Breastfeeding satisfies not only babies' hunger and thirst, but it also is a great way to pacify and comfort them.
10. Breastfeeding babies on cue is important not only to help them grow strong and healthy, but it also helps them to learn to trust.
11. Breastfeeding into toddlerhood--and for as long as mother and child desire--continues to provide health and emotional benefits and serves to strengthen the foundation of trust laid in infancy.
12. Children's nighttime needs are as worthy of being met as their daytime needs, and each child has individual nighttime needs that should be respected and met to the best of their parents' ability.
13. There should be minimal separation between mother and baby, and parents need to be sensitive to their children's need to be close to them and not force separation before their child is ready.
14. Everyone benefits when children are an integral part of the family's daily life.
15. A father's involvement in raising his children is vital.
16. Parents have been given authority over their children from the Lord. Scripture is clear that discipline and correction are our responsibility as we raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
17. Fear and purposely-inflicted pain have no place in gentle, loving, Biblical discipline, and children should be discipled from birth with an appropriate mixture of kindness and firmness in a manner that respects their feelings and their developmental, emotional, and daily needs.
18. Parents are responsible for making informed decisions regarding their children's healthcare.

Beautiful!

Intersecting Needs: Maslow, interdependence, parenting, caregiving, relationships

Intersecting Needs: Maslow, interdependence, parenting, caregiving, relationships

This is an incredible overview of how to balance motherhood or caregiving and being a responsive, attached parent.