The Mommy Wars Leave Out The Kids

There are some things I agree with in Erica Jong’s WSJ article, but there’s a lot I do not.  While she goes to great lengths to make the point that mothers shouldn’t feel guilty the point gets lost amid the guilt she dishes out.

Cooperative child-rearing is obviously convenient, but some anthropologists believe that it also serves another more important function: Multiple caregivers enhance the cognitive skills of babies and young children. Any family in which there are parents, grandparents, nannies and other concerned adults understands how readily children adapt to different caregivers. Surely this prepares them better for life than stressed-out biological parents alone.

Hmm… I smell an agenda.  I also smell the need for justification.  And I believe it’s this need for justification that drives both sides.  This need to show the world that our parenting choices were right.  Except… after 16 years of parenting I have no idea what “right” is.  I do my best, and make a lot of mistakes.

But the mistake Jong – and almost everyone else who writes on this issue – makes is in focusing on parents rather than the child.  I can’t sum up my parenting in a simple how-to fashion.  Know why?  Because I have two children who are individuals.  And individuals require different methods.  My son requires a more hands-on approach.  He’s the kid who always needs to know why.  I hover more with him, because he can’t move on without knowing. Once he knows, he soars.  And I view my job as teaching him how to find the why – without me.  My daughter accepts that some things just are.  With her, explaining the why isn’t always necessary.  She soars without always needing the why.

Different personalities = different parenting.

And in the end my job is to raise them to leave me.

Giving up your life for your child creates expectations that are likely to be thwarted as the child, inevitably, attempts to detach. Nor does such hyper-attentive parenting help children to become independent adults. Kids who never have to solve problems for themselves come to believe that they can’t solve problems themselves. Sometimes they fall apart in college.

The premise in this statement is flawed.  I have rarely encountered people who have given up their lives for their child.  I have met parents who justify what they do in the name of their children.  And that’s a big difference, and hardly new.  Parents have always hoped and dreamed for, and with, their children.   The problem arises when parents insist on controlling the dream.  Ever watched certain parents at a sporting event?  ‘Nuff said.

Is there anyway to discuss this issue without the writer inserting their personal agenda?  I’m going to give it a try.

Yesterday I was on the phone with a friend.  She is a wealthy, stay-at-home mom with two children, who lives in Boston, and she was frustrated and feeling guilty.  The reason for her guilt?  During a parent/teacher conference she was asked what she thought of her 4th grade son’s woolly mammoth assignment.  She had no idea such an assignment existed, and she feels she should have known.  Why?  Because as a stay-at-home it’s her job.  The children are her job.  And there in lies the problem.  Perhaps it’s time we stopped viewing children as a job.

On the flip side I have a friend who feels the same guilt.  She works full time, and is constantly trying to make up for her “absence.”  Both women are driven by guilt.  Both feel as if they’re dropping the parenting ball.  And both have great kids.  And, even though their kids are doing great, both share the same guilt.  Perhaps it’s past time to take all those parenting books (all of us parents own) off the shelf and toss them into the trash?

Stay-at-home moms feel guilty.  Working moms feel guilty.  And both are looking to justify their decisions – to prove their situations are best for children.  And yet, I’ve witnessed children who thrive under benign neglect and those who thrive under hovering.  There simply isn’t a foolproof formula to successful parenting, and everyone is doing the best they can.

As a stay-at-home mom I have been both praised and condemned.  Personally, I’d prefer a shrug.