Endeavor to "Never"

When I was a child, every slight offense my parents made inspired a new "never." By the time I was a teenage, I had an impossibly long running list of "nevers" I would keep to when I became a parent. "I would never make my kid eat vegetables." "I would never make my kid go to sleep by 8." "I would never tell my kid I won't buy him something." So on an so forth.

As I became an adult the silly "nevers" that I had come up with as a child seemed ridiculous as reality sort of set in. The "nevers" trasnformed and reinvented themselves. "I would never make my kid eat vegetables" became "I would never serve my kid an unbalanced meal." "I would never make my kid go to sleep by 8" became "I would never let my child not get enough sleep." I was idealizing a parenthood that I still felt to be a long way off. It was a parenthood informed by memories of my own childhood, information gathering from my baby-sitting gigs, and what I saw taking place when visiting local parks or malls. None of the "nevers" were actually based in any kind of firsthand experience--how could they have been? I was not yet a parent.

When we found out that I was pregnant with my daughter, the "nevers" once again went through a type of metamorphosis. Now that I was going to be one, the "nevers" were for real. The "nevers" were actually going to have to be put into practice. the "nevers" were coming, and they were coming fast. As I poured over baby books, I had to refine, edit, and cut down my "nevers." I had to make them seem feasible and reasonable. As my due date approached, I felt at peace. I felt like my "nevers" were sensible, and would help to grow the child I thought that I needed to have.

Then, tragedy struck.

My very first "never" was shattered into a million pieces the night my daughter was born. "I will never have a c-section" was a never that I had held onto for a very long time--way before the beginning of my pregnancy, or even my foray into adulthood. And as the glass fell from that "never" I felt defeated, less than, incapable. My first "never" was broken before I was even a parent. Failure was the word the stuck in my mind, burning its letters in so deep I saw them even through my newborn daughter's smile.

I felt broken, I felt depressed. I felt as though my "never" had led me through a hall of mirrors that ended in an empty dungeon. As I began processing and picking up the pieces of my "never," I knew that "never" was something that could no longer be a part of my vocabulary. "Never" set me up. "Never" created an expectation that, when unfulfilled, nearly destroyed me.

Once again, I needed to reinvent the "nevers."

That was when I decided I was going to endeavor to never. In an ideal world, would I never? Absolutely. But since when do we live in an ideal world? We don't. We live in reality, where you can't control the outside forces and people are human. We make mistakes. Just because we are parents don't make us immune to humanity. And that is OK. It is OK to fall. It is OK to break your "never".

But what happens after you break the "never"? Do you give up? Do you say, "eff this" and throw caution to the wind? Or do you learn from your experience and endeavor to never ever again?

I am not resigning myself to birthing all of my children via cesarean. I am endeavoring to never again. I am already seeking out the knowledge and support I will need to be successful with a vaginal delivery next time. Because I now know better, I am endeavoring to do better.

There are so many things I am sure of as a parent. There are so many things I am unsure of. There are so many experiences I have not had yet with my daughter. There are so many "nevers" that I have about raising her. But the "nevers" are easy to hold onto when they have not yet existed. "I would never tell my teenage daughter who she can or cannot date" is easy to say when your daughter is seventeen months old and you cannot even fathom her wiping her own butt after going to the bathroom let alone going on a date with another actual human being. But I can endeavor to never. I can endeavor to never dictate my daughter's romantic entanglements for her. But I can't say for sure, because I have not been there yet.

Endeavoring to never acknowledges our humanness. It says, "yes, you want better for your kid, but you don't live in a vacuum. Shit happens, you deal with it as best you can, you learn from your mistakes and experiences, and you move on." When we endeavor to never, we look for the better, but we don't fall when we fail because we don't fail. We only stumble.

No parent is perfect. But we can try. We can endeavor to never because our children deserve it. They deserve parents who are trying harder, who are holding themselves to higher standards. They deserve parents who are informed and involved. They deserve the endeavor.

- Kimberly

This is NOT a Judgement

I am a mom. I work with moms. Momming and all that it entails probably envelops 99% of my day. I know young moms and old moms, liberal moms and conservative moms, first time moms and veterans. In my (admittedly short) stint as a mom, I have encountered a wide variety of experiences and beliefs about what it means to be a mom, what it takes to be a "good" mom, and whether or not anyone else's opinion should have any weight in your own personal mom experience.

I knew what the "mommy wars" were before my daughter was even a little twinkle in my eye. Media sensationalists and Internet bloggers (of which I am joining the fearless ranks) were very clear: prepare yourselves ladies. Being a mom is nothing short of running headfirst into battle, Braveheart style. The idea was intimidating. The stage was set: once you become a parent, legions of women will be there watching you, sizing you up, judging you.

The truth is, we make judgements every single day. We judge if we are full after eating lunch or if we should grab a snack to tide us over to the next meal. We judge the distance between two steps so that we don't trip down the stairs. We judge whether the person taking their sweet time in front of us at the grocery store will head for checkout lane 4 or lane 5 so we can finally walk around them. And we judge if that person at the expressway exit really needs that two bucks we just handed them out of our open car window, or if they are just going to blow it all on booze.

Judgement is a part of life. It is necessary. It is inescapable. And it is not the root of all evil.

The fact of the matter is, "judgement" has become the scapegoat du jour in modern parenting communities. It is used as an explanation, an excuse, a defense mechanism, and a mask we shield our insecurities behind. "That mom has different values than I do, she is judging me." "Every time you mention how you did ABC while I do XYZ, you judge me." "All the moms wearing blue are so judgmental. Look how they never wear green or yellow when we do!"

Sounds kind of ridiculous, right? It's because it is. Crying "judgement" on mom frenemies is a hot trend, and it's pretty nauseating. In many cases, it is to the point where you cannot share a differing opinion or share an experience or even present scientific data without being a "judgy," opinionated mom loathed by others and ostracized for simply trying to find a way to join in a conversation in which you have a stake. The thing is ... most statements are not judgements. They just aren't. Just because they involve a "hot topic" or conflicting information doesn't mean they are measuring up your worth as a mom.

Honestly, I don't sit around sorting the moms I know into piles of "good moms," "shitty moms," and "okay enough for me to talk to moms." There are just moms. Moms that are my close friends are that way because we have kids the same age and both enjoy hairclips or because we went to the same college or, sometimes, because we share parenting values, not because I have judged them and dumped them into the "best moms" pile.

Motherhood is a journey. It is a symbiotic relationship between each individual woman and each individual child. There is no way to capture the complexities, emotions, unspoken understandings, and love that exists for each mother-child pair. And to allow a complete stranger to dictate your relationship with your child with "judgements" that don't really exist belittles your experience and puts cracks in the foundation of your inherent parenthood. It's letting someone else call your shots. Just as no one can make you feel inferior without your consent, judgement comes from within yourself, not because a stranger on the Internet said you should have breastfeed for longer/cloth diapered your child/never allowed your child in your bed. "Judgements" hidden inside of other people's statements are a projection of insecurities, not a past time of bored housewives who believe their way of parenting is superior.

I am insecure about my daughter's birth. If I could go back, I would have done a hundred things differently. Sixteen months later, I am still coping with and moving past the induction and "emergency" c-section. It is an aspect of my parenting that I feel weak about, but it is also something I am actively working on accepting.

When someone says "inductions are dangerous" I do not feel judged. It is a scientifically proven fact that healthy pregnancies that are induced into labor using Pitocin are more likely to experience complications that put mom and baby at risk than if the mother had gone into labor naturally.

When someone says "I would never have a c-section" I do not feel judged. When I was pregnant, I said the same thing many times. With proper knowledge and information, c-section rates drop dramatically. I wish I had been equipped with both of those, as my would never would still be true.

When someone shares the story of their beautiful and awe-inspiring natural water homebirth I do not feel judged. How egotistical would that be? Someone else's experience is not my own, and it carries no weight on my experience. DO I actively seek out stories of wonderful labors? Not really. It hurts too much right now to hear of successes that I did not experience, but that does not mean that those natural birthing mamas are "judging" my surgical delivery.

When someone says "if you had been smarter you would not have had an induction" I do not feel judged. They do not know my situation, and they weren't there for my daughter's birth. Their opinion means very little to me, as someone who would say that to me is probably not someone I care about.

When do I feel judged? I feel judged by myself when I let myself down, when I know I could have done better. When I come home from work and all I want to do is stare blankly at the television even though I have been away from my daughter all day and all she wants to do is have my undivided attention. I use judgement to hold myself to a higher standard.

The Accidental Cosleeper is about personal judgement. It is not about belittling the mom experiences of others. It is about holding ourselves to a higher standard. It is about knowing better and doing better. It is where the "mommy wars" stop and mommy growth begins.

~ Kimberly