I’m Sick Of People Telling Me To Stop Caring So Much About My Baby

Please Just STFU And Let Me Do The Job Nature Hired Me To Do

I read a lot of parenting stories because I write about parenting and I have a parenting blog and I’m curious to see what people are writing about. Are their stories better than mine? More interesting? Who wins, though?

In recent parenting news headlines, “Free-range parenting” is the hot buzzword after Utah passed a law allowing parents to let their young children play unattended in parks and walk home from school.

Three years ago, Danielle Meitiv was charged with child neglect after her then 6 and 10 year old kids walked home from a park alone, and the concept and national discussion of free-range parenting was born. The idea behind it is basically that parents can and maybe should lengthen the leash a little bit and helicopter momming is “out”.

Many people both child-ful and childless chimed in to say whether they agreed or disagreed with her parenting choices. Being a mom is hard TM. That’s my blog’s unofficial motto and my life’s newish unofficial mantra. And honestly I don’t have much of an opinion about her decision, except that it was surely unfortunate that their family had to go through being in the national spotlight over what was a minor, not ultimately tragic ordeal that was undoubtedly stressful on all involved.

But I do have an opinion on people telling me and other moms how to do their job and it’s just, like, a real simple, please f — k off.

Nature chose me to care for my child. He was put into my body and my capable, though not always perfect hands. I spend nearly 24 hours a day with him. Even when he is sleeping, I’m on the clock. I know when he is comfortable, that he prefers to sleep without blankets, how he moves in his sleep, how loud I can be without waking him up. You might say I know him better than I know anyone in the world. That’s the kind of closeness a mom develops with her child/ren, and maybe vice versa, from being in such close proximity for so long, for so many years. And it doesn’t end there.

I know he likes his eggs scrambled soft without crusties on them and is more likely to eat them if there is cheese involved. I know what scares him, what excites him, how he will react to most things, how to coerce him into cooperating, how to immediately piss him off. We have a lot in common, my son and me, because at only a year and change of knowing me, he is already on top of how to pull my strings, too.

Does anyone else out there know him like I do? Do the people who write the articles about how I shouldn’t be so “all over him” or “helicoptering” or “watching so closely” know that if my eyes aren’t on him, he will try to climb onto and stand up on the table or jump out a window or run into the street? Do they know that he is almost fearless and is a tiny Evel Knievel who would fly over burning obstacles if they happened to be nearby? That when we go outside or to a park, he immediately runs in the opposite direction of me and to the highest, tallest, most dangerous thing? That when we enter any room, he becomes psychic and heads straight to where the scissors, knives, glass items and things of delicate value lie? Do they know any of this? Do the people who preach sleep training to all kids know that in the night when I leave my son alone in the dark of his bedroom he screams with terror until he throws up? That be becomes hysterical and frightened? These parents, doctors, strangers advise I let him lie in his own vomit, crying, fearful and alone. They can seriously go f — k thrmselves like, all over the place. I can’t do that. I can’t turn my head and say, “He’ll grow out of it” and “It’s fine”, and “I’m doing what needs to be done”. I won’t do that. I don’t think that sleeping in vomit is the only way to teach him how to sleep. In fact, sleeping in vomit sucks. Many of us have experienced what a drag it is, but as much older people. We called it “college”.

I can relate to my son, which is a reason I won’t abandon him in the night, or in the daytime, to just fumble through life and figure it out on his own, until I am confident that he is ready, and that day will come. I was a hysterical, sensitive, scared child, too, once.

I remember scenes in bits and flashes, driving through the fallout of 1980s NYC in the family car on our way to visit family and being horrified with fear at bombed out, flaming cars and rows of buildings in the Bronx with fake windows in them. I remember seeing fights between my family members that got ugly, with screaming and fisticuffs. The chaos I lived in at that time terrorized me and gave me nightmares. I remember my trusted family caregivers forcing me to do things that scared me, pushing me into the dark, leaving me alone, closing the door, making me stay in the car by myself, things that maybe wouldn’t be that upsetting under normal circumstances, but if you pile them all together and keep ignoring the fears and uncertainty of a pleading child lead to an utter lack of confidence that takes a lifetime to repair. I would know. I’m still battling with confidence issues to this day.

Stand up actually fixed me in some ways. It taught me to have more confidence, to totally lose the fear of standing in front of people and talking, to have faith in my voice and my words, to control people’s laughter at times (that’s just a fun side bonus, really), to talk to anyone anywhere, to hold my head up high and look people in the eye. But that’s a story for another time.

The story here is, I know what my baby needs, because I know him. Because he’s made of me. It bothers me to continuously read stories by so-called professionals that say that what I’m doing or what those other moms are doing is wrong or off or lacking in some way. Maybe these professionals should choose one family to profile for 3–6 months and then write the story catered specifically to their lives instead of generalizing. Each family and person is too unique for a loose round up of how to parent to be beneficial.

I’m so glad that I have the patience to give my son the love and attention that he needs and clearly craves. Do I baby him? Well, he’s a baby. Sure, at times, I do. When he is fearful, I pick him up and comfort him. But I also push him outside of his comfort zone often. I take many, all the opportunities I can find to expose him to new places and people. I have made it my job to place us both into a variety of comfortable and at times uncomfortable situations and work to navigate them together.

I feel like every day I have to wake up and remind myself, “I’m a great mother and I’m doing a great job”, because there is so much uncertainty around caring for a little one or ones. Much of it seems to be luck and finger crossing and I can only hope I’m doing what I should be doing. Other times, I can see a happy, healthy boy and I feel that we are headed together in the right direction together, and it’s relieving and comforting.

I don’t want him to look back on his childhood and feel that I did too much of this or too little of that, though there is no way I can guarantee that will be the case. All I can do is keep moving ahead with my heart, mind and conscience as my guides and beacons, the people I trust as my mentors and keep my blinders on to anyone who might try to distract me from caring for my baby the best way I can. I’m a warrior and that is why nature herself hand-picked me out of all other people to do this very specific job — to raise my son. I have no one to answer to and no one to accept criticism from but the universal forces at work, and I accept this responsibility with so much enthusiasm and care it’s literally oozing out of my fingertips and into the permanent fabric of the internet. So thanks for reading it, and for doing your personal best, too. You are ever capable. Nature said so.