The Grand Pitfalls of Parenting: Heatstroke, Know-It-Alls, and Perfection

We all have those moments; those moments when we have done something regrettable. Sometimes we do not realize it right away and sometimes it is an instantaneous “Oh, crap!” – but we all have those moments.

Parenting, I have come to realize, has more of those moments than I would like to admit.

I cannot claim to be a parenting expert, but I am a parent and I like to think that I have slightly above average observational skills. I do not like messing up. I do not like failing – especially when it comes to my babies. I imagine that most parents feel the same. In my experience these are the three biggest mistakes I have ever made:

Failing to take care of myself. When my oldest was an infant I was so caught up in meeting his needs that I completely forgot my own. I pushed off sleep, ate when I remembered, and drank if my husband happened to press a glass of water into my hand. When my baby was seven weeks old it caught up to me: dehydration and severe heat exhaustion is killer. For over 24 hours I could not hold my baby or feed him. I was so sick that I could not care for him in anyway. This experience changed my formerly easy going baby to a neurotic, anxious mess that I could not put down for more than 15 minutes without extreme panic ensuing. Even now, as an outgoing toddler he still has problems letting me out of his sight for more than a few minutes.

An extreme example, but it reminded me of something that I have heard others say that I never paid attention to: you can’t adequately care for others if you don’t take care of yourself. So, my number one rule of good parenting: make sure that you regularly eat, sleep, stay hydrated, get exercise, and have an hour or two or downtime at some point during the day. If you start unraveling because of inadequate care, then everything else is going to fall apart.

Listening to books instead of my baby. You know how teenagers know everything? New parents are like that, I think. We read books and websites and go to D-Day convinced that we know all the basics, and then someone hands us a baby and suddenly all of our knowledge goes to Hades in hand basket. Before my oldest was born I read all those parenting books, and I did all those “guaranteed to work” things. Let me tell you: they didn’t work. So instead, after days of crying, no sleep, and frustration I started listening to my baby instead. I fed him when he was hungry. I let him sleep when he wanted and where he wanted – even if it meant curling up on the couch with a book for several hours. And you know what? I didn’t ruin my baby. Instead, peace returned to our house. The crying stopped. Everyone slept. It was beautiful.

Being too busy. We all have hobbies. We all have things to do, places to go, and people to visit. Once you have a baby though, you realize something: babies suck all of the time out of a day. Twenty-four hours gone faster than you can blink. When you first bring your baby home you have all these ambitions of being “Super Mom” or “Super Dad” – those parents that have well behaved, well dressed, smart children, full time careers, a nice house, and plenty of time to go on fantastic vacations and participate in all of the fun, silly, and mind provoking hobbies you can think of. It is a nice dream isn’t it? The truth is that you will run yourself ragged trying to get it all done. Some days you might even get it all done, but then, when you look back at the hours, you will realize that you didn’t actually spend any time with your kids; that you did not have a chance to enjoy them.

I remember, vividly, the day I realized that I was missing precious moments that could be spent enjoying time with my children. I was running around, checking things off of my to-do list when my oldest spilled a container holding ten pounds of flour all over the kitchen floor. I was furious. How dare he take away from what I was doing? How dare he make a mess – especially when the day was running so smoothly and everything was getting done? I opened my mouth to scold him and stopped. He was laughing and drawing in the flour with his finger tips. He looked up at me, eyes so bright and excited and showed me his pictures with an excited “Mama! Mama!”

His little voice touched something in me. He reminded me of exactly what I was: his mama, his whole world – and here I was not paying attention to him, not celebrating his triumphs or explaining his world to him. I put away my list and sat down on the floor, and together we played in the spilled flour for hours.

My biggest regret, every day, are the moments I spent doing something I thought I should be doing instead of doing what I really needed to be doing: interacting, loving, and simply being a mother.


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