Parenting Infants: Feedings, Sleeping, Feelings, and Societal Failings
I write this at nearly 5 am and with nearly no sleep. I can hear my baby crying, screaming, sobbing, wailing, vocalizing in any and all ways he knows how which is paradoxically limited (he’s not yet saying words as we understand them) and limitless (the range to his cries are agonizing). He is perfectly expressing to the outside the heart-grating stomach-wrenching soul-splitting body-squeeze that is on the inside of me in this moment.
I remember years back walking down Valencia Street in San Francisco with a dear friend. We were talking dating and what types of romantic/sexual relationships we did and didn’t desire. We passed a shop window displaying an array of baby stuff. Because I wasn’t yet a mom and hadn’t spent much time (partly by design and partly by circumstance) with infants and toddlers I can’t even tell you what the “baby stuff” was because I didn’t yet have the context to give all that stuff (there’s so much stuff) much meaning. I remember it was very pastel and soft. My friend turned to me and said “I have no desire for any of that” with equal parts humor and horror. I replied, “me either,” trying to convince my nearly mid-thirties single-yet-again self I meant it. Ambivalence is my kryptonite but this wasn’t acute because I was clear I didn’t want a kid on my own and I was very single. Single in that way that felt like facing a chronic disease I wasn’t ready to accept but had lived a long time with and had gotten cozy and familiar with the identity and pain.
Then I met my husband to be. On our first date he let me know he wanted kids. I let him know I wasn’t sure. A lot happened between that first date and the arrival of our little one 9+ month old. Those stories aren’t for here except to say that by the time I got clear I wanted pregnancy and when I was pregnant I wanted to welcome him into the world as right as I could. So I read. Because that’s what I do when I care about something and want to immerse myself in learning about it, I read. But honestly so many of the books about pregnancy, birth, and postpartum felt like putting on a new pair of shoes that you want to see yourself in so convince yourself they fit even though you’re not surprised when reduced to a crippling limp feeling the irritation worsen with every turn of the page. There were a few exceptions, meaning books about pregnancy and early parenthood that felt good and not like something I wanted to try and make fit, but those books were mostly memoir and a lot of the experiences they shared ended-up being different than mine so not terribly instructive. I remember one of the parts of one of those books talked about “the mommy wars.” I disliked the phrase. Still do. And I felt even more disdain for what she was referring to which are those topics (i.e., how a parent feeds and sleeps their baby) that have a lot of debate, conflicting methods and theories, and fuel furnaces of righteousness.
What I want to say as I wait out this last hour of hell (and already I find myself wanting to jump in and defend and explain and assure you of our methods and that our baby is not alone in this moment) is that WE’RE HAVING THE WRONG FUCKING FIGHTS. These “mommy wars” might be happening in that it’s certainly easy to fall into a defensive stance feeling attacked and shamed by a multitude of conflicting theories and cultural forces and @social-media-so-and-so. But it all seems to be missing that we don’t just get to choose “this is how I’m going to mom” (and can we also please stop using mom as a synonym for primary caregiver) because we parent in the current of our lives that is part of a roaring river of history and culture and family and shifting circumstances and interconnection and context.
What my pregnancies (plural, I had a miscarriage before a viable pregnancy) and now 9+ months of parenting has show me is that we, as a society, are failing to prepare parents for how to truly have choices. There’s so much opinion and debate around feeding and sleeping and what I’ve found, first with feeding and now with sleeping, is getting clear about how you want and believe means fuck all if we aren’t supported in the tangible, bodily, and societal ways that are required. And I write this as a white woman in her 40’s who had a baby with less insecurity, and more security (in self, partnership, and finances), than I ever would have imagined possible in my 20’s or early 30’s. I’d like less arguing about best methods and more agreement that it’s not only about getting parents more support around these singular developmental needs and stages (i.e., feeding and sleep) but more so about how do we, collectively, shift culture and lived experiences toward valuing slowing, simplifying, resting, digesting, discerning, regulating, loving-each-other-well so we can love ourselves and our little ones well.
My baby is now rousing and it’s past the 6am mark so I am off to do my ‘dramatic wake-up’ (DWU) and thinking how Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Everybody Knows’ says best this sinking recognition that this failure I’m currently feeling and the impossibility of parenting isn’t really about me or parenting but how we care for (and need to better care for) ourselves and one another realizing that we, it, all, is inextricably connected.
