Babies, Beds and Bieber

How many of us have said “I am never going to do that” before becoming parents!? Guilty!! Before I became a mom I had some preconceived notions of what parenthood would be like and made assumptions that I would actually have control over those decisions and be able to keep those promises…HA How naïve was I!? Little did I know parenthood is survival of the fittest, we are all just trying to get by and the weak will get eaten and left for dead (kidding…kind of). Once I had come to terms with this stark reality the things I once said I would never do became things I sometimes did as a “last resort” and then eventually things I did whenever the hell I wanted to. You see when I became a parent everything changed, and I know that sounds cliché and everyone says that but it really is the truth. I realized that it is a lot harder than people make it look and that you really don’t know what you don’t know. That is why I decided to make this blog post owning up to my old ways of passing judgement on past parents and their decisions and admitting some of the things I have already folded on in my short (sometimes feeling long) four months as a mother.

The biggest one that I had harped on before parenthood was having the baby in bed. I swore up and down that when Richard and I had a baby said baby would never ever sleep in bed with us EVER. Fast forward to a week into motherhood and Maevery was nestled into bed with me because it was the only way she would sleep past four thirty in the morning. From the outside others may have heard that Maevery was sleeping in bed with me and thought “How irresponsible.” But they have no idea what it’s like to be so desperate for even an extra hour of sleep that you’ll break that rule you swore you’d never do. It was then that I realized how the heck can I look at a parent making a decision for their child and judge them when I have absolutely no idea why they made that decision and the sequence of events that led them there.

Me being a rule breaker

Another rule we had was cellphones and TV. We said that when we had a baby they would never play with or use our cellphones and that the TV would never be a babysitter for our children. However, at around three months Maevery had these periods where she would get crazy fussy and nothing would calm her down. On a whim one day when I was at my wits end and just trying to get by, I threw on a sing along song episode with baby shark and she immediately stopped crying and glued her eyes to the TV. When I told my husband the “terrible” thing I had done to calm our child we both agreed that it was “okay” but that we would only use it when we were “desperate”. Well now we use baby shark whenever we damn well please! Listen sometimes you need a minute to put the laundry away or cook some dinner or I don’t know pee in peace. You do what you have to do and you know what!? Maevery is not going to be scarred because she occasionally watches TV or looks at my phone.

Folding on those promises made me realize that good old Justin Bieber’s song “Never say Never” applies so much to parenthood. I recognized that throughout my journey I cannot say that I will never do something because I don’t know what this crazy road ahead brings. Because of that I have made a vow to myself and all you parents out there that I will not judge what you decide to do with your children! No one and I mean absolutely no one has the exact same experience raising children. We can all relate and swap stories and tips that worked for our little ones but no one journey is alike and no one child is the same. We already beat ourselves up enough let’s choose to lift those around us and toss the judgment out the window because parenthood is freaking hard and we need to stick together.

I wanted to close by saying it is always good to have plans and promises of how you want to raise your child I am by no means saying you should throw all of them by the wayside. All I am saying is have some grace for yourselves if those promises aren’t always kept and use that same grace for those around you.

Bye for now

From one wild mother to another