A Love Letter to New(er) Moms

This post has been percolating in my crowded brain since, oh, the Triassic Era. The day after Mother's Day seems like an appropriate time to let it out. We'll see whether age has soured or ripened it. Here we go ...

Dear Friend (insert name of expecting, new, or still-adjusting mom):

I think of you so often. Every time I hear of someone who's just given birth, I'm whiplashed back to those early days -- that moment of sheer panic when I looked down at this tiny, swaddled bundle I'd brought home from the hospital (already loving him intensely) and thought, "Dear Lord in heaven. He's here to stay. What am I gonna do???"

Then there were the days and weeks and months of adjusting to my new job as a stay-at-home mom and, four months later, our new home one thousand miles away from any (potentially helpful) family members. Even without those factors, the move from a relatively self-absorbed, independent existence to one that revolved around the big needs of a tiny person would have been fairly cataclysmic.

Sound familiar at all?

Looking back to the earliest years, a few saving graces stand out. I had to learn them the hard way. In fact, the lessons continue. What I want to share with you has nothing to do with how to raise your child -- whether to breastfeed or use the bottle or both, where your baby should sleep, when to start solids, whether to return to paid employment, whatever. It's about you.

First, beware of isolation. Maybe you're accustomed to being among adults all day, and now you're with a baby or child whose conversational skills are limited at best. Maybe your energy has vanished, and getting out to the grocery store seems like a big deal, never mind fixing your hair, finding a clean shirt, and sallying forth in search of company. Maybe you live near relatives who love to lend a helping hand, or you enjoy a church community full of neighboring moms who share your parenting views and life situation. Or maybe not.

And if not, perhaps it's for a reason. With all gentleness and understanding, I advise you to pray for companionship, and then get out there. Do not sit and stare at the walls. Do not let the computer be your sole companion. Do not evaluate a day by how clean your house is. Do not dwell on how shy you are. For example: I'm naturally shy. But guess what? One day at a Gymboree class (where of course, it seemed that everyone knew everyone else except ME), I plopped down in the waiting area beside another mom and said impulsively, "It sure is nice to see another nursing mom."

That mom was Jenny.
Our kids were ten months old.
For the first few months of our friendship, I wasn't even sure she liked me.
Then our two families went camping together. It was basically a friendship-cementing disaster from start to finish.
Then her family moved away.
Then our family moved away.
Almost ten years later, she's still one of my best friends in the whole wide world. (It helps that our oldest kids, those two nursing toddlers of yore, both turned out to be pretty quirky kids -- and soulmates.)

I have no idea whether Gymboree classes made Ian and Claire any more physically adept or will get them into Harvard one day. But they gave me an excellent friend. If Gymboree isn't in your budget right now, try story time at the library, your neighborhood park -- anywhere where other moms congregate and you might find someone who's just as lonely as you. :-) Or, round up the moms from your church, or your La Leche League chapter, or your birthing class ... and start a playgroup. If you build it, they will come. They won't all stay, but the ones who do, the ones you share laughs and fears and hopes and hurt feelings with over feeding and potty training and biting and sleep and preschool and so many world-rocking issues ... you'll never forget them.

When your kids are older, they tend to choose their own friends. While they're tiny, the people you choose to be with are the people they see as family.

Oh, and don't worry if they don't see eye to eye with you on every issue. We learn from each other. Also, don't sweat it if their kids aren't perfect ... or, more likely, if it's yours who don't always behave. Learn mercy and grace. Because the second deadly sin is ...

Watch out for comparison. You can be Mother Teresa herself, but there will ALWAYS be a mom out there who does something better than you. Who feeds her kids more organically. Who stays calmer when all hell breaks loose. Who dresses better. Who keeps a cleaner house. Who disciplines her child more respectfully and effectively. I guarantee it: ALWAYS.

I also guarantee, though, that there's someone else who looks up to you -- or will one day. Who mistakenly believes that you have it all -- or mostly -- together. And, worse, who thinks you're judging HER -- even if you're really, really, not. Because we tend to forget that this journey we're on was never meant to be a competition. If you could use some encouragement now and then -- a hand extended in friendship, a word of praise -- so could she. Can we all just assume that we're doing our best, even if the best looks a little different in each household?

Finally, don't forget to take care of yourself. Do whatever you need to do to stay healthy and happy -- yes, you can do this without sacrificing your attachment with your child. If your energy is low or you struggle with feeling depleted, read Mother Nurture or The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood for excellent self-care strategies. Find a medical professional and/or a hobby, if that helps. You're probably a loving, giving, dedicated mom ... but you are also STILL A PERSON.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Whew. Over and out. Happy Mother's Day!

Tiger Mom and Me

Unless you've been living at the International Space Station for the past two weeks, you've probably heard of Amy Chua and the furor raised by her HIGHLY controversial Wall Street Journal article and subsequent book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

Just the first two paragraphs of her WSJ article may have you convinced that this woman is the Mommie Dearest from hell -- a caricature of the stereotypical pushy Asian parent. Here's an abbreviated list of the many things her teenaged daughters have not been allowed to do: Have playdates. Watch television. Act in school plays. Play any instrument but the violin and piano. NOT play the violin and piano. Etc.

But here's the scary part: she's for real. So is the fact that she once called her daughter "garbage" for speaking disrespectfully to her and threw a homemade birthday card back into the other daughter's face when it didn't meet her standards for effort.

TIME magazine covered the whole fracas  in  this week's cover issue. And here's the deal. First, I COMPLETELY DISAGREE with various details of Amy Chua's approach (if for no other reason than that while they are young, my actions and attitudes reflect and represent God to my kids (eek! scary! I fail!) and last I checked, God doesn't call us garbage). But. In one respect, as the TIME article points out, she's onto something.

Have you read NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children? It's chock full of scientific studies that call into question all kinds of conventional assumptions about the way kids think and operate. And specifically, in one chapter the authors  debunk the whole more-praise-is-better myth that many parents buy into. The TIME article on Chua quotes the same research. Here's the Cliff Notes (TM) version: Slathering praise on your kids for being smart, clever, artistic, etc. can actually do more harm than good. It's way more helpful and effective to comment on their efforts, not their abilities.

It's not just that too much praise creates praise junkies -- kids who are never sure of how they're doing unless an adult compliments it. ("Do you like my drawing, Mom? Do you?" Yeah, I hear that.) It's that kids  who are told they're smart all the time often develop such a paralyzing fear of failure that they simply won't tackle anything too challenging, too fraught with frustration.

I've made this mistake. After we had our oldest child tested, I sometimes thought it might motivate him  to try harder and reach his potential if I let him know about that potential. "You are a bright kid," I'd tell him, alluding to his verbal IQ score. I don't I ever came out and told him he was smarter than other kids. But who knows what leaked out between the lines?

And sure enough, this child is my most frustration-prone. My most unwilling to stick with a difficult task. My most sensitive to perceived failure. Can I take  all the blame for that? No. But my bumbling attempts to beef up his self-esteem may actually have backfired. Perhaps he subconsciously believes that not understanding a tricky math problem or struggling with some memory work undermines his value as a "smart kid."

Since reading Nurture Shock, I've changed a few of the ways I interact with my kids. Most of all, I've made a deliberate effort to praise, or even just remark on, their effort, hard work, and persistence. Especially when they've had to push through a few obstacles to lay hold of success. I'm not going to go all Amy Chua on them -- I'm probably more Siamese cat than Tiger Mom -- but I do want them to reap the sweeter rewards of the higher-hanging fruit.


The TIME article concludes thusly:

Think of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother as a well-timed taunt aimed at our own complacent sense of superiority, our belief that America will always come out on top. That won't be the case unless we make it so. We can get caught up in the provocative details of Chua's book (did she really threaten to burn her daughter's stuffed animals?), or we can use her larger point as an impetus to push ourselves forward, the way our countrymen often have in the past.

Point taken.