Will the most perfect mother please step forward?

[mwana_isimu]

Someone posted today on attachedparents about how horrible somebody else was because they would occasionally let their baby cry alone for a few minutes. There was no mention of context. I am against letting babies cry by themselves as a general rule, but there are occasionally times when it's safer for the baby if the mother or father sets them down in a safe

Comments

[saxface]

Perfect mother here!

Just kidding. Of course you're right. There were times that I had to step away from my crying child because the rage burned inside me so brightly that I would have strangled her instead. I think people really live in a fantasy world or else are thoroughly blessed with calm children and just don't ever see the other side.

[mwana_isimu]

My Paul is pretty calm, and even so, there were a few times I lost it and needed to set him down for a couple minutes.

[melinika]

I'm sick of that sort of crap; it's why I don't participate in any bf'ing/parenting communities anymore. It's unrealistic and guilt-serving. I'm a huge bf'ing advocate and I give advice out all the time, and I have to explain so often that I'm not judging people in different situations than mine where it may not be working as well for whatever reason because they are so used to reading these extreme judgmental POVs.

Not only are none of us perfect but we all have different personalities and styles and our kids have different personalities/challenges as well. Give the "never let the baby cry alone, you horrible person" admonishment to the parent of a colicky baby and see how well it goes over, eh? Hah.

[mwana_isimu]

I know exactly what you're talking about. They give the rest of us supportive breastfeeding, AP-type parents a bad name. It continues on as the kids get older, too. I know so many homeschoolers who try to talk the talk, but they really don't respect people who send their children to school for (part of) their education.

[gardenmama]

I think the best piece of parenting advice I ever heard was "sometimes it's ok to step away from your crying baby and take a few minutes to calm yourself down." I had to do that a few times with Scott, but it wasn't until I had a colicky baby (Nick) that I actually could understand how someone could shake a baby. Not that I was tempted to, but I could understand it. Somewhere about that third hour of straight crying...

[mwana_isimu]

I was fortunate never to have a colicky baby, but Marc's sleep problems wore on my extremely heavily that entire first year. When I couldn't get him to go to sleep and I *desperately* needed to sleep, I was at my wit's end.

[mwana_isimu]

if they can convince themselves that there is a right or wrong way to do everything with their child.

As long as *their* way is the right way and everybody else's way is the *wrong* one!

[rebeccapaul]

My (charitable) reading of that post was that the person being quoted seemed awfully flippant about leaving the baby to cry -- seeing it as the next logical step in a sequence, instead of a last-ditch thing when the parent was about to lose it.

(For my part, I don't think I have left Jonah to cry more than once. But he is usually easy to soothe (other than this new tantrum thing) and I am also pretty mellow. Also, I have handed him off to other people when he was crying, and I couldn't take it. Is that close enough to perfect?)

[mwana_isimu]

I guess it was more the comments it got that ticked me off. It's not just this one post, honestly. It's this ongoing tendency to not be understanding of parents dealing with bad circumstances the best way they can. That's one reason I quit the breastfeeding community, which has a fair amount of overlap with attachedparents. (That and the fact that I got an average of 15 posts a day just from that one community.) People just get so self-righteous about breastfeeding and parenting. I had *huge* problems getting started with *both* my kids, and I can totally see why so many mothers give up. Other mothers have similar experiences, but what they learn from them is, "Well, *I* did it, so if *she* doesn't stick with it, she loves her baby less" or something. There are some people who have a very hard time having compassion for others, which I think is ironic, since I'm sure that is a value that they want to be teaching their children. It's like they can be compassionate in every other context than parenting. I don't get it