“I’ll never let my kid do that”
“I’m never going to act that way when I’m a parent”
I can promise you that 100% of parents have heard this at some point, from fellow parents and non-parents alike, and have smiled through their teeth. This is very scientific data (it’s not). You hear it all the time as a parent, and you have to figure out how to nod along instead of saying “THAT’S FUNNY, MARTHA, I DIDN’T KNOW YOUR CHILD WAS EXACTLY THE SAME AS MY CHILD.”
(I don’t know any Martha’s).
I thought about this phrase a lot the other night as I held my teething baby at 1am, his monitor blasted me out of bed after an hour of blissful sleep. I thought about all of those opinions on sleep training, I thought about my own pre-conceived notions of how I would or would not parent. I thought about how wrong I was. I had a 99.99% success rate of being wrong. I have a 100% success rate at using oxymorons.
We did sleep-train Noah with mostly what you would consider the “cry-it-out” method, and I’m actually really happy we did. Some parents are absolutely HORRIFIED with the cry it out method, and some babies just can’t do it. They get so stressed out that it’s not worth it. Some parents say they would NEVER use that method, but after 6 months, 8 months, 24 months, of having a baby attached to your boob or in your bed all night, they say "you will cry in your crib and you will LIKE IT". For all of our sleep training, we would still go through periods where all hell would break loose. My brilliant sister-in-law gave me the brilliant advice (which she may not remember, as she hasn’t slept in 3 years) – “do whatever you need to do to get by”.
I’ve thought a lot about that phrase in the months since it clicked in my mind. The mom you see letting her kid watch Daniel Tiger on her iPhone at the grocery store may not be a horrible mother (“I would NEVER let my kids do that, ugh, so lazy! MILLENIALS!”). She may be having a shitty day, and grocery shopping with young children is actually one of the most unpleasant activities, ever. But maybe she ran out of milk and has nothing to cook for dinner, so she has no choice.
We’re finally to the point with overnight waking that we don’t really have to just survive the night. That was the truth for a long time when I went back to work – we were committed to sleep training but at the same time we still had to go be members of society and drive cars and earn paychecks, so if you just need to hold and rock your baby for 45 minutes at 3am so you can all go back to sleep, you just do it. And then you mentally punch the person that says “well, don’t do that too much because you’ll form bad habits. I never let my kids do that”. Okay, Martha.
I sat there and rocked my sweet Noah-boy at 1am, he was content with some Tylenol and a little bit extra milk. I was tired and felt like crap, but there we were. We rocked and rocked, both looking up at the stars a little plastic turtle projects onto the ceiling – blue, green, amber, blue, green, amber, there’s the big dipper, that’s Orion’s belt… he was so relaxed that I checked to see if he was asleep. He wasn’t. I asked him the same question I do every time I put him to bed, “Are you ready to go to your crib?” Every night I ask this and every night he taps his chest, his way of baby-signing “please”. Tonight, he shook his head no. I told him okay, we can rock some more. 10 minutes went by, he pointed to the fan in his room (he’s been fascinated with fans for months). “No, Noah, it’s not time to play with the fan”. He pointed to his door. “No, Noah, it’s not time to play downstairs.” Rocking, rocking, rocking. “Are you ready to go to your crib?”. No.
I faced a fork in the road, I could plop him in his crib and let him whine a bit (or have a meltdown, or just conk out, who knows), or I could keep rocking him. I chose to respect his decision because in that moment I realized that Noah is truly his own person. He has always been independent, stubborn, sweet, hilarious, a general whirlwind, and he has a big personality. Something about that moment, though, made me realize that he has a say in his own life even if he’s only 15 months old. Maybe not all the time, maybe not for everything, but he has to have some control over his life. I let his decision stand. Five minutes later I asked him again if he was ready to go to his crib, he tapped his chest (“please”), I put him down, and there was not a peep for the rest of the night.
Before you (I mean “you” rhetorically) tell a parent how to parent, how to not parent, what you would do as a parent, etc., consider that maybe those 50 minutes at 3am are 50 minutes that a working mom didn't get to hold her child during the day. That sometimes what on the surface looks like a lazy parenting decision (Moana AGAIN?) is just a way to keep your sanity together at that moment. That children, babies, toddlers, whatever, may not have rational minds all the time but they are human beings with thoughts and emotions, and treating them like little robots that have to follow a rigid set of rules isn’t always best. Rules are good, don’t get me wrong, but why can’t a child have a say when the situation allows?
Consider how often you’ll look back at your past self and say “wow I had no fucking clue what I was thinking”, I do it at LEAST once a week. Consider that you will find yourself in situations, reacting in ways you never imagined your cool-calm-collected-adult-self would. Consider seeing children as people – yes, little people that needs lots of guidance and for some ungodly reason react in ridiculous ways that no one can explain, but people nonetheless. Little people that may just need an extra 15 minutes being held. Can you imagine waking up overnight with a sore mouth and your loved one saying “well TOO BAD, sucker”. Can you imagine being so DEVASTATED over something that you absolutely must throw yourself on the floor in Target and scream bloody murder because it’s one of the only ways you know how to communicate, and your loved one scolding you and yelling even louder at you? You may not feel the crushing heartbreak over someone telling you that you can’t open the applesauce and dump it everywhere, but little people aren’t yet equipped to realize that not being able to dump applesauce on the floor in Target isn’t the end of the world. Side note: if someone gives you a dirty look because you don’t drag your screaming child out of the store immediately and instead try to react in a calm way, you can tell them to shove your heads up their own asses, with a smile. Just saying.
//
This thought process has come to me most clearly in parenthood, but I think it can be applied universally. What if we saw people as people, while still acknowledging our differences? What if we consider the human element of each person? What if pushed ourselves to practice empathy, even in situations when it was hard to? Practice being the important word – humans are judgmental by nature, we seek to define and categorize people and situations so that we can build context and build appropriate feelings and reactions. What if we chose to acknowledge our bias, why we have it, and practice empathy around it? What if we truly saw all people as humans, whether they are big, little, white, brown, native, immigrants, some identity within LGBTQ+, northern, southern, religious, spiritual, agnostic, loud, quiet, the list goes on? And what if we just prescribed to the thought that we can empathize with humans as they are, and not calling that “some stupid bleeding-heart-liberal thing”?
I write this with the full acknowledgement that I have to practice this myself, I try to practice it daily and forgive myself when I fail. I remember that I, too, said “I’ll never let Noah do that” before he was even born, and that I’m often wrong. My favorite question that Oprah asked so many of her guests is “What do you know for sure?”. I know for sure that if we come at situations with true practiced empathy and respect, we take time to think critically and acknowledge our biases, that we can better ourselves and those around us. I know for sure that it is important to give my little Noah respect as an individual, even if he is only 15 months old and still needs schedules, rules, and reason. I know that I can practice that respect and empathy with everyone in my life, and I know that practice is important.
//
End existential rant. See what things come to your mind in a sleep deprived state at 1am?
