I came into the whole mom thing rather late in life. I'm in my late 30s (and plan to stay that way forever. No more birthdays for meeee!) I'd gone back and forth on the idea of having a child for years but I'd never really met anyone I wanted to raise a puppy with, let alone a tiny human. When I married, we agreed that children were going to happen quickly. Age.. yadda yadda.
While I spent years pondering the whole idea of children it seems an industry grew up around me. I didn't know it was there. It was silent unless you were going to be a parent. Silent...
Welcome to the mommy wars.
I didn't have the vocabulary to understand what I was seeing. I still miss some of the references. Still... there are a million types of 'parents' now. Attachment, crunchy, semi attached, those who ferberize, those who don't, etc...etc...
Each major decision you make as a parent, whether it is about breast feeding or what type of carrier you might or might not use, is ripped apart by a million strangers who ALL know better than you do.
If you use cloth diapers you are a green freak. If you don't - you hate the earth.
If you breast feed you get a pat on the head. If you can't - evil uncaring mother, regardless of the reasons.
If you breast feed in PUBLIC you should be ashamed. Cause.. boobs.. ewwwww. And how dare you make other people feel uncomfy just so your child gets fed.
If you make your own baby food then you have WAY too much time on your hands and are overly protective. If you don't then you are feeding your baby POISSSSSSSSSSON!
If you let your child cry for a millisecond you are totally causing brain damage.
If you don't let your child cry it out at night then you are fucking up their sleeping habits for life.
If you co-sleep you will kill your child. Really. It totally happened to my sister's cousin's hamster or something.
If you don't co-sleep then you are an unfeeling monster who probably starves her child at night.
If you work then you don't love your kid. If you don't work then you're a pathetic woman who is setting back women's lib by years.
Hell, that's just the first year. There are other battles out there. Public school? Private school? Home school? Day care? VPK? Chose their clothes? Let them have a choice? Force them to eat their veggies? Hide veggies in other foods? Every single decision, no matter what you decide, makes you both a goddess and the WORST. MOTHER. EVER.
It's infantile. You don't get to choose how other women raise their children. Stop being fucking insane and focus on your own damn kids.
For the record (so you can judge me and scorn me):
I breast feed. My baby is almost 6 months old and is exclusively breast fed. We've never used a bottle.. yet. Sooner or later that will change and the world of sippy cups will be his oyster, I am sure.
I breast feed in public, by the way, without a cover. Yep. Boob all exposed. Well, mostly, boob covered by a hungry little human but.. who's counting.
I use Huggies disposable diapers in size 2.
I am totally making his baby food (though I am not introducing solids just yet). I don't like the chemicals and additives and over-cooking and.. blah blah blah. So yeah, making it myself. I like roasted veggies. Having to roast them for him means I'll eat more myself. Bonus, really.
He sleeps in a crib in his room all by himself. Yep. He does. We co-slept for 4 months and then we shifted to the crib. I let him cry a bit the first three or four nights. After that? He only cries to wake me when he's hungry. He sleeps from 8:30ish to 4ish, gets a good little meal in, then sleeps til 7ish. It's working for us. The crying does not appear to have caused brain damage.
I believe in vaccination because.. yeah.. disease bad.
He is circumcized. I'm Jewish. It's how we believe. I don't care if you don't agree.
I had a c-section and while it was an emergency one... I had one schedule for a few days later anyway. I didn't want a natural labor. I didn't want labor at all.
Oh, and occasionally I feed him to dragons. That's okay, right?
