UPDATE: Much, much more discussion from all sorts of perspectives here. Interesting.
Well. You’ve all been witness to my freak-outs of late, my fears of imperfect mothering and failure. If he cries, that means he’s neglected; if he’s not being held, I’m spending too much time on my own interests; if he has spitup on his sleeper or there’s crumbs on the counter, I have fallen short of the mark.
I feel like there’s a “right way” of being a mother, and not only do I not know how to do things “the right way,” but because I don’t, I don’t deserve to be a mother. I’m not breastfeeding him, so I’m a horrible mother. I let him cry for a few minutes while I take a shower, so I’m a horrible mother. I can think of something besides Owen for ten minutes at a time, so I’m a horrible mother.
The paroxysms of doubt. The drama at the grocery store. Great sobfests at 3 a.m. We’re barely seven weeks into our new life as a family, and I’m already feeling such guilt and overwhelming panic that I sometimes wonder how I’ll make it to week eight.
The anxiety is crushing, and this is so not what having a kid is about.
I guess I thought I was alone in this, that other new moms somehow have it figured out and found the “right way” to do things. Or that maybe I’m somehow flawed and just have to tough it out. Or that hey, motherhood’s a bitch, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel — despair is the nature of the beast.
No wonder I get depressed.
The funny thing is that I survived pregnancy; I got so sick of the unrealistic expectations put forth in pregnancy books that I just tossed them out. I decided to do pregnancy the same low-key way I do everything else. I took the epidural with zero regrets and pushed out a great baby. Same with getting married; above all I wanted a fun wedding, and I was thrilled to get started just living with Iain. “Zen MB” was the mantra of the day, and David said I was the most relaxed bride he’d ever seen.
So why can’t I tackle motherhood with that attitude?
It turns out that I’m not alone after all in my despair.
Newsweek’s cover story this week is called “The Myth of the Perfect Mother” and it hit home pretty hard. All of a sudden I was reminded of the pressure to be everything to Owen, regardless of the toll it was so obviously taking on me.
“Why do so many otherwise competent and self-aware women lose themselves when they become mothers? Why do so many of us feel so out of control? And — ;the biggest question of all — why has this generation of mothers, arguably the most liberated and privileged group of women America has ever seen, driven themselves crazy in the quest for perfect mommy-dom?”
Lord. Good question. Because everyone has an idea of “the right way” to mother, and woe to the woman who is content with “good enough.” [Worse, there are as many right ways as there are people with opinions, or book deals, or blogs].
And because there’s no support for moms. There’s endless criticism, natch, but no political or social backup, just lip service for our valor.
“Women today mother in the excessive, control-freakish way that they do in part because they are psychologically conditioned to do so. But they also do it because, to a large extent, they have to. Because they are unsupported, because their children are not taken care of, in any meaningful way, by society at large. Because there is right now no widespread feeling of social responsibility — ;for children, for families, for anyone, really — and so they must take everything onto themselves. And because they can’t, humanly, take everything onto themselves, they simply go nuts.”
There isn’t any affordable, quality day care. There isn’t a feasible way to stay home with the kids and still make the mortgage payment. There isn’t reassurance that kids are getting what they need at school. And if we fail to revolve wholly around our kids, providing them with the experiences they’re not getting elsewhere — well, we know what happens then. At best, we’re depriving our kids of a well-rounded childhood. At worst, Child Services shows up on our doorstep.
The larger point author Judith Warner is making is that we as moms need “politically palatable, economically feasible, home-grown American solutions that can, collectively, give mothers and families a break.” We need to quit isolating ourselves in our anxiety, ease up on the pressure we put on ourselves, and then work for change.
And personally, I’ve come to the conclusion that perfection is impossible. Working myself up over every last detail doesn’t make Owen happier. Piling up the expectations doesn’t make me a better mom, just a more paranoid one.
My new mantra? “If lives are not on the line, I’m not going to freak out.”
I love Owen. I am meeting his needs. I’m going to do a good job taking care of him. I’m going to be satisfied with being good enough. Not perfect, but good enough.
It’s going to be hard, I think, to allow myself to be imperfect or make mistakes. God, I might even stop looking at things in terms of good and bad, success and failure. But I’m game. When I look at Owen, I’m not going to see a neglected baby. I’m going to see a baby who’s sleeping peacefully in his swing. And when I look in the mirror, I’m not going to see a bad mom, one who’s less of a mother for having her own interests, her own agenda. I’m going to see a mom who’s good enough, who loves her little constipated baby enough, who always will love him enough because that’s the nature of the game.
I’m going to quit beating myself up and quit sweating the small stuff.
And for Chrissake, I’m going to have fun with this kid. I didn’t have him because I wanted to be miserable and overwhelmed.
It was because I had to put these attractive and intelligent genes to good use.
