If this
post sounds like a rant, then maybe it is. I recently had a bad day with the
baby. She was crying and fussy all day and nothing I did helped. Most people
would say it’s just one of those days and it comes with the territory. But thinking
that really does not help the feelings of despair and frustration when you are
going through it at the time. Add being confined indoors during the dark winter
while nursing a cold and maybe you too would feel close to loosing it. In my
frustration I posted a status update on Facebook saying “Danielle is wondering
where all those friends, relatives, family members and in-laws are, who kept
pestering me about when I would have children, when the child is fussy all day
and doesn't want to be left alone for a minute?” Two of the responses I got was
“fussiness is part of the package” and “chill…and enjoy it”. Arghhhhhh! This
annoyed me to no end.
It seems society
believes that if you are a mother it is forbidden to complain. If you are a mother
you should always be happy and enjoy motherhood. If you do not, you are a bad mother.
Are these people serious? Does everyone always love and enjoy every moment of
their marriage even though they love their partner? Do people always love and
enjoy every moment of their years of studies even if they loved the subject? It
is not humanly possible to enjoy something every second even when it is
difficult. And the last thing I need is to be told I should be enjoying my
fussy baby. What I need at such times is some sympathy and commiseration.
Before I had
Emilia I was always annoyed by the questions: “when are you going to have
children?” and “why don’t you have children?” Is not just so yuh does have
children and bam dey grow up! It takes time, work, patience and love. You need
to show love and patience even when the child is fussy, even when the child is
misbehaving, even when he or she is rebelling. So I had to think long and hard
about the decision to have children especially since, unlike those friends and
relatives who were always bugging me, my husband and I do not have any family
living near by. Unlike my friends I can’t call and say “Mom/sis/ mother-in-law
the child is driving me crazy and I need help. Can you come over right away?” Where
are those people now when I am going through the daily grind? Are they here to
help sooth the crying baby? Are they here to nurse her when she is sick and
give me a break? No! So people should just mind their business and leave people
to get on with theirs. What people should also consider is what if I was barren?
How would those persistent questions have made me feel? How much despair and
anguish would they have caused by their seemingly innocuous question?
Now in spite of
all my doubts and fears I decided to take the plunge anyway because I wanted to
have a child more than not. And I recognized that it will be hard and that I
will have to deal with it. I realized I will have to deal with being home all
day everyday, alone in the dark with a screaming baby. And I resolved to deal
with it, and for the most part, I am. But don’t make me feel guilty and
inadequate if I complain. I believe I am better off complaining than keeping it
inside. Keeping things inside and feeling that I have to be the perfect mother
would probably lead me to develop post-natal depression. Or like a friend said to
me on Facebook I would probably start taking antidepressants or drinking like
those perfect looking wives and mothers of the 1950’s. We need to recognize
that mothers need sympathy and help, not criticism and judgement.
While we are on
the subject of criticism and judgement, why is it that those most critical and judgmental are always other mothers? If you look up any online blog or discussion
forum there are lots of mothers criticizing others for going back out to work
too early or going back out to work at all. Or they are criticizing others for
not breastfeeding. Do we know that mother’s circumstances and the reasons she
has for going back to work or not breast feeding? Sure in theory it is probably
best to stay at home until your child is school age but what if the family
needs the money? Studies show that children growing up in poor households are
at a great developmental disadvantage. Poverty is in fact worse for a child
than being put into day-care. Or maybe that mother is going stark staring mad
being at home instead of in the workplace doing something mentally stimulating
and challenging. And we don’t need any studies to tell us that a child would be
better off with a sane mother who works than a depressed, mentally unstable
mother who stays at home. Is this mother a bad person because she prefers or
needs to have a life outside of the home? I think not. I have a friend who
thinks that mothers who like and want to stay at home and be a house wife are
backward and old fashioned and I strongly disagree with that viewpoint also.
Everyone is different and has different needs.
The breastfeeding
issue however, is probably the most contentious issue out there. If you don’t
breastfeed you are made to feel like a bad mother who does not care about the
health of her child because “breast milk is the best milk”. After reading about
all the benefits of breast milk I believe most mothers in Finland, Trinidad and the USA (I can’t talk for other nations I haven’t lived in) want
to breastfeed. If they don’t they probably have a good reason for not doing so and
one should not assume they just don’t want to.
FYI, there are
various reasons why breastfeeding (though “natural”) does not always work. One
problem is that breastfeeding does not necessarily come naturally.
Breastfeeding is actually a skill which a new mother and baby need to be taught.
Without the correct instruction it could all go very wrong and you may end up
with a baby who is not getting any milk out of the breast. Some babies may
never learn how to “latch on” properly and in one case I know the suction power
of the baby was so weak that although the latch was correct she just did not
suck hard enough to get enough milk. Also, sometimes it can take a long time
for the milk to “come in”. In the mean time the child may be supplemented with
the bottle and later not want the breast. Or in a few cases the mother just
does not produce enough milk. So you see, the natural method of breastfeeding,
does not come naturally. Sometimes it takes a lot of work, frustration and
stress for it to work. And in spite of all this it still may not work.
Having said all
that, I will now go on record and tell everyone that I do not breastfeed my
baby. I tried and it did not work because of insufficient instruction, leading
to improper latching on and therefore, supplementation with bottles which lead
to rejection of the breast. I also had a problem with my milk production due to
all the stress and lack of sleep. In spite of the help of a friend who is a
midwife and two lactation consultants I had very little success. The feeling of
failure and inadequacy as a mother were tremendous. And having everyone ask all the time, "Are you breast feeding?" and then proceeding to give me advice on breastfeeding, only served to make me feel worse.
At the end of two
weeks of trying to produce milk and breastfeed, my husband advised me to stop,
because I was too stressed and in his opinion becoming depressed. Two days
later I took his advice and decided not to force my screaming baby to my empty breast
anymore. That day I felt so much better and my milk “came in”. I started to
enjoy motherhood because I was able to get some sleep and have time to take
care of my baby since I was not trying to pump every two hours in order to get
my milk going. I realized my husband was right. Deciding to give up on the
breast feeding and giving her formula was healthier for my child than having a
stressed out mother who had no time to spend nurturing her. A renowned Finnish
professor and paediatrician at the Children’s hospital in Helsinki said in an article, that in developed countries such
as Finland with a clean water supply and well regulated food
safety, formula is almost the same as breast milk. Unlike formula in the 1970’s,
the formulas on the market today have been specially formulated to closely
mimic breast milk. They are based on thorough research and analysis of the
composition of breast milk.
In spite of this I
still felt it was in my child’s best interest to receive some of the
antimicrobial properties of breast milk and so I pumped breast milk for
twenty-five minutes, four to six times a day, everyday for three months. I stopped
after three months because it was becoming difficult to find the time to pump
while trying to care for an increasingly active and social baby. My
mother-in-law does not understand why I have stopped pumping breast milk for her
grandchild and still mentions it. Every time Emilia gets sick she says it is
because she is not being breastfed. These comments used to make me feel sad,
inadequate and a failure and I would become really angry. But I am finally learning
not to let other people’s opinions and advice, on how we should live our life
and care for our child, bother me anymore. I can never be a perfect parent so
as I saw written somewhere all I can do is try to be a “good enough” parent.
