"I don't think I'm doing it right..."
-me (and every parent ever)
I have been a mom for exactly three months, three weeks, and two days, and already I have heard these words come from my mouth a dozen times. Since I have only been a mom for exactly three months, three weeks, and two days, I cannot consider myself an expert. However, I can't help but think there is something wrong about thinking those words so often.
This thought first struck me when I was visiting a friend who had an even newer baby than my own. As we talked about the ever-perplexing sleep schedule discussion, she said the exact thing that I had been saying to everyone. "I don't think I'm doing it right."
Wow, so I'm not the only one, I thought.
This mommy was doing an awesome job for her baby boy; people told me Genesis was healthy and happy. Yet, this string of doubt came to our tongues as a sort of self endorsed disclaimer that came with our children. Here she is! Yes, she's cute, but I'm probably messing her up. Don't worry though, I am fully aware of this.
What a stressful way to live! Being a parent is hard enough without this added pressure (self-inflicted, I might add) to recognize our failings. Most of being a parent is learning anyway: learning what works, learning what doesn't work, learning with your child, learning without your child - nobody ever told me how different life is when your baby isn't even with you! Honestly, this can do no good for me or for Genesis, so the question remains: why do we feel so unqualified?
During my own desperate search for sleep during Genny's first couple months, I read the excerpt of Bringing up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman. I have a three-month old, so of course I haven't read the whole book. But I did find some encouragement. Please indulge in these pieces from the first chapter which I have selected:
We quickly discover that two restaurant meals a day, with a toddler, deserve to be
their own circle of hell. Bean is briefly interested in food: a piece of bread, or anything fried. But within a few minutes she starts spilling salt shakers and tearing apart sugar packets. Then she demands to be sprung from her high chair so she can dash around the restaurant and bolt dangerously toward the docks.
After a few more restaurant meals, I notice that the French families all around us don’t look like they’re in hell. Weirdly, they look like they’re on vacation. French children the same age as Bean are sitting
contentedly in their high chairs, waiting for their food, or eating fish and even vegetables. There’s no shrieking or whining. Everyone is having one course at a time. And there’s no debris around their tables.
...French parents are very concerned about their kids. They know about pedophiles, allergies, and choking hazards. They take reasonable precautions. But they aren’t panicked about their children’s well-being.
...I’m hardly the first to point out that middle-class America has a parenting problem. In hundreds of books and articles this problem has been painstakingly diagnosed, critiqued, and named: overparenting, hyperparenting, helicopter-parenting, and my personal favorite, the kindergarchy. One writer defines the problem as “simply paying more attention to the upbringing of children than can possibly be good for them.” Another, Judith Warner, calls it the “culture of total motherhood.” (In fact, she realized this was a problem after returning from France.) Nobody seems to like the relentless, unhappy pace of American parenting, least of all parents themselves.
After reading this, I considered my behavior in the past week. Any moment not spent holding Genny, changing Genny, feeding Genny, or rocking Genny was spent staring at the glowing screen of my iPhone, wearing out my thumb as I frantically scanned blog after blog, book after book, professional after professional to find an answer to WHY MY BABY WON'T SLEEP! I closely identified with the above described problem of simply worrying about parenting too much. Feelings of inadequacy brought up each time I read an article titled "10 Things You Should be Doing with Your Child", worry when she ate more at one feeding than the last, anxiety about talking to other moms about little things just in case it isn't "normal".
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It's true that it takes a village. We are not intended to do this alone. Because we have been placed in these roles, we are indeed to have confidence in our parenting, but not confidence in ourselves alone. This confidence is found in Christ and the promise He gave to us that He will always be with us and will never forsake us.
To all you self-doubting mamas, here is a passage for you:
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?
You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.
You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Such confidence we have through Christ before God.
Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. H
e has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Being a mom is hard. No matter where you are, who you are, it's hard. But the Lord chose each one of us to be the mommies and daddies to our kiddos, and we cannot doubt His sovereignty. So next time you see that book on parenting, remember before you pick it up that you have confidence in Christ to be the best parent you can be.
