Do we unwittingly start judging children and holding mothers and their babies to an impossible standard from day one? In an attempt to support new mothers (and yes fathers too) and sympathize with them, are we also subtly judging the obedient goodness of their new children? It makes me wonder with questions like these:
Is he latching well?
Is he feeding well?
Is he sleeping well?
Is he sleeping through the night?
Is he fussy?
The one question that convinced me we might be doing more harm than good was this one: “Is he a good baby?”
Is he a good baby?
It seems like an obscure question to ask, but everyone seems knows what it means. From what I could gather, the question is in reference to the baby’s behavior. If he is easy to take care of and does what we want, then he is a good baby. If he is not so easy to take care of and his behavior is “difficult,” he is not so good (however no one actually says it).
Although possibly well-meaning, focusing on the baby, and how good he or she is, can actually have the opposite effect than intended. The reality is that most babies aren’t “good” as it is meant. Asking a question like this is to a mother (or father) could make them feel like they, or their children, aren’t measuring up… when they invariably reveal that their child is indeed human. Most babies tend not to meet this implied standard of goodness, and as a result, neither do the parents. And so starts the judging and measuring up. This isn’t the only example of how we equate compliance and obedience with goodness, but it’s a good example, and it’s also perhaps where it all starts.
**Let me propose something. If we are concerned about new mothers and new fathers and would like to offer our support, let’s focus on the parents. We can ask a new Mom or Dad: “How are you doing?” “Do you need anything?” “How can I help?”
Why we do this to ourselves, I don’t know. It seems like the definition of insane, trying to meet an impossible standard. It seems like the only two things it could result in are 1. Faking it, or 2. Feeling inadequate. Neither are that productive. Pretending never felt good to me, so I was left with not measuring up. Feeling like this made me feel like crap, it put me on edge. Inadequacy led to insecurity, which for me, lead to frustration and anger. I tend not to be the best Dad when I’m angry. I was more prone to lashing out when feeling like this. And I know a bunch of other parents who have felt the same.
But here is the fix. Here is the solution: It’s not real. So let’s not buy into it. The standard is a sham. I call BS. Little kids are good, even if they are having a tough time. The absurdity of it becomes clear when we look at how we talk about our brand new babies: Is he a good baby? Is he sleeping through the night?
“I mean, yes of course he is a good baby. All babies are good. And no, of course not. No, he is not sleeping through the night. He is a baby.”
Once I got tuned in to the absurdity of how we talk about little children, it was easier for me to reevaluate what it meant for my children to be good. If all babies were good and the ways in which they behaved were completely normal, then maybe all kids were good too. Maybe my son was normal? I mean, his behavior was not always helpful or easy. But realizing that “difficult” behavior (yelling, crying, flailing) was: 1. normal and 2. Not an indictment of me and my parenting skills, meant…freedom! No longer bound by the impossible standard, I was able to see children as pure. All that kids do is natural; they are honest and transparent. More so than anyone else, kids are completely trust-able. They are good. I realized that my own kids were good. The veil was lifted and I started to see that their behaviors were normal, natural, and completely understandable.