Moral Superiority

Sometimes I wonder about the parenting choices we've made, about the burden we've put on ourselves in raising this child. I was reading Julia's blog (just started on the archives) and she was writing about how desperately she needs another child. I am amazed when I hear people talk in such glowing terms about their future children. I really, really wish I had the same feelings.

After I had the Moosh things went downhill pretty fast. Here we'd had this uneventful pregnancy, uneventful birth and a beautiful baby. The truth is that I was completely overwhelmed. The baby was beautiful and perfect, but he cried and cried for 12-15 hours every day for the first 3 months of his life. Then he continued crying, screaming if we left him alone for any length of time until he became mobile (around 7.5 months). I hated myself. I hated my husband. I hated everything during that 8 months or so after the baby was born.

Actually, strangely enough I don't remember actively hating the baby. It wasn't his fault. It was mine. I think the main thing was that I didn't enjoy having him. He seemed to be doing fine, though. Whatever we were doing was working for him. It just took some getting used to.

I had an aquaintence at work who had a baby 4 weeks after I had mine. Of course, we entered a baby competition. Friends, I hate that parent. You know, the one who hears what your child did and then claims that his/hers did it 2 seconds before yours. Here's my confession: I was that parent. For a while, it's the only thing that got me through having a baby. I retrospect I realize how tiresome I must have been, going up to my friend and pumping him for information about his child or his parenting style, only to gloat about how my child/parenting style was so much better in my head. Out of my mouth came these crappy platitudes, "Oh, so-and-so's not crawling yet? Really? Because Moosh was crawling at blah, blah, blah." God, I was such a bitch.

We are committed attachment parents. No crying-it-out, no schedule, we carried him around all the time, we breastfed for 18 months (he weaned himself to the bottle), the baby either slept with me or my husband when I was working nights, and now that I'm on the evening shift, he sleeps with me exclusively. Unlike many who grow to hate the family bed, it has never bothered me. My parents played musical beds with all five of their babies and everyone turned out just fine. I know that one day he'll leave my bed, for his own, just as someday he'll leave my house to live somewhere else. It's all a process. I think the only way we really deviated from attachment parenting "doctrine" was that I did not stay at home. We worked so hard to make that kid happy.

For a while it just didn't work. He was a classic high-needs child and frankly, high-needs children and first time parents do not a happy group make. We were all miserable. I really don't think it had anything to do with our choice of parenting style. That kid would have been unhappy and a bad sleeper no matter what we did. I am convinced that we did the right thing, but everyone I talked to thought the parenting style produced the high-needs baby and they told me so in no uncertain terms.

My workmate who had a baby four weeks after mine hated being a parent, too. After the always rocky newborn time, though, his baby settled down and was acually pretty easy. Considering that our baby screamed constantly and stayed up all night, hearing stories about their baby who went to sleep by himself, woke up maybe once or twice at night, and took good naps made me want to throttle my friend for saying that having a baby is hard. His baby was a sweet, easy baby and it was too much for him and his wife. He talked constantly about their fabulous schedule and how they never had to spend more than three hours with the kid on weekdays (baby was in day care), and I just wanted to shoot him. I think that the culmination of the baby competition thing we had going on was the day he told me that his wife felt sorry for me, that I had such a hard time. I was amazed. I couldn't believe it. Because I felt sorry for them with their baby unfriendly lifestyle (in my personal, warped opinion).

When the Moosh started walking, he had a complete personality makeover. He became happy and balanced. He chattered at us and followed us around like a little puppy dog. I started to enjoy having a kid around. And since I was happier, I stopped needing to put other parents down to make myself feel better about how I was raising my child. Now he and I are inseparable and I love it. I wouldn't trade it for anything. But if someone told me how it was going to be before I had him, I think back on it and realize that I don't know if I could have gone through with the whole pregnancy/birth/newborn thing knowing in advance what it was going to be like.

I just wish that I were enamored with the whole baby making process. I have written about this before, but it's been bothering me, because I can't just get blind and optimistic and know that everything is going to be easy and OK.

Truthfully, my desire to have another child is more for logical reasons. I want the Moosh to have a sibling. I want my husband to have the second child he's always hoped for. I just want this desire to actually become a desire, not just the logical conclusion.

Well this post is long enough. I guess it's time to wrangle with this problem in my head.