Less Thinking, More Drinking
Published in The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/jun/04/drinking-thinking-parenting-old-fashioned
I’ve just survived my first year of motherhood. And I love it, it’s the best thing ever, life has so much more meaning, etc. But let’s get to the harder stuff: nothing could have prepared me for the relentlessness of being so needed, for the immeasurable weight of being so crucial to the very survival of a helpless human being. Sleepless nights, hectic days, and this weird stickiness that just ends up on everything.
Despite being madly in love with my baby daughter, sometimes I couldn’t help but feel like a hostage. When other parents say “I can’t remember life without ‘em!” I think they must have concussion. Really? You can’t remember carefree nights out and actually needing an alarm to get up in the morning? Freely using the toilet because you haven’t got a sleeping infant slung across your body? Not smelling of vomit? In my darkest moments it felt the only difference between motherhood and Stockholm Syndrome was the size of the captor.
Scientists are still uncertain why some women suffer from postnatal depressionbut others don’t. As a former psychotherapist I’d worked with women with the illness, but in the throes of new motherhood I found myself befuddled by the diagnostic criteria. Especially at 3am, when I’d torture myself by repeatedly reading the symptoms: crying spells (cue sobbing), insomnia (I’m awake RIGHT NOW!), depressed mood (well yes, now you mention it), fatigue (you effing kidding me?), anxiety (ibid), and poor concentration (I just re-read that six times!?). Are there any new mothers not feeling those things? I felt both alone and in the secret company of millions.
A year under my (now larger) belt, and I’m finally getting a grip. But a question keeps irking me: how the hell did my mother do this three times? My grandmother, four? My aunt, six? Were they masochists? Or just made of tougher stuff than I? When I finally asked her, my mother’s response was: “we just didn’t think about stuff as much. Also we did whatever the doctor said.”
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It made me realise the source of my stress wasn’t the job of parenting, per se. It was the immense fear that I was going to apocalyptically mess it up. Alas, little comfort in simply identifying the problem, because studies show that a parent’s ability to manage stress is the second greatest predictor of a child’s well-being, just behind love and affection. So hey, don’t stress.
As for medical advice, officially our GP is a greying man who’s worked at the same surgery since 1897. But off the record? It’s the mercurial Dr Google. (Less doctor, more engine). A 24-hour service offering instant, free, and wholly conflicting advice, along with disturbing photos. It’s Dr Google who guided me in those early months, who told me just how worried I should be about leaving the baby to cry, about cautiously responding to a fever, and whether that wine I dared to sip with dinner would would leak into my breastmilk and make my child a violent psychopath later in life. It’s amazing how much time you have on your hands to research when you have no time left for yourself.
I’m usually the first to eschew suggestions of reverting to “the old ways” because too many people who pine for the good ole’ days are a mint julep away from a racist remark and/or a jolly slap on a waitress’s bottom. But learning that so many other modern parents feel similar anxiety, I can’t help but think there’s a case for some retro solutions. Let’s call it the three steps to throwback parenting:
1. Less Thinkin’, More Drinkin’
I’m not really advocating that what modern parents need is more alcohol. Yeah, no, but maybe some of us do. One of my fondest memories is my grandmother giving me the gin-soaked olives from her martinis. Mmm, the briney taste of childhood! I now realise she was drinking in the middle of the day. While she waslooking after me. The neurotic modern parent cries shame on you, Grandma! The throwback parent says well done giving yourself (and me) a little treat. Compared to early days where I haven’t even had a sip of water because THE BABY NEEDS ME, and well, there’s something to be said for balance. I’m not minimising the very real effects of alcohol abuse in families. But you know what Grandma wasn’t worrying about while she mixed a cocktail? Gina Ford v Dr Sears. Cheers.
2. A Bit of Dirt Don’t Hurt
I’ve never been afraid of germs, but having a newborn suddenly made everything feel like a giant petri dish. I remember strolling through the park and watching horrified as a grimy toddler hovered over my precious infant and coughed. I grumbled “hi there” but in my head gave him a swift sidekick across the park, because he was giving my daughter tuberculosis. My mother was also surprised to learn that we bathe the baby so much. “It’s her routine!” I cried. Yet it’s been established that raising baby in too clean an environment robs her of the chance to develop crucial immunity. I already hate cleaning, so this is welcome guidance. Besides, chasing after my tired, waterlogged pre-toddler every night after her bath, wrangling her into a SIDS-reducing sleeping bag and then steaming the floors isn’t nearly as fun as just letting her chew on the toilet roll. Good unclean fun.
3. The Internet Doesn’t Exist
It’s impossible not to look back over my year and imagine doing it all again without being so hard on myself. Some of that is just my nature, some of it is perhaps grounded in a real pressure on modern parents, especially women, to do things perfectly. But what if I had resisted the urge to trawl the internet for studies on all the ways my baby’s skull could fuse incorrectly? (I confess I actually woke my husband up to show him an aerial photo I’d taken of the baby’s head). I suppose that’s one reason people double down and have a second child: the chance to do it again without the neurosis.
I also wonder if whomever coined the term “helicopter parent” wasn’t just an observer, but like me, caught themself drowning in every parenting guide printed since the industrial revolution before realising the real pitfall for the well-meaning, caring parent is hovering. My mother assumed everything would work out OK, and just got on with it, whereas I find myself constantly trying to avoid the worst imagined outcome.
Would previous generations have been as trusting if they’d had the internet? Who knows. What I do know is that if we are driven by a fear of failure, and by fear, period, we risk denying kids the chance to learn how to cope themselves. And here I used to make fun of parents like me. Ah, karma.
So, as I gear up for the second year, I am determined to relax more. To enjoy the ride. To trust that the outcome will be fine if I stop trying to anticipate every possible way I could mess it up. I think I’m getting there. Also I hear toddlers are super easy.
Taylor Glenn is an American comedian, writer and former psychotherapist based in London. She sometimes tweets stuff via @taylorglennUK
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