Intuition Parenting

This post on the New York Times Motherlode blog expresses the exact emotion I have experienced reading many books by parenting "experts": anger.  Exasperation, confusion, and resentment pop up from time to time, as well.  Jacob Sager Weinstein, the author of the forthcoming parody How Not to Kill Your Baby (now, that sounds like an appropriately straightforward message!), criticizes the authors of books like What to Expect When You're Expecting and Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child for essentially terrifying parents into following their advice.  The funny thing about these "experts" is that they are consistently labeled and acknowledged as such, but what could make an individual an expert in parenting another person's child?  Sometimes this bias is acknowledged, though rarely in admission that the claimed expertise is bogus: Elizabeth Pantley, in her No-Cry Sleep Solution, explains that she came up with her sleep-through-the-night technique based on a few month experience with her own twelve-month old baby, but really glosses over the fact that, though it worked for her and may work for certain other families as well, it is essentially a unique solution to a unique problem.  Tips are great, tips are helpful, especially when coming from other parents you trust, but tips are just tips.  When someone tells you that your baby will have major psychological problems later in life because you aren't following their prescript, well, that's just blackmail.   

The appealing, but devious, premise of these books is to show very confused and insecure new parents the "right" way to raise their child.  As Weinstein notes, and I've recently experienced, as you get a little farther along in the process you gain some perspective and confidence (she really ISN'T going to go to college not knowing how to lift her head above 45 degrees / roll over / sleep longer than 3 hours at a stretch / eat without making horrible grunting noises), but those niggling doubts, the ones that creep in at 3 a.m. when she's up for the fifth time and you are sure that you really are doing something dreadfully, disgustingly wrong, are what the whole parenting-"expert" industry thrives upon. 

Reid and I are not really the types to have a "parenting philosophy," but we decided if we do have one, it is basically one that refutes the idea of having a philosophy at all.  We call it "intuition parenting," which is just an unnecessarily technical way of saying "go with what feels right at the time".  Trying to follow the "experts," against your own personality (taking into consideration strengths, limitations, and varying points at which one begins to need a stiff drink) or the personality of your child (taking into consideration needs, desires, and varying abilities to wail like an ambulance siren), is just silly.  And it makes me mad.

The Egg and I, and I

I just finished reading The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald, she of Miss Piggle-Wiggle fame.  (Reid has never heard of Miss Piggle-Wiggle, which makes me deeply sorry for him.)  The book was apparently a massive hit when it was published in the 1940s, proving that our culture's current romanticization of chicken raising and back-to-the-land adventures is actually pretty old news.*  But what is it about the telling of the hardships of farm life that, illogically, makes us long for the bad-old-days of planting and canning and hauling water?  As an long-time devotee of the Little House books, I can't quite explain my predilection, but I can say that this book scratches the vicarious farming itch quite well. 

As a 20-year-old Seattleite, MacDonald falls in love with an older, gainfully employed man, who, soon after their wedding, tells her of his dream to run a chicken ranch.  Trained by her mother to support a husband's whims, MacDonald shoulders the plow, more literally than she had hoped to do, and throws herself into the relentless work of a ranch in the remote mountains of the Olympic Peninsula.

The book could probably described as a comic farce: city girl bumbling along in the wilderness, surrounded by eccentric, larger-than-life characters (so THIS is where Ma and Pa Kettle come from--I'd heard the reference, but never knew who they actually were).  But, at the same time, it is a meditation on loneliness and alienation, which simmer right below the comic surface:

Being lonely all of the time, I used to harbor the idea, as who has not, that I was one of the few very fortunate people who was absolutely self-sufficient and that if I could just find myself a little haunt far from the clawing hands of civilization with its telephones, electric appliances, artificial amusements and people--people more than anything--I would be contented for the rest of my life.  Well, someone called my bluff and I found that after nine months spent mostly in the stimulating company of the mountains, trees, the rain, Stove, and the chickens, I would have swooned with anticipation of a visit from a Mongolian idiot.  And if the clawing hands of civilization could only have run a few telephone and light wires in there they could have had my self-sufficient right arm to chop up for the insulators.

About nine months after she arrives on the farm, she finds herself with a baby as well as a barn full of chickens to look after, and it's hard not to conclude that "women's work" is often a good deal more strenuous, or at least more isolating, than "men's work."   I've been drawing inspiration from MacDonald these days, as I adjust to baby-minding and home-making as a full-time enterprise. When laundry starts to seem overwhelmingly onerous, I can at least feel grateful that I don't have to haul the water and stoke the fire in order to wash Eleanor's endless stream of dirty clothes.  At the same time, and this is maybe where the longing for our mythical agrarian past comes in, the sense of purpose and necessity that accompanies the farm chores could actually be comforting.  It's not that laundry is so bad, but it's the doubt about whether you should be doing something more worthwhile, or that justifies your student loans, that can really throw you into crisis. 

The other dark, but not-quite-spoken, undercurrent in the book is the conflict in Betty and Bob's marriage.  She doesn't mention it, but when I looked up some biographical details about her, I wasn't surprised to find out that she left the ranch and her husband soon after the events chronicled in the book.  Her references to him are generally amusing, but also frequently indignant about his lack of attention and ignorance of her needs. 

Perhaps I've painted an unfairly grim picture of the book.  It's fun, it really is.  And if I had to choose a guide to the wilderness, I'd go with Betty MacDonald over Ma Ingalls any day. 



*I'm sure you could do a fascinating analysis of this drive and how it relates to our current political and socioeconomic reality, but for now I'll be content with making some sweeping, completely anecdotal, claims.

Settling In

Wrapping up my first week home with the baby, I'm feeling completely sure about my decision to leave my job, but full of many swirling emotions.  Maybe that's a defining point of motherhood?  The highs!  the lows!  The doldrums!  It seems a rare day when you don't experience a mix of all three.  The highlight of my week?  Probably the twenty minutes I spent lying on the floor, laughing at the fan.  It's a strange, new world, but I think I like it.