Jan 25 2009
Blurry
Before I had children I really had no idea how I was going to parent them. All I really knew were the mistakes my own parents had made in raising me. I knew what I saw on tv. And I knew what I observed from watching my sister parent her daughter. Oh yeah, and stuff I looked up on the internet.
I was always been a person that viewed the world as black and white, right and wrong. There was never any room for middle ground in my world view. For some strange reason nothing in my life ever seemed to measure up to my standards. Continually I was disappointed in the failures of everyone around me, especially my own parents. I just didn’t get how people would allow themselves to fail.
When my son was born screaming into this world and didn’t stop screaming for almost three months I didn’t know what to do with him or with myself. My sister had given me a book called The Baby Book, by Dr. Sears. Being a new parent and desperately looking for an explanation and solution I read that book cover to cover. I figured that somewhere in the depths of that book I would find the answer I was looking for. The blueprint, so to speak, on how to raise my son right. Okay, to be honest I was looking for the blueprint on how to reconcile the disappointment, fear, and constant guilt that filled me from within whenver I did something wrong as a new mother.
I babywore. I used cloth diapers. We co-slept. I never, ever let him cry. I made his baby food from scratch. I breastfed exclusively. I tried to find peace in the fact that I was doing everything Dr. Sears told me to do. Once again the world became black and white. I had standards to hold myself to again. Admittedly, I had standards to find other parents lacking in as well. If I just keep doing all of these things I am guaranteed a perfect child. A perfect life.
Life went on. My son grew and soon due to a disease I have that effects fertility I had to make a decision on whether or not to have another child. I did. I wasn’t worried about feeling the quiet desperation and lonliness that I had felt becoming a mother the first time. I had standards now.
Things went along swimmingly until my daughter was 4 months old. Then Post Partum Depression/OCD/Anxiety set in on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Suddenly, not only could I not meet the standards I had set for myself as a parent I could barely do enough to keep myself afloat. I was drowning in a never-ending cycle of self-loathing, anxiety, and fear. The world was scary and hopeless.
The hardest thing I have ever done was give up. I gave up control and asked for help. I gave up my standards and for once in my life settled. I settled for letting my son watch a cartoon because I needed that time to pull myself together to make it through the day. I settled for giving my daughter formula because pumping made me anxious and I desperately needed to get away without her for a while.
The funniest thing happened. Absolutely nothing. The world didn’t explode. Suddenly black and white had become distinctly gray. Gray is good.
My life now is neither black and white, nor gray. Now, I see a rainbow of colors every day. My red face when my son is being a typical three year old and aggravating the crap out of me. Sky Blue when we look up on a walk and see birds in the air and airplanes overhead. Green grass growing in the backyard which my daughter studiously avoids while crawling around on her hands and knees. Pink cheeks flushed from laughing after a tickling session. Brown mop water when I finally get around to doing the kitchen floors because I would rather spend my free time (read: naptime, bedtime) pursuing my own hobbies.
Its not perfect. Its mine.
Hello Crazy Mama! I’m crazymommy.today.com so I thought I’d come check out your site when I saw your link. =) You and I did a lot of the same things, I too read The Baby Book by Dr Sears and refer to his book often in my site. I think the man has a lot of useful information and I love how he doesn’t tell you what to do he gives suggestions.
I’m sorry you had to deal with PPD, my SIL get it after pregnancy and it’s not fun for the rest of us so I can’t imagine being the one with it.
Good luck with your site!
I’m with you on the standards changing after having kids. I used to get so irritated when my SIL would bring different food (like chicken tenders or man ‘n cheese) for her kids to eat when we’d get together for holidays. I was all “When I have kids, they’ll eat what WE eat.” Yeah. Then I had Mr. Picky Eater (partly from not being exposed to a lot of foods b/c of food allergies as a baby, but that’s not the point). I can’t tell you how many times he has eaten food that was different from what everyone else was eating because I could at least get him to eat if it was one of his “safe” (as in safe because he’ll eat it) foods. People without kids are delusional about what they will or won’t do when they are actually responsible for the 24/7 care of another human. Keeping your own sanity drastically changes your stance on some of the “hard and fast” rules you set for yourself prior to motherhood!
It may not be perfect, according to some, but it sounds great to me.