MamaGrizzly

In continuation of discussing my parenting journey, it’s my belief now that when parenting “musts” are directed at me, that the “must” or the advice must transcend culture and time. For example, when people say that formula is better than breastmilk, there’s no way that can be true. If it WAS true, then God would not have given women breasts, water would be pure wherever we could find it, formula would be available on trees and baby bottles with nipples would be easy to find and make. And please, I’m not getting into the formula versus breastmilk debate here - I have a child that DID get formula. I’m just arguing the directive that “formula is better than breastmilk”. It can’t be - that doesn’t transcend culture and time. It certainly is not a part of God’s plan.

Let’s take another one. Some parents today choose to sleep with their children (commonly called co-sleeping), some parents choose to place their children in a crib in another room. But to say that you MUST place your children in another room by themselves is just simply ridiculous advice. Again - it doesn’t transcend culture and time. For thousands of years, people have slept with their children. Even in Biblical times, families slept together. My 80+ year old Father grew up very poor on a farm with 3 brothers and he remembers everyone sleeping together. In primitive areas of the world, they STILL sleep with their children in order to keep them warm and safe. And, in many cultures (take the Japanese for example), even though they are an industrialized nation, they still sleep with their children as well.

I actually had a friend tell me that if our children slept with us, it would ruin our marriage. I find it ironic in a nation that has probably the lowest number of people co-sleeping has probably the highest divorce rate. I hardly think co-sleeping is the problem in America. If sharing sleep, like families have done for centuries “ruins” your marriage, I’d say that you probably didn’t have much of a marriage to begin with. In our culture today in the US, it is a choice parents can make because of central heat, and because of economics (we have bigger homes, we have more money, they manufacture cribs now, etc.). It’s not a “right or wrong” decision and it certainly doesn’t transcend culture and time. It’s simply a choice that parents today can make for themselves.

Another example - feeding infant babies on a schedule. You can pick up lots of books today that recommend you feed a child on a schedule. For parents who choose to formula feed, I think it’s probably a better way to feed a child. But feeding a child on a schedule requires that you have a watch or some means of accurately telling time and also requires that you have the ability to somehow record those times. It’s really difficult for me to believe that that is how women across all cultures and across time have breastfed their babies - on a schedule. It doesn’t make sense and again it doesn’t transcend culture and time. Do you REALLY think that Mary fed Jesus on a schedule? I’m not much of a betting person but I would have to bet that Mary was probably pretty relaxed about nursing Jesus and simply fed him when he showed signs of hunger. I believe that if God had intended for us to breastfeed on a schedule, we would have been born with watches on our wrists that always worked.

Can you stand one more example? Cry it out….. I’ve thought about this one a lot and I just don’t see how this type of advice can transcend culture and time. Take the example of my Father with 3 brothers in a 2-3 room house on a farm (actually it was more like an elaborate barn from what I’ve heard). Do you think that my Grandmother made those boys cry it out to get to sleep? I hardly think so - it doesn’t make sense. If she had, then everyone in the house would have been awake every time a baby was awake.

Do you see where I’m coming from on some of this? I mean in todays America, people have bigger houses and separate rooms and it’s easy to leave a child in a room by themselves to cry themselves to sleep. Doesn’t mean it’s “good” advice. And it doesn’t mean that’s how we have always parented - again, through my eyes it doesn’t transcend culture or time. And can I be just a little bit “cliche” if you will? When I was struggling through the “cry it out” advice (friends and parenting classes told me it was “required”) and my own son was crying in his crib, I found myself on my knees deep in prayer asking God for help. And the only image that popped in my head was a picture of Jesus with small children flocked around them and he was loving them. And, I couldn’t help but asked myself the question - If Jesus walked into my house right now and was going to give me some advice on my crying little 5 week old baby, what do I think that advice would be? What would he do to help me in my parenting journey? And the only answer I could come back with is pick that little baby up and hold him and love him. I can’t believe his advice would be any different than that. I’m sorry but if making infant children “cry it out” was a necessity in rearing children, there would have been several references to that in the Bible, wouldn’t you agree?

It’s helped me immensely to take a HUGE step back from the specifics of parenting my children and take a look at the “forest”. What is my overall goal? What do I want to accomplish at the end of the parenting journey and how can I best get there from where I am today? Sometimes when I’m a little bit frustrated with one of my children, I try to remember that it’s not about the specific “behavior” and it’s more about the long term connection with these children. It’s a journey - and a long one - and I just don’t believe any more that there is any one set of “rules” or “advice” that should be followed. I try to remember too when friends ask me advice to preface my statement with “Well, this is what worked for us with child A but it didn’t work that way with child B”. That has definitely been the case for us in all of this. My son needed the rocking and the cuddling to fall asleep - my daughter doesn’t - she’s TOTALLY different. So, what has become important is that we recognize the needs of our individual little children and try to meet their unique set of needs. And that’s the other reason I try to steer clear of “recipe” parenting books - there’s no right or wrong answer for every child and there’s no right or wrong answer for every family. It takes love, patience, kindness, understanding, and God to raise a child. And THAT is a true “recipe” that works in raising children.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 5:55 am and is filed under Life, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.