Pendulums

They swing one way, and then they swing another. Back. Forth. Back. Forth.

Its a lot of moving, and never getting anywhere.

Why is parenting like this? And why are parents, especially mothers, held to ever increasing and increasing and increasing levels of perfection?

Years ago, in my gramma's time, women had to be supportive of their husbands, keep a tidy home, and keep the kids in line.

In my mother's time they were expected to do all those things, plus work.

Now, we have to keep a tidy home, make organic meals from scratch, be sexy and supportive of our men, raise polite, smart, athleticly and academically gifted children, run those children to after school and weekend activities, volunteer at school, read to the kids, and work full time jobs.

Many of us are trying to do this without a partner.


As a society, we've been sold, and accepted, and unreal image of what "normal" is. It is not normal to run yourself ragged in service of children and spouse. In a family, the idea is to achieve happiness and health. Not perfection.

Now comes the new thing, "attachement parenting", which seems to involve letting the infant dictate the household.

Baby wants to play at three in the morning. Fine, turn the lights up and let the baby play. Baby wants tiny meals every half hour, fine, let him "nibble", letting him get a little hungry and then eat a full meal cruel.

Baby wont sleep at night? Fine, let him sleep with you. Sit up rocking him all night. Its better not to stress the baby at all. Because stress is bad. It damages brains. And parents exist to serve the infant. Not raise the infant to be a confident adult. Not provide for the infant. Serve the infant's every whim.

I'm sorry, this is bullshit.

Yes, there are developmental issues. A newborn will not sleep all night. A newborn will want to eat every two to tree hours.

But it is NOT developmentally appropriate to do things like, never ever put the baby down. Like, let older infants and toddlers determine their sleeping and feeding schedules. Like insulate children from all sources of stress or frustration.

Facing frustration is how immature infants and children learn. They learn that they can want something, not get it, and survive. They learn that they can try something, fail, and be ok. They learn that THEY are capable. They learn that THEY can survive and learn independently.

This nonsense about stress, is just that nonsense. The stress the original article was talking about had to do with constant physical abuse and neglect, not having enough food, being in an home where there was always yelling and screaming and drug use and abuse.

This is not the same as the stress experienced when a child has to sit in a crib while the parent gets a shower or a moment's rest or a change of clothes because the one's she has on have been puked on one too many times.

Parenting is hard. Why do we make it harder than it has to be?

This is a trend in parenting that is a continuation of what's been happening for decades. I'm not saying all the changes in child rearing are bad. But as a whole, we've gone from a society that viewed children and things that needed to be molded into miniature adults as soon as possible, with little nurturing and possible beatings along the way to insure it happened quickly, to a society that doesn't want babies to cry.

I am not going to make a lot of predictions of doom and gloom. I think kids are resilient and that they will find a way to be functional adults. I am not going to berate anyone either. I think that most of the people hopping on this issue have the best of intentions.

But I do dislike the tone of the conversation. People are mean. They use the guise of caring about kids to let loose on any convenient target.