It takes a village
May. 16th, 2006 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
percivalThere is so much discussion about parenting styles, and so much blame and responsibility is laid on mothers' shoulders. You can't win whatever you do. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
queenriley has been writing about the lack of status of women who choose to stay at home and raise their children. On the other hand, we get parenting experts such as Steve Biddulph who tell us that by sending our children to nursery, we harm their social, emotional, and mental development irrevocably. As if this weren't enough, we live in a culture that teaches young girls to diet so that they can become sex objects, with glamour models or Paris Hilton as role models. And to top it all off, mothers engage in pointless wars with each others - mothers who choose to stay at home versus mothers who choose to go to work, mothers who breastfeed versus mothers who bottlefeed, mothers who sleep train (whatever that means) vs mothers who don't. Pointless not least because there are so many grey areas. For example, there are mothers who give their children a bottle at night, breast during the day and vice versa. Mothers who let their 15-month-old cry it out, but not their 5-month-old, mothers who use the "No Cry Sleep Solution", mothers of natural-born sleepers. Mothers who work in a job one day a week, mothers who are employed during night shifts, mothers who are employed 50% or 60%, mothers who run a business from home.
Mothers should support each other - there are so many tricky patches that all of us go through, so many problems nearly everybody faces, from sleepless nights to food fights. I'm lucky in that I know a couple of mothers in RL and through the web (Damsels,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
plan_survive, Ye Olde F-List) who are pretty chilled out and tolerant, and you know what - it makes all the difference. It's been worth more than 100 parenting books.
Asawelkin rightly said in a recent entry, mothering comes from many sources, not just from people who are raising kids. It comes from teachers, aunts, youth group leaders, nursery nurses, grandmothers ... and fathers. These other sources of mothering are particularly crucial when the woman who is raising the child is struggling. To denigrate these sources of mothering, or to imply that they are incomplete because they lack children, just sets up another of these stupid, stupid boundaries. For example, the wife of my younger BIL, who has a lovely three-year-old girl, constantly talks about my older BIL and his wife, who've chosen to stay childfree. She keeps dropping heavy hints that my BIL would make a good father, and tut-tutting about the lack of kids in that marriage. Yet she wonders why my BIL and his wife never visit. Said SIL also took a swipe at me when I was 22 weeks pregnant for daring to plan to put DD into nursery, after the long wait we had - she was only mollified when I reassured her that we weren't going to place her full time. (My childfree SIL is lovely, by the way - our DD has got some gorgeous clothes courtesy of her!). For my part, I'm extremely pleased to have childfree BIL and SIL in our lives, because I'm sure they'll be able to give DD lots of love and be far more relaxed with her than we. Infertility, childfree-ness, childlessness has been with us as long as humankind, and for the most part, these men and women were integrated into their extended families, where they were important and valued carers.
It takes a village to raise a child - nobody gains by alienating 99% of the village!
queenriley has been writing about the lack of status of women who choose to stay at home and raise their children. On the other hand, we get parenting experts such as Steve Biddulph who tell us that by sending our children to nursery, we harm their social, emotional, and mental development irrevocably. As if this weren't enough, we live in a culture that teaches young girls to diet so that they can become sex objects, with glamour models or Paris Hilton as role models. And to top it all off, mothers engage in pointless wars with each others - mothers who choose to stay at home versus mothers who choose to go to work, mothers who breastfeed versus mothers who bottlefeed, mothers who sleep train (whatever that means) vs mothers who don't. Pointless not least because there are so many grey areas. For example, there are mothers who give their children a bottle at night, breast during the day and vice versa. Mothers who let their 15-month-old cry it out, but not their 5-month-old, mothers who use the "No Cry Sleep Solution", mothers of natural-born sleepers. Mothers who work in a job one day a week, mothers who are employed during night shifts, mothers who are employed 50% or 60%, mothers who run a business from home.Mothers should support each other - there are so many tricky patches that all of us go through, so many problems nearly everybody faces, from sleepless nights to food fights. I'm lucky in that I know a couple of mothers in RL and through the web (Damsels,
plan_survive, Ye Olde F-List) who are pretty chilled out and tolerant, and you know what - it makes all the difference. It's been worth more than 100 parenting books.As
awelkin rightly said in a recent entry, mothering comes from many sources, not just from people who are raising kids. It comes from teachers, aunts, youth group leaders, nursery nurses, grandmothers ... and fathers. These other sources of mothering are particularly crucial when the woman who is raising the child is struggling. To denigrate these sources of mothering, or to imply that they are incomplete because they lack children, just sets up another of these stupid, stupid boundaries. For example, the wife of my younger BIL, who has a lovely three-year-old girl, constantly talks about my older BIL and his wife, who've chosen to stay childfree. She keeps dropping heavy hints that my BIL would make a good father, and tut-tutting about the lack of kids in that marriage. Yet she wonders why my BIL and his wife never visit. Said SIL also took a swipe at me when I was 22 weeks pregnant for daring to plan to put DD into nursery, after the long wait we had - she was only mollified when I reassured her that we weren't going to place her full time. (My childfree SIL is lovely, by the way - our DD has got some gorgeous clothes courtesy of her!). For my part, I'm extremely pleased to have childfree BIL and SIL in our lives, because I'm sure they'll be able to give DD lots of love and be far more relaxed with her than we. Infertility, childfree-ness, childlessness has been with us as long as humankind, and for the most part, these men and women were integrated into their extended families, where they were important and valued carers. It takes a village to raise a child - nobody gains by alienating 99% of the village!
