the postpartum culture crisis as a grandmother crisis

I'm still reading Mothering the New Mother, and I'll admit there are times when the book makes me a little uneasy because it really does put a huge emphasis on supporting mothers in ways that go so far above and beyond the cultural norm. Why does this bother me? Because we've all seen narcissistic, selfish mothers who treat their children more like lifestyle accessories. On some level it feels as though all this nurturing and support and understanding must surely turn into flat out pandering. It can also be hard to see someone else get something that we didn't have - witness my moment of out and out anger when I saw that another postpartum friend's mom was doing her laundry for her. No one was doing our laundry. Why is she so special?

So here's the dilemma. On one hand we have mothers who are so fixated on their experience that they aren't willing to do what's best for their child. They ignore medical advice, spend money on useless designer crap, and in general turn their experience into a true Bridezilla sequel. On the other hand we have mothers who are turned lose into a largely atomized culture and expected to thrive with very little support or encouragement. Both approaches betray a cultural and/or personal ignorance of or indifference to the needs of motherhood.

What we need are the dual expectations that mothers will in fact pour themselves into their children and seek their good combined with the expectation that older women in the community will in turn pour themselves into this younger mother. What I'm seeing from other cultures, from this book, and from the Bible itself is that motherhood is like some vast stream that catches us up and bears us onwards. When the Bible says that older women should teach the younger women to love their kids and husbands and take care of their homes I'll admit I've often thought of it in the sense of older women laying down the law about how these younger women need to step it up and stop complaining and being lazy. Upon reflection though, I think a gentler connotation is warranted. The ESV says "and so train the young women." That's a lot of what this book is talking about - training mothers to be good at being moms. Instead of grandmothers and aunts and cousins skipping a generation to pour all their love and attention into these new babies, they need to step back and take a look at the mom and make sure that she's equipped to be a good mother.

Unfortunately Titus 2 women seem about as rare as snowflakes in Florida, and we find many younger women existing in a state of benign neglect. I say benign neglect because I rather doubt these older women don't care that their friends and daughters are struggling with motherhood, but it's also neglect in that these older women are failing to do what they ought to do. I'll confess that the more I think about it and see evidence of it the less patience I have with even benign neglect. In some ways it's gentle nature almost makes it more virulent - it's harder to complain about someone who brings over a casserole and coos at your baby even if that person leaves you feeling lonely and frustrated at their lack of understanding and support. In my own life I've seen this play out in very similar fashions with two women who could not be more dissimilar in how they otherwise love and care for people. One person is a giver, and the other is a narcissist - they neither of them understand how to mother the new mother.

Grandmothers and great aunts and old cousin and sisters and the like have a crucial role to play in postpartum care, and they fill that role best when they look first to the mom and then to the child. An infant doesn't really "need" a grandmother, but he surely needs a mother who is encouraged and supported and feels capable of loving and nurturing him. In that sense, a grandmother who coos at her granddaughter while ignoring her own daughter's needs is being just as selfish as a mother who "needs" a certain type of birth. I think it's entirely possible that our current postpartum culture is partially the fault of grandmotherly selfishness, but because this selfishness manifests itself in lots of cooing and baby snuggles we either can't or don't see it for what it is. It needs to stop though. These babies do need the love and wisdom of older generations, but the way they most need that love and wisdom initially is poured out through the care their own mothers receive.

Take care of all the things?

I've been sketching out ideas for blog posts, and I've even got a some pictures to share. Tonight though, I'm tired. I'm really, really tired. Allen and I had a long talk about how we can get back on track, but the jist of it is that over Christmas I mentally pushed aside a lot of the things that are bothering me now because, hey, it's more important for Christmas to be awesome than for the laundry room to be organized. But now, even though Christmas is down and mostly in boxes, those boxes don't really have a home. Because the stuff that should be in the laundry room is in the closet, and the stuff that should be in the closet is in a room full of stuff that should be in my closet. And why isn't it in my closet? Because that's where I stashed all my candles and vases and brick-a-brac back when my clothes where all in another closet entirely. And that's not even touching on all the painting and patching I still need to do before I can start hanging pictures and shelves and whatnot. So basically we're in the remodeling/moving in/holy cow this house is huge stage in which everything is endless and overwhelming and not as much fun as we (I) thought it would be about twelve months ago. I thought I'd be planning my garden now and not trying to mentally calculate whether it would be a fair exchange of money for sanity to just hire someone to paint about three rooms and at least one closet and possible a few doors (the ones where the paint starts peeling when you prep-sand them so that you end up an hour later thinking about just buying new doors) so that I don't have to deal with it anymore and can move on to sewing kitchen curtains.

And on top of everything I've got a little side project at church. It's nice to talk about having time to serve your community, but my problem is that I'm long on time and short on energy. It's a good cause and fits my skill set, which is why I volunteered in the first place, but I'm about ready to move on to the "friends over coffee" part and spend less time on the driving back and forth and having to copy five people on every e-mail part. I'm just praising God I didn't actually send that other e-mail volunteering for one more project. Poor Allen would never eat a home cooked meal again. He'd come into the den at dinner time to find me knitting away with my latest BBC crush and a bag of jalapeno cheese curls  =) Now I want some jalapeno cheese curls.

Anyway, regular life will hopefully be resuming....sometime? Just wanted to say that if you don't see me around her for a little while or if my cognitive abilities seem stunted you know why.

A little bit of community

People talk about all sorts of communities. Gaming communities. Trade unions. Congregations. Here's one for you. Looking down the sign up list to bring a meal to a family I noticed my aunt by marriage had snagged the slot right before mine. Even when I feel like I'm not getting anything done, that my personal sanctification moves at a glacial pace, I'm reminded that I'm part of that vast army of women who look at these small moments of service and ask themselves "Pot pie or beef stew?"
 

Nosy neighbors and involved communities

So here's a bone I want to pick from one of the Thinking Housewife's posts. The basic gist is that a woman wrote in talking about her experience with a neighbor ringing the doorbell and inquiring why she'd been hearing a child crying/screaming for the past hour. For context I'll add that this particular mom had decided, after making sure this wasn't a tired/hungry issue, to let her son work out his toddler tantrum alone in his room hoping that he'd cool down with a little space. During this process a neighbor rang her doorbell, expressed concern, and offered to help. This is part of the resulting conversation -starting the with mom quizzing her neighbor in turn.

“Do you tell parents it’s okay to let infants cry to sleep in their cribs? Because that’s NOT okay!” I spit that out fast.

“No, I don’t. How old is she?” (The fact that she automatically assumed it was a girl further annoyed me.)

“He is a boy, and he’s 18 months.”

“Well, I am a psychologist and I would like to come help you.”

“NO!” I was so annoyed.

“I am a mother,” I declared.

She smiled at me, as if she was thinking, “Oh, you’re so sweet; you think that matters!” But at the time, I thought maybe I had made some headway with my confident assertion.

“This is my second child. I did the same with my first, and he is a very obedient, well-mannered little boy.”

“But you may not want them to be obedient and well-mannered — (my face said, huh??) – you might want them to have free spirits.”

I laughed. I said, “You know, that’s the trouble with parents today is that they’re listening to that ridiculous advice. Pride is the root of all sin! I want my boys to be humble!”

“Can I come in to help?”

“NOOOO!” I was shocked that she was asking again. What nerve!

“Well, fine. But if I hear it again, I’ll call the police.”

“Go ahead!” I yelled, as she stomped down my driveway.

First, this neighbor was clearly off base with regards to threatening to call the police and how parents should discipline their kids. The former is a serious threat, and I really don't think people should be able to make anonymous "tips" about people like that. It's way too easy for disgruntled neighbors or people who just differ from you to wreck havoc. However, I was slightly baffled by the whole "atta girl" response to this post.

Here are my problems:

1. There was no call to be accusatory ("Do you tell people...?")

2. Assertions about peoples motives are highly problematic.

3. She didn't have to justify her parenting methods.

4. There were zero reasons for this mom to be offended in the first place.

Let me start with my last point. In the sort of communities in which people say they'd like to live I can easily imagine adults checking in when something seems to be a problem. You hear of cases where kids were terribly abused and people wonder where all the other adults were. Probably minding their own business. This is my default as well. But imagine a community where people did knock on each other's doors? I'd say the default for this should be "Hi, Mrs. Davies, I heard little Davies hollering for the past hour, so I thought I'd just step over and make sure no one was hurt." At which point Mrs. Davies calmly explains that her son is working out a little temper, was just told he couldn't visit his grandparents this weekend, in time-out for coloring on his sister's doll, etc. Everything looks good, and the neighbor walks away. But imagine the mom comes to the door drunk, or there's a new babysitter who hit the oldest, or the dad fell down the stairs and is hurt. In all those cases everyone would be better off for having a neighbor (and a neighborhood) where people knock on doors. The assumption should be that everything is ok, but when things do go wrong you've got eyes to see. While I agree that this neighbor sounds pretty out of touch (and potentially dangerous) I disagree that this sort of behavior is innately offensive.

The other points are mostly secondary. If I were the neighbor in question and the mom started acting all huffy and defensive I'd probably get a little nosier myself. If I ask you a parenting question (even if it's just "can I help you") and you return with baseless accusations, that doesn't exactly reflect the model of calm, competent motherhood that sets bystanders at ease. I'm guessing this mom felt judged ("Is she classing me with those people") and instantly made a defensive jab. Understandable and completely non-helpful. If someone asks you about your child all you know about that person (barring past history and perhaps extremely keen insight) is that they're asking about your kid. Now obviously I don't have kids, but I have had people question (and even shun) me over important decisions I've made. Bearing people's judgement isn't easy (ask me, I still do it all the time), but eventually you just have to smile and let things roll off your back.

How do I think this mom should have handled this? Like I said before, with as gracious a smile as she could muster and a "Thanks for checking on us, but Jason's just working off his toddler angst." If you feel inclined to go further you might mention that you thought letting him have a private tantrum in his room the best way to deal with it and ask whether your neighbor has any tips for dealing with bewildering toddler moods. Take the good advice, and just smile if you get a bunch of pc parenting light. It's really not that big a deal. If we're going to live in and cultivate the kind of communities where people have each other's backs then you'll have to deal with people actually asking if things are ok. When my pastor asks how my marriage is going I don't assume he saw Allen out to dinner with a tarted up skirt. I do assume he cares about us and wants to make sure small problems don't become larger ones. That's what a community does.