Unpack Your Parenting Suitcase: The hidden voices within

Rachel Rainbolt, M.A., CEIM
www.OhanaWellness.com

“You shouldn’t hold a baby too much or you’ll spoil him.”

 “You shouldn’t breastfeed longer than a year.”

“Good babies sleep through the night.”

Every new parent comes to the table with a whole suitcase full of other peoples’ truths.  Loving family members, close friends, and well-meaning strangers all fill your suitcase full of what they think you should and should not do.  Unpack them and lay them all out on the table.  Pick each one up, look at it, talk about it, try it on.  Does it feel like a good fit for you?  If not, toss it.  If so, integrate it.  If you don’t shine a light on these other voices within they will whisper in your ear in your most vulnerable moments and undermine your wisdom.  You are the world’s foremost expert on your baby.  Listen to your innate wisdom.  Release yourself from worrying about what’s “right” and do what feels right for you and Junior. 

We are formed through a combination of our DNA (nature) and our experiences (nurture).  These things combine to form our personalities, points of view, and the foundations for our relationships.  Our world is formed through a process of meaning-making.  An event occurs, we assign it meaning, and we internalize it.  The way we were parented, our culture, education, all the way down to the disapproving glance you received from a fellow patron during lunch when your baby was crying form a network of meaning in your brain that lay the groundwork for how you interpret future experiences.  Problems (or opportunities) occur when we experience dissonance.  When somethingFamily Conflict we know or assume to be truth collides with something else that feels right.  When we are actively learning something new this process takes place on more of a conscious level.  For example, you are becoming friends with someone you were told was bad news.  Who was wrong?  What does it mean about the person giving the warning, your new friend, you, the world?  As you grapple with these questions you reorganize your network of meaning, your understanding of the world and the people in it.  But when we are not expressly setting out to accommodate new information, new feelings, truths, and experiences can lie in conflict with preexisting paradigms, thus creating dissonance.  If we leave these conflicts battling inside us we can drown in our own misguidance.  Entry into parenthood is a particularly exciting and changing time.  Transitioning from individual to parent your experiences of parenthood from your parents and observations out in the world collide with your natural parenting instincts and intense bond and relationship with your new baby.  Many new parents say that after the birth of their first child the whole world was different.  This is a result of this process.  Once you become a parent your whole suitcase or network of meaning is open to new interpretation.
 
Grocery shopping one afternoon a well-meaning woman peered through the blanket at Keri’s new baby girl and awed, “Is she a good baby?   Does she sleep through the night?”  
 
Cut to 3:00am and that is the voice that was bearing down on Keri Woodward, mom to Ariana in Encinitas, in her exhausted moments caring for her baby during the night.  “So if she’s not sleeping through the night she’s not a good baby?  But I know she’s a good baby.  But good babies sleep through the night?  Does that mean I am not a good mother?” Zzzzzzip!  This is one of those moments when you pull out that suitcase, open it up, and pull out the nugget that is going against what you know to be true.  Keri turned to some friends and experts whom jived with her philosophies of parenting and asked about babies sleeping through the night.  Combining the information available to her with her knowledge of her baby she came to the conclusion that “good babies sleep through the night” was something she would remove from her suitcase. 

Up at 3:30am with my one-month old first born baby I found myself… drowning.  I was completely exhausted with no sleep and a parasite (albeit a cute parasite) who’s days and nights were breastfeeding marathons with intermittent breaks to cry and spit up only to work up an appetite and make room for more milk.  It was in this moment, reaching my breaking point when I realized that the tornado ripping me apart tonight was not coming from my baby or anything else external but from inside of me.  A whirlwind of “should”s and “shouldn’t’s” left me chipped away to nothing.  “Good babies sleep through the night.”  “Don’t hold him too much or you’ll spoil him.”  “If you bring him into your bed you’ll never get him out.”  This tornado of foreign voices left me dizzy and disconnected from myself.  It was in this place of desperation that I surrendered.  I lay in my bed sobbing, white-knuckled clenching the baby monitor when my surrender let down my walls enough to really hear my husband say, “If you want to hold him and he wants to be held, why don’t you hold him?”  Bam!  There it was.  In that singular moment I realized that in my zealousness to do everything “right” I became lost, disconnected from myself and my baby.  There is no way to win when you are held hostage by other peoples’ truths.  All of a sudden I could feel my own maternal wisdom swelling inside my heart like a wave and I threw the monitor, ran to my baby, and allowed my love and wisdom to wash over both of us.  “I am your Mommy.  I know what’s best for us.”  I empowered my voice.  And as my relationship with my baby grew deeper and stronger every day, taking advantage of every moment as an opportunity to bond, my identity as a mother grew stronger and more positive.  Before long I was glowing in perfect harmony with my baby. 

The point is not that you adopt my particular point of view but that you engage in the process of forming and empowering your own maternal and paternal voices.  Recognizing where your ideals come from, how they have been formed and taking into consideration your knowledge of your baby and your family along with the information available today to form your own parenting principals.  
 
Think of the advice and expectations of those around you in your circle of support, including experts like me, like parenting tools: the more tools you know about, the better.  You may not need one tool now, but it may come in handy to pull it out in some situation in the future.  You can pick and choose whatever tools work for you for the task at hand.  And some tools you know you will never use, discard them or they will only weigh you down.  Remember, you can acknowledge that someone’s advice is not right for you while still respecting the person from whom it came.

Parenting differences are one of the top reasons for divorce in this country.  Unpacking your suitcases together is a superb way of getting co-parents on the same page.  We all know that two people come together with baggage.  Well some of that baggage includes a parenting suitcase.  A lot of our parenting choices are based on the choices of our parents, which we either seek to emulate Grandmother Hugor avoid.  Some of their ideals and strategies may very well be worth emulation.  When you think of them you feel warm and fuzzy and recall particularly valuable growth.  Others may very well be deplorable, even illegal by today’s standards.  Other family members, friends, and even strangers you have observed can all leave items in your suitcase.  Coming together with your parenting partner to discuss your parenting strategies is essential to successful co-parenting.  This process will take place periodically as new dissonances emerge, life events occur, and new developmental phases are reached.  When unpacking your suitcase with a partner it is important to keep in mind that every child is different.  What worked for you is not necessarily what is best for Junior.  Let this be the focus of your discussions.  It is important to understand that just because your partner does not think a particular parenting strategy is right for your baby, doesn’t mean she thinks your mother’s way was wrong.   

“Every time my new baby cried I would rush over and hold him.  I found myself holding him a lot.  One time as I was struggling to do something with Jordan in my arms my husband said ‘Stop holding him so much.  You are spoiling him.’”   Zzzzip!  Time to unpack those suitcases.  Mary was growing in her new relationship with her baby and establishing herself as a good mother when she found herself experiencing a dissonance between what her maternal instincts and knowledge of her baby was telling her and what her coparent was telling her.   

Tips to successful unpacking with a partner:

  • Stay flexible.  Revisit frequently.  You may have agreed to a parenting strategy early on that needs to be adjusted.  Things change, people change, and children change frequently.  Perhaps in getting to know your child better you find a particular strategy is not effective.  Perhaps in his new phase of developmental your previous strategy no longer works.  Maybe your reentry into the workplace requires some adjustments on everyone’s part.  People are engaged in a process of growth throughout their entire lifespan.  The idea is that people are striving to be better.  In this growth accommodations frequently need to be made and they are usually for the better.  So stay open and be flexible.  However, every parent usually has in their suitcase a couple permanent lines they will not cross.  For example, no hitting a child- ever, under any circumstances.  If your co-parent has disclosed one of these items, be respectful of it and work together to find other solutions. 

  • Don’t unpack during a fight.  Sometimes you’ll fight out an issue and come out the other side with a resolution.  But more likely, you will be met with defensiveness, tangle more than one issue together, and cement your positions on opposite sides of the battle field.  There are a lot of good times to unpack your suitcase; shopping at the grocery store, on a walk, over dinner, or in the car.  But during a fight is not one of them.
     
  • Take your time.  Don’t force a resolution in the moment.  When a partner brings up a parenting issue feel free to take time to sit with it.  Really think about it, live it out in your head, research it, ask around in your circle of support.  This will help to avoid snap decisions or judgments.  Even if you don’t agree with everything your partner says, he will feel more respect if you genuinely give thought to his concerns.  And wouldn’t you want the same?
     
  • Be Respectful.  Some parenting traditions may seem pointless or foreign to you but inheriting the combined culture of both parents most benefits your baby.  As long as your partner’s requests are not harmful, be open to them. 

  • Remember that this is about your baby
     
  • Think of it like working together on your family’s Christmas cookie recipe.  You love that his grandma adds cinnamon.  Her mom adds some nice flavor with vanilla.  You had some cookies once at a friend’s house that were superb because of her sugar to flour ratio.  You once read in a cook book that letting the dough sit before you bake brings out the best in all the secret ingredients.  And lastly and most importantly, your baby’s favorite treat is powdered sugar and he is too young for chocolate.  You select a non-chocolate cookie and heap spoonfuls of powdered sugar on top as the crowning glory.    

The greatest benefit to unpacking your suitcase is that you find your parenting voice.  When you are freed from the weight of others’ judgment you are free to look into the eyes of your baby and find your truths.  The process of evaluating the rightness of fit of the baggage you bring to your relationship with your baby strengthens you as a parent, bringing wisdom and confidence to your new role as a mother.  And after you respectfully decline all those unwanted traveling companions, what’s left is your voice and a spirit of harmony with your baby.

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