Oh my goodness
Lately, both people we know and complete strangers have been telling us what a “good” baby Yelena is. Typically I avoid the double wiggly so-called reputed punctuation marks unless excerpting, writing dialogue or am too lazy to italicize or underline, so I really mean them around the word “good.” A few thoughts about this whole goodness thing follow. They are not necessarily in any order and some assume that good is a valid baby category while others deny it. Some are generalizations, yes, but I’ve enough examples of each to justify a few sweeping generalizations for rhetorical purposes.
If there are good babies, are there evil babies? Baby Stewie aside, I thought tabula rasa was the whole point of babies. Can a baby be “bad?” Is a colicky baby bad? Poor thing, it can’t help its colic. And it can’t help if its parents don’t know how to deal with it either.
There are no good or bad babies, only good or bad parents.
For babies, happy or unhappy. For parents, responsive or unresponsive.
When a baby is “bad” people blame the parents. Well, let’s not pussy foot around here. They blame the mother. But when a baby is “good” it’s because of the baby’s inherent nature.
Is Yelena good because she is relatively quiet? Because she is content to sit in the Bjorn checking things out? Because she is responsive, engaging and makes eye contact? Because she can stay up for hours without a melt-down? If she weren’t some of these would it make her a bad baby?
I know plenty of babies with radically different personalities and I think they are all fabulous babies. In fact, all my friends’ babies are good babies. New equation: baby = good.
In some respects, Yelena is actually high-needs (refusal to bottle-feed, refusal for months to get on anything remotely like a nap schedule, still not getting the “ideal” amount of sleep listed in all the baby books). Some people would shake their heads when hearing this, judging her or judging my parenting, id est bad baby or bad mommy. Some of these same people now call her a good baby. My responding to her unique needs was apparently bad in their eyes a few months ago, but now they have conveniently forgotten their earlier judgments because she is somehow conforming to their idea of “goodness.”
I hate the development race. I hate the competitive mommies league. I hate feeling guilty or like I’m not doing enough or that I’m an inadequate parent because Yelena isn’t doing XY or Z at the month listed in the baby book or when so-and-so’s son or daughter did. I know I should be a little ducky with water skimming off my backside. I know that the look of absolute love in my daughter’s eyes should be enough. My husband and my mother telling me I’m doing a great job should be all the reassurance I need. But sometimes I still feel guilty or inadequate or judged, judged, judged. So Yelena can’t crawl. So she doesn’t have any teeth yet. So she’s not doing quadratic equations and reading Flaubert in French. I hate that I can’t just rejoice in the miracle of my daughter’s existence, kiss her perfect cheeks, drench myself in her giggles and comfort her when she cries. I hate when people jump on my cloud and I hate that I let them.
Often, after saying how good Yelena is, people say something like, “Just wait until you have more than one,” or “The next one will be an absolute terror,” or “Just wait until she’s a toddler/teenager.” Besides taking the sugar out of a compliment this attidute begs some questions. You think my mothering is adequate for only one child? You think my child is only “good” because of dumb luck and this luck isn’t going to hit twice? I’m going to stop being a good parent or she’s going to lose her goodness when she starts walking/talking/talking back/driving? Why do people who know almost nothing about me feel the need to tell me how I am going to behave or predict my future? These same Delphic oracles told me I was going to be screaming for the epidural and plopping my kid in front of the TV. It's a good thing I have a booty ample enough for all of y'all to kiss.
If there are good babies, are there evil babies? Baby Stewie aside, I thought tabula rasa was the whole point of babies. Can a baby be “bad?” Is a colicky baby bad? Poor thing, it can’t help its colic. And it can’t help if its parents don’t know how to deal with it either.
There are no good or bad babies, only good or bad parents.
For babies, happy or unhappy. For parents, responsive or unresponsive.
When a baby is “bad” people blame the parents. Well, let’s not pussy foot around here. They blame the mother. But when a baby is “good” it’s because of the baby’s inherent nature.
Is Yelena good because she is relatively quiet? Because she is content to sit in the Bjorn checking things out? Because she is responsive, engaging and makes eye contact? Because she can stay up for hours without a melt-down? If she weren’t some of these would it make her a bad baby?
I know plenty of babies with radically different personalities and I think they are all fabulous babies. In fact, all my friends’ babies are good babies. New equation: baby = good.
In some respects, Yelena is actually high-needs (refusal to bottle-feed, refusal for months to get on anything remotely like a nap schedule, still not getting the “ideal” amount of sleep listed in all the baby books). Some people would shake their heads when hearing this, judging her or judging my parenting, id est bad baby or bad mommy. Some of these same people now call her a good baby. My responding to her unique needs was apparently bad in their eyes a few months ago, but now they have conveniently forgotten their earlier judgments because she is somehow conforming to their idea of “goodness.”
I hate the development race. I hate the competitive mommies league. I hate feeling guilty or like I’m not doing enough or that I’m an inadequate parent because Yelena isn’t doing XY or Z at the month listed in the baby book or when so-and-so’s son or daughter did. I know I should be a little ducky with water skimming off my backside. I know that the look of absolute love in my daughter’s eyes should be enough. My husband and my mother telling me I’m doing a great job should be all the reassurance I need. But sometimes I still feel guilty or inadequate or judged, judged, judged. So Yelena can’t crawl. So she doesn’t have any teeth yet. So she’s not doing quadratic equations and reading Flaubert in French. I hate that I can’t just rejoice in the miracle of my daughter’s existence, kiss her perfect cheeks, drench myself in her giggles and comfort her when she cries. I hate when people jump on my cloud and I hate that I let them.
Often, after saying how good Yelena is, people say something like, “Just wait until you have more than one,” or “The next one will be an absolute terror,” or “Just wait until she’s a toddler/teenager.” Besides taking the sugar out of a compliment this attidute begs some questions. You think my mothering is adequate for only one child? You think my child is only “good” because of dumb luck and this luck isn’t going to hit twice? I’m going to stop being a good parent or she’s going to lose her goodness when she starts walking/talking/talking back/driving? Why do people who know almost nothing about me feel the need to tell me how I am going to behave or predict my future? These same Delphic oracles told me I was going to be screaming for the epidural and plopping my kid in front of the TV. It's a good thing I have a booty ample enough for all of y'all to kiss.
Finally, to all the people for whom calling Yelena "good" was their way of complimenting and admiring my adorable charming baby: thank you. I think she's the epitome of baby goodness, too.
posted by Mi at 10:39 PM
1 Comments:
How do you know she's not doing quadratic equations? Just because she can't tell you doesn't mean she isn't playing chess in her head... ;-)
And it's very clear to me that you're a bad mommy because Yelena doesn't have any teeth. If you really loved her, she'd have popped those buggers out of her gums by now.
Post a Comment
<< Home