Right Mothering

Yesterday, in a posting to the Motherlode, Lisa Belkin expresses astonishment at the parental passing of judgment.

As I wrote in my first post, I do not shy away from judging parenting decisions.  In fact, I am perplexed by the political correctness-inspired moral relativism of so many who write about parenting.  The fact is, some parenting decisions are better than others.  And that not all parents do the right thing as parents.  How can we make such important decisions without judging between alternatives?  The problem rests not in the passing of judgment on parenting decisions, but the guilt of those who knowingly make the lesser decision and who take the proclamations of others in favor of the better decision – or sometimes merely the execution of these decisions – as a personal indictment.

When our daughter first began preschool, my husband and I missed the first parents’ potluck supper, because he did not yet have his driver’s license and I needed to stay home to nurse our daughter before bed.  I explained to a fellow parent that we don’t use babysitters.  I further explained that we both come from families in which babysitters were never employed and that we just weren’t comfortable leaving our daughter with one.  I was simply being honest, but my interlocutor took my explanation as an indictment of her decision to use babysitters, and she proceeded to attempt to shame me into finding one to use that evening.  I know that her aggressive behavior stemmed from her own parenting guilt.

Now, I sometimes have made decisions as a parent that are not the best for my daugther.  Last spring, I taught as a visiting assistant professor at a university in a south Atlantic state.  I came home every other weekend and entrusted the care of our daughter to my mother-in-law.  As I made this decision, I did not delude myself into thinking that it would not have negative consequences for my relationship with my daughter, although God-willing they would be short-term, nor that it wouldn’t have a negative effect on her psyche.  Mothers and fathers had one of two responses – the delusional ’she won’t even notice you are gone’ or the empathetic ‘i can’t imagine…’.  Personally, I resented the former and appreciated the latter.  Those who showed empathy with the difficulty of the situation were those parents who know that some parenting decisions are better than others, and I cherished that moment of empathy.  Many months later, my absence last spring is a distant memory, but I cannot pretend that it hasn’t left some sort of imprint on the psyche of our daughter.

Some parenting decisions are better than others, and we must simply be adult enough to live with our decisions without needing others to lie to us in order to make us feel better about them.

Well, if you knew me, you would know that I never brag.  I believe it tempts fate; plus, I don’t need to.  My daughter is just wonderful, and it is clear to anyone who meets her.  But since you never will (or at least, wouldn’t know it if you did), I will write a few words.

This past month, my husband and I attended our fifth parent teacher conference, and, it is becoming a bit repetitive.  But it feels good to be told how special our daughter is – brilliant, respectful of the teachers, a favorite of the staff and of other children.  This year’s teacher, a mother herself, has great insight.  She began our meeting by describing our daughter’s two defining traits:  her perfectionism and her strong sense of justice.  This meant the world to me, in truth, because those are my defining traits, and I believe them to be my greatest strengths.  But I don’t think that I embodied them when I was only five years old!  So, our daughter excels at school.  She has played the piano for almost two years, and the violin for one and one half.  She takes ballet at the school of the professional ballet company in town.  When she swims every Sunday with her father, she swims laps – backstroke, freestyle, and breaststroke – and can dive into the pool.  She is fluent in three languages – one from me, one from her father, and one from school and her grandmother.  I will write more on all of these things later.  And, as far as I know (and I always ask the teachers in the parent-teacher conferences), she never misbehaves or inflicts any sort of harm on other children.

This is all not to say that parenting her is easy.  At home, she can be a handful.  But at school, she always makes us proud.  Indeed, I know that the efforts we make at home pay off in the world.

My husband is four years younger than I am.  He has an advanced degree from a European university and is a citizen of two European countries.  He cooks most every meal that we eat, including the hot lunch that I bring to work everyday.  He vacuums, does the laundry, and does more than his fair share of taking care of our daughter.  And we adore him.  He is strong and quiet, protective and sensible, affectionate and loyal, and incredibly handsome in the most masculine of ways.  And that is all you need to know… for now.

The sharing of my thoughts and experiences won’t mean much without some context.  I will be personal, while remaining anonymous.  So I begin with something about my background:  I am 33-years old.  I grew up in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, went only to public schools, and then onto the Ivy League, one of the big three.  From there, I went on to another of the big three for a PhD in the humanities.  Just as my dissertation research was getting underway, September 11th happened, throwing everything into doubt.  Why did I deserve this luxury of studying an obscure topic with no immediate relevance when others do the tough stuff of saving lives and fighting wars (and making money for their family and for others)?  Teaching was always the saving grace, but it was so many years off, and now, as I will detail later, is still out of reach.

I went to Europe on a prestigious fellowship funding my dissertation research, and as I had burned out with September 11th, I had fun and I met my husband.  Our connection was immediate.  We had found each other.  We married and started our family.  Our daughter was born in 2003.  Then we moved to the States in 2006.  I finished my dissertation, taught for one year, and now work in my field, but not in a teaching or research position.  As my daughter approached five and I approached my mid-30s, it was my upper limit for baby number two.  So, just before I started my new job, we conceived the baby with which I am now pregnant.  And when the baby comes, I will leave this new job, first to care for the baby and then to return to research and teaching.