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The Pitfalls Of Competitive Parenting

March 31, 2015 By

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When an article entitled “5 Things You Should Never Say To A Stay-At-Home Mom” appeared in my Facebook feed a couple of days ago, I knew there was going to be trouble. The article itself was innocuous – a little unintentionally judgy, perhaps – but the comments section was a virtual bloodbath. Work-outside-the-home moms were claiming to be busier than stay-at-home moms. Stay-at-home-moms were claiming to be there for their kids more than work-outside-the-home moms. Each side was claiming, without actually saying it directly, to be better than the other side.

As I was reading this, I was thinking about what a shame it is that there even are sides. What happened to the days when parents were just parents? At what point did moms and dads become so insecure that they started resorting to competitive parenting? There seems to be a constant game of one-upmanship in which people talk about the sacrifices they have made and the difficulties they have endured in order to be the Perfect Parents.

Here are some of the problems I see with today’s trend of competitive parenting:

It smacks of judgment, and that’s just not right. Unless you are beating, starving, neglecting or otherwise abusing your kids, you’re doing fine. Stay-at-home moms are not better than work-outside-the-home moms. Work-outside-the-home moms are not better than stay at home moms. You’re not a better or worse parent just because you give your kids boxed mac-and-cheese, or limit their screen time, or give up on arguing with them over a chore and just do it yourself. We are all parents, and we all do the best we can with the circumstances we find ourselves in.

It ignores the fact that everyone’s situation is unique. We humans love to categorize and compare things. Stay-at-home moms vs. work-outside-the-home moms. Breastfeeding moms vs. formula feeding moms. Free-range parents vs. helicopter parents. The trouble with classifying everything is that it leads to division, and it assumes that everyone in the same “group” is the same. Some stay-at-home moms love spending all of their time with their kids, and others yearn for the workplace. Some formula feeding moms would really love to breastfeed, and some breastfeeding moms really don’t enjoy it. Even within the same family, things can be different. I can free-range parent my younger son, but my older son, who has autism, requires a much more hands-on approach.

It places too much emphasis on the distinction between doing things out of choice and doing things out of necessity. Many work-outside-the-home moms really don’t have a choice. They need the income just to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. But some work-outside-the-home moms choose to work outside the home. And guess what? That’s OK. I don’t know why so many people have this notion that parents are not allowed to make a single decision in their own self-interest. I mean, sure, if you’re leaving your three-year-old at home alone for eight hours a day just so you can pursue a career, that’s a problem. But if you are taking care of your kids, protecting them from harm, and doing what you can to help them become mature, well-rounded individuals, nothing else really matters.

It takes the focus away from what we really need to be doing. When it comes down to it, these attempts at competitive parenting don’t accomplish a single thing. They are merely distractions that give parents something to argue about when there are so many other things for us to be devoting our energy to.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit: Jason Bolonski. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

Filed Under: Children, Choices, parenting Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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Parenting: Live And Let Live

December 9, 2014 By

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Early this morning, while I was sipping my first coffee of the day and browsing through my Facebook feed, I came across a thread that made me feel incredibly sad. It was a post about co-sleeping, and one of the first comments was from a woman saying that she believed co-sleeping was fine as long as it was done safely, that she had co-slept with her first child and that she would co-sleep with any future children.

The thing that made me sad was how other moms lambasted this woman, told her that she was uneducated, and said that if she lost a baby, it would be her own fault.

I have no interest in starting another debate about co-sleeping. Quite frankly, I don’t have a strong position about the subject one way or the other. One of my babies slept in a crib, the other co-slept with me. I did what I felt was best for each child, and in both cases, I made safety the paramount concern.

What I do have a strong position about is the idea that the vast majority of parents do what they think is best for their children, most of them research their choices, and most of them do everything they can to keep their kids safe. Unless a mother is being deliberately and blatantly abusive or negligent, she should be allowed to make those choices for her children without worrying about what other people think.

It always fascinates me that a species as diverse as the human race tends to think in such absolute terms, and parents are no exception to this. Many of them tend to believe that there is only one right way of doing things, and it’s their way, and anyone who does things differently is a <insert insulting adjective> parent.

Frankly, I’m tired of it. When will parents just accept that what’s right for them is – well, right for them? The fact that some moms breastfeed their kids until Kindergarten does not give them the right to criticize moms who are unable to breastfeed or who simply choose not to do so. Parents who limit their kids’ screen time should not be accused of being unreasonable, and those who do not should not be branded as lazy. If you let your baby “cry it out”, you are not heartless and mean, and if you pick up your baby whenever he cries, you are not spoiling your child.

Your own personal experience – no matter how tragic – does not entitle you to judge other people. Your child’s autism diagnosis may have come shortly after a vaccination, but you don’t get to accuse pro-vaxers of being uninformed and ignorant. Maybe your formula-fed child developed life-threatening food allergies, but that doesn’t give you the right to tell other formula-feeding moms that breastfeeding would be possible if only they would try harder. If your baby died while co-sleeping, I am truly sorry for your loss, but please don’t go around telling parents who choose to co-sleep that they are potential child-killers.

I’m not suggesting that we all shut up about our beliefs and opinions, or that we stop sharing our experiences. On the contrary – parents who speak out about what they go through can be valuable resources to other parents who are struggling with their choices or looking for information about their options. It’s even OK to be passionate about something that you have a strong opinion about.

Just be respectful about it, that’s all. No blame, no finger-pointing, no judging.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit: mariana f. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

Filed Under: babies, Being Considerate, Children, Choices, life, Motherhood, parenting Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Santa and Autism: A Special Brand of Magic

November 23, 2012 By

This morning I was faced with a minor dilemma, brought on by the fact that it was Pajamas and Stuffed Toy day at my son’s school. If it had been my younger son – the one who doesn’t have autism – it wouldn’t have been a problem. But since this is my older son we’re talking about, I had to make a choice. Do I encourage him to take part even though the idea of wearing pajamas instead of clothes to school could make him feel seriously disoriented and possibly distressed? Or do I let him just wear clothes even though that would mean yet another thing that sets him apart from the typical kids in his school?

See? Dilemma.

As an autism parent, I constantly have to make tradeoffs of this nature on behalf of my child. On the one hand, I want him to have as many “typical kid” experiences as possible, but on the other hand, I don’t want to cause him to be upset.

It always come down to the idea of choosing my battles, and by now I know that I should only pick the battles that really matter. And let’s face it – wearing pajamas to school does not exactly count as an essential life skill, especially when he’s part of a class of special ed kids who probably wouldn’t be into the whole pajama thing either.

And so I decided to let him exercise his preference in the only way he knows how. I would dress him in a clean pair of pajamas and then see what happened. And what happened was that he promptly crawled back into bed. It was only when he realized that he was actually going to school that he started to resist the pajamas idea. Within seconds the pajamas were coming off and George was rummaging around for clothes to wear.

Surprisingly, though, he did want to take a stuffed toy. I say “surprisingly” because George has never really been into stuffed toys. This is a kid who sleeps with about a dozen Mr. Potato Heads and a pineapple. But not only did he want a stuffed toy today, he wanted two. In an intriguing fusion of holidays, he selected an Easter bunny and a stuffed Santa.

I was sure he’d lose interest in the whole thing by the time the school bus showed up, but he went off to school with Santa and the bunny, and by all accounts he had a great day.

Friday is always Show & Tell day in George’s classroom, and from time to time we send him in with something and his teacher gets him to “participate”. In a dramatic break with tradition today, he independently – independently! –  joined the Show & Tell circle and proudly showed off his Santa.

This moment of progress proves to me that although Santa is not real, he is capable of producing magic.

(Photo credit: Kirsten Doyle)

 

Filed Under: autism, Choices, Easter Bunny, National Health Blog Post Month, Pajamas, parenting, Santa Claus, School, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Making Peace With A Tough Choice

May 29, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

When I went for my six-week postpartum checkup after George was born, my OBGYN raised the question of whether my husband and I were going to have more children. We stared at each other in a perplexed kind of way, shrugged our shoulders and said, “I dunno.”

It was a question that we had honestly given no thought to. George had been an extremely welcome surprise, but he had been a surprise nonetheless. Family planning hadn’t exactly been a key feature in our lives.

When we did talk about it – this topic that we had simply never thought to discuss – we discovered that both of us had always envisaged life with three children. This was good. I thought it was a positive sign that I was with a man who wanted the same number of children as me.

When we decided to try for Baby Number Two, I got very serious about it. I downloaded those free online calendars that tell you what the best dates are to – well, you know. I was going to chart my cycles and keep track of my temperature to tell when I was ovulating.

As it happened, I didn’t need any of that stuff. Just six weeks after we decided we were officially trying to conceive, we got a big fat plus sign on the pregnancy test. Several months after that, James came barreling his way into the world like a cannonball.

Two down, one to go.

By the time we were ready to try for Baby Number Three, though, things had gotten complicated. James was almost two, and George, who was four, had been diagnosed with autism. We were recalibrating our lives after discovering that we were special needs parents, and I was still trying to find my way out of the terrible darkness of postpartum depression.

What if our third child had autism? Would it be fair for us, knowing that we weren’t going to be around forever, to leave James with the responsibility of having two siblings with special needs?

We were so conflicted about whether or not to have another child that we went to see a geneticist. The DNA testing did not confirm a genetic link to autism, but it did not rule it out either. The geneticist turned to the very detailed questionnaires that we had completed. Based on my own developmental history, which was almost identical to George’s, it seemed not only possible but likely that I was on the spectrum myself.

The geneticist advised that in spite of the inconclusive DNA test results, there was reason to believe that George’s autism might be genetically based. We were looking at a 12-15% probability that any other child we had would have autism.

This created a problem. My husband and I found ourselves on opposite sides of the fence. He was very concerned about the 15% probability. I, on the other hand, tried to focus on the other percentage: the 85% probability that the child we had would not have autism.

We flip-flopped back and forth for several months, torturing ourselves with possibilities and what-ifs. We were torn between doing what was right for the kids we already had, and doing what both of us had always wanted. We really could have done with a crystal ball at around that time.

In the end, it was more than George’s autism that made the decision for us. I was already at an age where there’s a higher risk of having a baby with Downs Syndrome. I was finally starting to see a pinprick of light at the end of the postpartum depression tunnel. We had just successfully potty-trained James, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to start a new two-year cycle of diapering.

Most importantly, I realized that I didn’t need more children. The two that I had were absolutely perfect. When I came home from work at the end of each day and hugged them, I felt complete. I did not feel that there was piece missing – a piece that would be filled by another child.

When I am sitting on the floor in my living room, with one kid on my lap and the other jumping on my back, I know that we made the right choice. I know that my family is whole.

Have you had to wrestle with the question of whether to have more children? What was the deciding factor for you?

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joehowell/2282930348/. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, autism, Choices, family, Genetics, parenting, Siblings, Special Needs Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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The Hardest Job In The World

December 8, 2011 By

Parenting is the hardest job in the world. You never get time off – not even when you’re sleeping, not even when you are at work and your children are at school. You don’t get paid – not, at least, in any financial sense. There are times when you feel overworked, overwhelmed, and underappreciated, and every single little mistake you make can come back at you like a boomerang, days or weeks or even years later. Being a mom – or indeed, a dad – can drain your emotional and physical energy. You have to be in a million places at once, do a million things at a time, be teacher, nurse, therapist, judge, and mediator – sometimes simultaneously. The job comes with huge dollops of guilt: guilt for not having the time to play with your child while the stove is boiling over and the dog is barfing; guilt for locking yourself in the bathroom for five minutes of alone-time; guilt for actually buying something for yourself instead of spending the money on your child; guilt for rushing the homework supervision because the dinner is not made and the washing machine is jammed.

To be fair, the job of parenting has the best rewards ever: the enormous, gap-toothed smiles; the giant bear-hugs; the peals of childhood laughter; the I love you Mommy’s; the chance to look at your sleeping children at night and be filled with the most profound, incredible love.

It is  hard though, and us parents should be allowed to acknowledge that without that feeling of ever-present guilt.

And yet, when I think of how tough it all is, I cannot help reflecting on what parenthood was like for my grandmother. She was born in 1903, and her third and final child – my mother – was born just a couple of years before the start of World War II. Despite being geographically remote from the events of the war, South Africa was part of the British Commonwealth, and therefore joined the Allied forces. My grandfather was one of the generation of men sent off into the front-lines of battle in North Africa.

This thrust my grandmother into the daunting and somewhat unexpected territory of single-parenting three young children in times of extreme economic hardship. Things weren’t so easy for women back then – if they wanted to work, they were teachers or nurses. The term “stay at home mom” had not even been invented because it was unspeakable that there would be any other kind of mom.

For me, as a mom raising children in 2011, I have a reasonable degree of control over my life. I can choose to work (actually, that’s a lie – I have to work if I want my kids to have shoes instead of walking barefoot in the snow). I have a wide choice of career options, I can express myself freely through my writing, and I can get out there and go running. I have the freedom – within the framework of my family life – to make my own choices and steer my life in a certain direction.

My grandmother did not have the same leeway. She was controlled in a big way by the events going on in the world at the time. She was, in many respects, a bystander in her own life. She could only watch and wait as the world went through its turmoil, and she had to raise her kids knowing that things could change at any moment, things that she had no control over. A telegram could arrive telling her that my grandfather had been killed. Supplies of something-or-other could abruptly run out, leaving her scrambling for an alternative. The war could end and my grandfather could come home. The war could continue and she might not see him for a very long time. He could come home minus a limb or suffering from severe psychological trauma. She had no way of knowing what was going to happen.

It was a day-to-day kind of existence for that generation of mothers. My grandmother, and other women in her position, did not have the luxury of making choices or setting goals for the future.

Yes, parenting is the hardest job in the world. But I think, in many ways, that it is not as hard as it used to be.

This week’s Indie Ink Challenge came from Tara Roberts, who gave me this prompt: She was a bystander in her own life.
I challenged The Drama Mama with the prompt: Tell a story about how missing a bus for a few seconds can change your life.

Filed Under: Choices, Circumstance, Grandmother, Indie Ink Writing Challenge, life, parenting, World War II Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,