Parenting Choices

I know my husband and I are not the first parents who were adamant about our own childrearing ideals before we had our son. It seems that many people know so much about parenting before they have children, and then said child(ren) comes and suddenly they realize they don't know jacks***.

I count my husband and I among these parenting know-it-alls turned floundering dunces.

Sure, there are the typical ideals "all organic cotton for my baby!" But then there are the attachment parenting crowd ideals. Now don't get me wrong, I consider myself an attachment parent, but the pressure in those first weeks is fierce! You know the drill, "only organic cloth diapers for my little one," "a bottle shall never touch my child's lips until maternity leave is over," "a pacifier will stifle my child's self expression," or perhaps, "a child should always be held and loved AT ALL TIMES, even while they are asleep, you will never see me use a swing or infant seat in my house!" Then, you actually have your child. And by the time you have changed the 15th cloth diaper in 24 hours, your nipples are bloody and cracked and your child won't stop crying unless your boob is in his/her mouth, things start to look a little different.

Eventually, one night at 2AM you find yourself questioning all your prebaby ambition. Is it the lack of sleep? The pregnancy juices escaping your pores? The heightened levels of prolactin eating away at your brain? Whatever it is, you realize that eventually something has to give. You grab the pacifiers your Aunt Mildred gave you (that you swore you would never use), your husband runs out to the store for disposable diapers, while you bust out the free manual pump from the hospital(not to be used for weeks) and put together that swing someone gave you at your shower that you planned on dropping off at Good Will. All the while, you are rationalizing your decisions as you feel the eyes of the invisible parenting judges making their marks.

- But the pacifiers are so well engineered! They are made in Austria!
- My sister-in-law told me that cloth and disposal diapers have an equal ecological impact and she got her environmental management masters at YALE!
- Why should I be the only one in charge of feeding my baby? I am a liberated woman! Parenting should be equal! The pump is the great equalizer!!!
- I shouldn't waste a perfectly good shower gift, right?
- Oh whatever shut up judgemental parents! Do you want to breastfeed my son?

Of course, none of these decisions were permanent. I didn't stop breastfeeding my son, but I occasionally gave myself a break and pumped so that my husband could feed him. We eventually decided that the swing wasn't for us, and we have since gotten rid of it. But disposable diapers and pacifiers? Heck yes, baby. And fortunately for us, soon I figured out how to use the Baby K'Tan and the "holding baby all the time" issue was no longer one. And now my son is old enough to play with his blocks on his own, so the fact that he doesn't like swings or that we don't like putting him in an infant seat is no longer an issue. There were things we did stick to our guns about (like no TV, no carseat except in the car, minimizing the Chinese manufactured goods as much as possible, etc). But I do have to say, my life is so much easier now that I have tapered my parenting style.