I could probably write 17 blog posts in response to the controversial Time magazine article that has been splashed about this week. But I’m not going to focus this one on attachment parenting, or extended breastfeeding, or babywearing. It’s not that I don’t have opinions on these things, but I think that the MOST provocative and emotion-raising part of the whole thing, was the title: “Are you Mom enough?”
I am well aware that moms across the country (world?) wonder if they are doing enough as a mom. They are comparing themselves to their own mothers, grandmothers, neighbors, friends, Carol Brady, and the like. I wonder if my lack of interest in motherhood growing up was somehow a protective buffer, so now that I am experiencing life with Potamus, I wander around intersted in exploring my own version of motherhood, without feeling too crazy in comparing myself to others. Or perhaps I am so exhausted that all I can do is what comes ‘naturally’ or ‘instinctively,’ because anything more than that will take too much work (and thought, since my brain is so full up already).
Now I’m not perfect by any means, and have a whole list of things that I would like to be doing better (like less looking at my phone or watching tv at the end of a long day, when I could be staring into my sweet babe’s eyes), but overall I am not so very concerned with my skills versus my friends/neighbor/CarolBrady’s skills in raising a youngster. What makes me sad is that a headline like that really shakes moms up. And we are too awesome to let that happen.
boof & monk-monk 