Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 10

10. It takes a village to raise a child. You cannot and should not attempt parenting without a support network. This portion of the series I hope you will read as a call to arms. By that, I mean you should embrace all those around you, literally or figuratively.

Do not push people away for their lack of social graces: perhaps you could help them learn--and in the process learn some things for yourself. Do not reject offers of assistance just because you are afraid of being seen as weak. Accept help that is offered, even if you suspect it may not have been wholly offered in earnest. Thank those who help you and invite them to do so again--and offer your own services in return. Do not be afraid to ask for help where you need it.

The Nuclear Family: Aptly Named
Somewhere along the line, some idiots thought that the best configuration for a family was simply a mother, a father, and their offspring. Now, after many years of struggling to make that nuclear family a reality, people are waking up to the idea that it's just a fantasy. We have to work so much harder to hold this notion true (and to a large extent, I count myself among the guilty here), to uphold the lie that we can do it all without help. Some countries have done better than others at avoiding the pitfalls of the nuclear family. However the United States seems to be crumbling under the weight of its own high demands.

And do NOT allow yourself to look down on those who have the courage to ask for help. We live in a society that considers any inability a weakness. I know so very many mothers (and fathers!) who stay home with their children and struggle to be the one to do all the household chores, myself included. I almost feel obligated to leave heaping messes about when company arrives so that I do not present a false picture of what is standard. Yet I've had moms of younger babies ask me how I keep my place so clean. What they don't see is that sometimes I hide dirty dishes in the oven when I'm expecting company. They aren't looking closely enough at the filth that has congealed on the tile and the broken bits of chips, crackers, and (of course) Cheerios that are ubiquitous in our carpeting. They obviously haven't seen the hard water stains that are practically permanent in our toilet bowls. All these women can see is that my place looks cleaner than theirs. What they do not see, in essence, is the failure of the nuclear family to provide a sufficient structure to accomplish all the goals it sets.

Knowing this, I strive not to envy others whose homes shine with cleanliness because I know at what cost it must come. To accomplish what minimal chores I do manage around the house, I have to surrender quality time with Jackson. In order to have a home that glitters and gleams, I would need to sacrifice a great deal more quality time with him (and possibly my husband as well). The value of the sparklingly clean home does not offset the loss of time spent focusing on my child. Given that he's my priority, my main responsibility, it seems ridiculous that quality time with him should get rejected because someone else might notice it's been a couple of weeks since I last vacuumed.

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When I made the decision to move away from family to be with Andrew, it was initially under the assumption that we were not imminently going to have children. That assumption turned out to be waaay wrong. Having no family nearby, we have no easy place to turn when we need a spare hand or some time off just to breathe for an hour or to get things done that require both loud noises and two sets of hands. Instead we have had to construct a new network to take the place of a familial tribe.

As it stands now, we are in a much better position than when I first moved to town as a newly pregnant, very sick (iron poisoning which subsided as morning sickness began), and physically injured woman (disc-herniation in my neck; no fun). I joined a playgroup as soon as possible after Jackson's birth. I take every available opportunity to befriend other moms who I feel are people I could respect--and who may one day be someone I could call in an emergency to help me with my child. And I have continued going to the gym, partly as my "time off for good behavior," as the gym offers free child care for up to 2 hours a day for members. On particularly exhausting days, I will drop Jackson off at the gym's daycare so he can get playtime in with other children while I relax in the spa and try to recoup some energy.

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The cliche of elderly people complaining about "kids these days" is somewhat ironic. The genetics and the environment handed down to the "kids these days" is given to them by the elderly and aging. As the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, non-child-bearing adults, and any other person whose life impacts children in any way (which is EVERYONE), we have a responsibility to teach our children in word and action. We also have a responsibility to protect them. No longer is the world comprised of isolated tribes. We are all interconnected and the lines between borders of countries are diminished; the barriers between cultures are blurred, and slowly but surely we are becoming a world of one tribe.

People are social creatures. We function better together than we do apart. Sadly much of our modern culture serves to emphasize our individuality to such an extreme that we all feel isolated from one another. A worldwide culture of lonely people who are forgetting their origins. Luckily we have the power to change that negative trend.

We need to quit comparing and start sharing. If many hands make light work, then why aren't we dining in groups more often and sharing the workload of the cooking and clean-up? Why aren't more parents helping watch their friends' children while they clean house? Let's make it happen. Let's build our networks of friends and families in a genuine way. Let's acknowledge that being a parent is a difficult and worthy challenge that does NOT have to be borne alone.

It takes a village to raise a child. Let's all do our parts to see children raised well: happy, healthy, loved, and cherished by all.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 4

(This is part 4 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

4. Life will never be the same again. Heraclitus said that you never step in the same river twice. This analogy is so true when applied to childrearing. Once you become a parent, you will always be so (even if you outlive your child). The lifestyle you experience before having children will change and never fully revert to the same it once was. There is a constant forward march that keeps your offspring moving through the stages of growth and development, and to truly be a wise parent, one must recognize this universal truth about living.

The life you have before becoming a parent is not the same life you have after the baby hatches. It never will be again. The sooner parents can acknowledge and deal with this reality, the better. Fighting it does not help and is more likely, in fact, to make matters worse. Accepting that life will never have the same level of potential spontaneity that it once did (and implementing a regular schedule for yourself) will go a long way toward easing a new parent into the new regime.

This lesson was a struggle for Andrew and I to incorporate into our own toolbox. We fought the idea that life would never be the same. In the meantime, we gave ourselves a lot of trouble trying to make the old regime (two adults, no kids) mesh with the new regime (two adults, one newborn). Even habits that we had adopted during the 9 months before we were "officially" parents were tough to break, such as staying up late watching rented DVDs or going out at night to play trivia at the local pizza place. Our attempts to combine two paradigms into one were leaving us strained to an unsustainable level.

We had to change; we had to adapt to the circumstances that were unavoidable all around us. We had to accept our new roles as parents, for one. I had believed I would work from home and spent over 4 months trying to get 10 hours a week done--and rarely succeeding. I had to accept that my body was not going to be the same shape after gaining 50lbs, giving birth, and losing a total of 50lbs again. I had to accept that I was at the beck and call of a small, helpless creature for whenever it needed nourishment. I had to try to sleep as often as possible because the sleep that I was getting was minimal and only for short durations.

Life changed for Andrew as well. He had to understand that my anatomy was altered, and that another person now had first dibs on my time and attention. Not having even held a baby until having one of his own, the newborn phase was very difficult for Andrew. He had to learn a whole new set of behaviors and eschew others that were highly ingrained in him.

But then slowly, gradually, babies grow into toddlers. Then the rules change. Every step of the way, things change. The home that was safe for a newborn is suddenly not safe for the crawler. The home that was safe for the cruiser is no longer well-suited for the new-walker. The new-walker is suddenly a climber, and then before you know it, your child is defeating all your baby-proofing.

The newborn nurses when upset and it's calming. But by 6 months, food is insufficient to calm the child and he will often rebel if provided breastmilk when he's hurt or scared or sad. After all, he's trying to tell you there's a problem, and you're telling him to shut up, that you don't want to hear about it, rather than letting him know that you understand his problem.

Nursing babies eventually start on mushy solids. Then tiny bites of solids fed by hand. Then they feed themselves, on their terms. The rules keep changing.

Down the road, perhaps another child comes along, and everything is different with her. Her personality may be a complete 180 of the first child. Different sleep habits, different behaviors, different preferences all present variations of their own. And life just keeps changing, always flowing, never the same.

The important part to remember at any point along the way is that it's just a phase. While some phases may last longer than others, nothing stays completely static because we cannot stop time. Children grow up, parents grow old. Children are not children forever, so we must accept this and do what we can to appreciate each stage along the way. If a child is currently in a period that is aggravating to the parent (i.e. incapable of verbal communication), this will not last an eternity--though it may seem it at the time. Kids eventually develop skills and minds of their own that are capable of making decisions. However, it takes a lifetime to become a fully developed individual.

With each new phase we have to learn to adapt. If your child is ready to move out of the crib or feed herself, you as the parent need to acknowledge that and make it possible. If your child is not ready to potty train, you as the parent need to be patient and wait until your child is ready. If your "baby" is 12 years old, then he needs to know how to do laundry and dishes and receive lessons in cooking. Your 16 year old daughter needs to learn how to use jumper cables and replace a tire if you are going to let her drive.

A parent's job is not simply to babysit children until they are 18 and assume legal responsibility for their own actions. We have a responsibility to the future (including our own) to see that the kids we raise develop the skills they will need to survive on their own. They will need to learn critical thinking techniques and decision making processes. They will need to know that they are allowed to make mistakes--but that they have also been given the tools they will need to succeed.

The specifics of parenting necessarily change at every level. Your interactions with your progeny must allow for your burgeoning little one to grow as a person. Life is always in flux, and it will never be the same again. This is a good thing! No one wants to spend 60 years changing diapers. In time your child(ren) will become the people their genetics and life experiences have helped them to be. And as a parent our job is to help, not hinder, and sit back to watch the show as the life we created metamorphoses into someone truly unique--and always changing.

Things I Never Expected Before I Was a Parent

Among the many things one does expect to encounter when becoming a parent there are sprinkled a great many other things that are completely unexpected. Every mother or father has moments of exasperation or shock that "this is really happening to me" or "I really did just do that!" Here are some of the things the pre-pregnancy me would not have guessed I'd find myself doing a short while later:

1. Enjoy changing a diaper
2. Become violently ill from changing a diaper
3. Stay at home beyond 6 months postpartum without working
4. Sit on the toilet with diarrhea while nursing a baby
5. Completely change lifelong sleep habits
6. Not be able to sleep at times just because I was expecting my child to wake during the night
7. Enjoy snuggle time with a sick baby
8. Buy my kid a loud and annoying toy
9. Eat food that had been half-chewed by someone else first and then spit into my hand or on the floor
10. Nurse a baby for 13 months without pumping bottles
11. Go for more than a year before hiring a babysitter--and even then only for a doctor's appointment
12. Co-sleep with a child
13. Give birth to a nearly 10lb baby with no drugs
14. Allow an almost-12-month-old baby to transition from crib to queen sized bed
15. Surrender the living room furniture (futon) to the baby's room
16. Put the baby in the master suite and take the "other" bedroom for my spouse and me
17. Go an entire year only trimming the baby's fingernails 3 times total
18. Have complete sympathy with parents who rage out on their kids--just takes sufficient additional stress in one's life to push someone in an already trying situation over the edge
19. Write a mom blog
20. Allow my child to regularly eat food from the floor
21. Allow my child to use a pacifier that had been on the floor without first cleaning it in some manner (other than to dust off the big chunks)
22. Spend an entire 3 hour napping period for the baby just looking at pictures of him in his photo albums
23. Teach my child basic sign language
24. Let my kid scream at restaurants without acknowledging it
25. Begin potty training my baby before he could speak two-word sentences

There are so many other things to add to this list, to be sure, but in all honesty this is really just a filler post to help me while I build back up a buffer of posts. Comments made on this post expressing opinion (positive, negative, or neutral) or similar thoughts about unexpected parenting behaviors would be much appreciated.

Newborn Care

There are some things about having a baby that seem so obvious that you prepare for in advance of the child's arrival. And then there are other things that you might not have been expecting.

I was not at all nervous about nursing when the time came, so Jackson and I were able to immediately establish a good relationship via my engorged chest. Most infants lose about 10% of their birthweight within the couple of days postpartum. Jackson only lost two ounces out of his nearly 10lbs of babyness (about 1%). On his fourth day in the external world, my MIL and I took him to the pediatrician's office where I got my first lecture on childhood obesity. In the two days since leaving the hospital, he had gained back the lost ounces and another three more ounces to boot. This is not typical. I was then told that he didn't need a breast in his mouth every time he cried.

Way to make me feel like some kind of pervert, right? I was proud of myself before that visit because I had realized that I had initially been holding him to a timed feeding schedule rather than letting him indicate when he was full--which was when the hour-long nursing sessions began. Twelve hours out of the day he was hungry and nursing. About midway through each meal he would blast his diaper with a previous meal that had been processed. Over time he got gradually faster at nursing. By 4 months he was down to about 40minutes per nursing, and by 8 months or so, he was down to about 10 minutes a feeding.

After the first visit, I have always tried to schedule Jackson's pediatric visits with the doctor who was there at his birth, since she wasn't quite so excitable about infant weight. Besides, Jackson was a 95th percentile baby. He has stayed consistently in the 90th and 95th percentile range for both weight and height, and he is a healthy, proportionate child. I figure I did the right thing to ignore the other doctor's kneejerk reaction to Jackson's scale measurement, and I feel good for trusting my own judgment on that call.

At any rate, I didn't have much choice about nursing him. All he had to do was cry and I was a milk geyser. Hot showers turned me into a fountain. Intercourse practically necessitated a shirt for the protection of Andrew's eyes--on the rare occasions that we were energized enough and willing to try some physical intimacy. If it had been 2 hours since the start of Jackson's last nursing session, I would get let down so hard that I would practically be begging to let him nurse to ease the pressure. Sometimes this was even strong enough to wake me from my occasional bouts of slumber.

I was getting about 3 or 4 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period for the first 2 months. By 4 months I was up to about 5 hours a night, and that continued and slowly grew to about 6 hours by Jackson's first birthday. I was a walking zombie. I had intended to work from home, but it became clear that I was not able to perform more than 2 hours a week and not at the level of quality my employer had come to expect of me. After a few months of valiant efforts, we agreed to call it quits, and they were nice enough to wait for me to be the one to say it first.

Changing 8 to 12 poopy diapers a day was fairly time consuming in its own right, but not because of any particular issue with smell. Sometimes it was because Jackson liked to spend half an hour talking to the painting I had hung above his changing table. But quite often it was due to an unfortunate consequence of an all-liquid diet--the diaper blowout.

Diapers are designed about as well as they can be to contain the things that babies excrete. The problem is that it's ethically irresponsible to duct tape the dang things to the child at the edges. Jackson was a pro at blasting his breastmilk poop, in that fantastic mustard yellow shade, all the way up to his shoulder blades.

Occasionally we were unlucky enough for this to occur while we were out at a restaurant or in the car.

He seemed especially prone to a blowout if allowed to lounge on my Boppy maternity pillow, presumably because he knew what a joy it was to try and clean it. But the worst part of diaper blowouts is the part no one talks about.

Let me say right now that your own hygiene is NOT something you should allow to slide. Andrew was unfortunate enough to come home for lunch one day just as Jackson massacred a diaper, an outfit, and some pieces of nearby furniture. We removed the material he had offended and cleansed it. We bathed the baby. Apparently somehow we were not careful enough with making sure our hands were sufficiently clean, and soon after we spent a rather unpleasant night missing sleep together. As we took turns vomiting and having diarrhea over a span of 6 hours during the night, Andrew and I recognized the source of the problem and vowed never to allow it to happen again. (n.b. Pros and cons here: one bathroom meant having to try to "hold it" when sick, but at least we weren't alone....)

Still, I much preferred the "dates" we went on during the early days to worshipping the porcelain god. I didn't leave the apartment for 2 months other than to go on a walk with Jackson from time to time, so Andrew and I used to take the trash to the Dumpster together and hold hands on the way back when the rugrat was napping. Romance had taken a backseat to life--as opposed to occurring in the backseat.

Post Partem, Part II

Jackson and I finally met all of our requirements and were given notice to head home from the hospital.  We had had to stay an extra night because one of the doctors who examined Jackson was not going to be happy until my newborn son had pooped.  Apparently what he had done at birth was not enough; it had to be the real deal.  Our pediatrician came the next day and said that was ridiculous and that we could always just come back if he didn't have a bowel movement, and anyway, at that point there were only 2 days until his first office visit with her.

He appeased us all by defecating massively while we were still preparing to leave.  We had the nurse on duty "teach" Andrew how to change poopy diapers by example.

We soon learned that his BMs would nearly all be highly audible (often from 15 feet away, even) for the next several months--and very frequent.  Your own results may vary, of course, as every child is different.

They also will not allow a baby to leave the hospital unless it is within a carseat.  So, we buckled him into it for the first time, and the little dear fell asleep.  Awwww, how cute!  (And yes, he was fully buckled before being placed in the car, despite the status at picture time.)

I was sufficiently ambulatory though not precisely enjoying the experience of motion.  We loaded ourselves into the van and drove toward home.  As we passed the Women's Center building where I had birthed Jackson, a sudden pain struck me.  In time I became familiar with this new form of pain:  my milk had come in.

For my whole life, I'd never really been particularly well endowed.  I was not flat but "athletic" and had been reasonably content with knowing that I would never have to experience being whapped in the head with my own breasts.  I enjoyed that there were many things I could wear that allowed me to forego wearing a bra.  No more.

Somewhere in the process of leaving the hospital, my own body was swapped with Dolly Parton's.  In the middle of worrying about all the extra skin I had and how I could not pull on pants designed for someone much heavier than I was postpartum, I was strutting around the apartment checking out my new voluptuous profile.

[n.b. In time all good things (and bad things) must come to an end.  Stretch marks faded mostly.  My hips rejoined one another and allowed me to wear my pre-pregnancy jeans.  And my boobs deflated.  Two out of three ain't bad, right?]

I imagine that part of the reason my first let down was so soon and so intense was because Jackson had been nursing very well since shortly after birth.  The first few days, newborns feed on what amounts to a milkshake.  Colostrum is often described as being thick and hard to coerce out of the nipple.  Jackson was a champ.  He nursed a great deal, and at first, I was feeding him on a timing schedule.  After several days I recognized that this was wrong, that he should eat until he tells me he is done.  Nursing began to take longer, and for the next few MONTHS, I was nursing him for an hour straight EVERY OTHER HOUR.

So, how does one get anything accomplished when being enslaved as a dairy cow 12 hours a day?  Having a larger than average child was a bigger challenge than I might have thought.  Still, I had made attempts to mitigate the difficulties.  One way was having my mother-in-law stay for as long as begging would convince her.

During the first 10 days, Jackson's Nana spent most of her waking hours helping cook, wash dishes, and do the laundry.  She left the rest up to myself and Andrew, who was back to work as soon as we were home from the hospital.  Now, I love my MIL, but should I be in that situation again, I think I would try to be more explicit about my needs.

It was GREAT that Nana did the cooking.  It was NOT great that she kept cooking foods I do not eat.  Sure, I'm a picky eater, but there are foods that I do it, and many of them had been purchased well in advanced just for the postpartum period.  She spilled and charred foods all over the inside of my oven, which had been kept scrupulously clean, and removed some clean-keeping measures that I had had in place inside the oven, so that afterward it was more prone to messes.  She went out and bought new foods, cluttering my kitchen with extra containers of things we already had and various other items that would never get used--practically a crime for control freaks like Andrew and myself who have our own food buying system.  I ate fairly little food for the time that she was there.

She washed the dishes, bless her!  She cooked and cleaned up after herself; wonderful woman!  But...she only washed dishes while I was trying to nap.  The head of my bed was only about 10 feet from where she stood, clanging metal pans around a stainless steel sink.  I didn't sleep much while she was there.  She also would either leave a gigantic and precariously balanced pile of dishes in the drying rack or would put the dishes away in the wrong places, rather than asking for clarification.  It took me more than a month to get everything back in order afterward.

She did the laundry!  She folded it, too, and she refused to let me help even if I wanted to.  But she left the piles stacked all around our small living room and did not put anything away.

Having someone else run my household was making me very tense, particularly as it was not being run to my standards.  And her payment?  My dear MIL got plenty of eyefuls of about as much of her daughter in law as her own son had seen.  She bought me some postpartum clothing to help me cut down on my maternity-wear.  (GlamourMom nursing bra tanks are the best invention in clothing since underwear!)  She endured my complaints about stretch marks and concerns that I might remain hippo-sized in the hip region for all eternity.  Andrew and I were tough to please, and Nana bore it well, but eventually she left and I think we all felt some relief.  The lesson here is that postpartum doulas are wonderful; just be clear as to your expectations, and if you want things done your way without feeling guilt (self-imposed or otherwise) about being demanding, a paid doula may be a better bet than family.

Another week or so later I had finally allowed myself enough rest that the bleeding was slowed down and had turned the banana yellow color I was told to expect.  I finally braved some of the other measures provided to me by the hospital staff, such as a Sitz bath and the "epi" bottle.

The Sitz bath fit into the toilet and used gravity to spray warm water on my nethers.  It was a highly overrated experience that was overly complicated to implement and minimally beneficial.  Far better was the "epi" (episiotomy) bottle.  This little thing is still used in our home on a daily basis.  During my postpartum period, the little squeezable spray bottle helped keep me clean where my tearing had occurred and helped to flush out the area some.  Afterward, rather than tossing it in the trash, we repurposed it.  Turns out those bottles make great tools for helping bathe babies, especially for wetting and rinsing hair.  They also make entertaining noises when squeezed empty against baby bellies and are wonderful fountains for toddlers at tub time.