By Beck
My husband and I frequently sit around and pick on cartoon character’s parents. Not the parents on cartoons for older kids, because they are uniformly buffoonish and dangerously negligent, but the parents on shows for LITTLE kids. Arthur Read’s parents, for example: they stink. Both work from home and yet Arthur runs around his town completely unsupervised, takes the city bus by himself, and never has any parental help dealing with that monstrous brat, DW. Obviously stretched beyond their limits, the Read’s depend upon Arthur to be more mature than an eight year old can actually be, ignoring the obvious warning signs – the friendship with unstable overeater Buster, for example – that all is not well with him.
You know, Arthur? The fictional aadvark?
Of Max and Ruby’s abstentee parents (“Whoever they might be,” my husband just said, darkly.), much has been said. I think their mother is actually home, passed out drunk upstairs, while poor little Ruby bravely tries to mother Max in the absense of her actual mother, her grandmother not willing to intervene. And how about the parents on Dragon Tales, so distant from their children that they are utterly unaware of their children’s dangerous new acquintances and adventures? Or Dora the Explorer’s shockingly negligent parents, who let their wee daughter cross snake-filled lakes and lava-filled volcanoes with only a possibly diseased monkey for a companion?
Tsk, tsk.
I also know lots of rather terrible real life parents, too.
I’ve read a lot of things recently in the rather huggy mommysphere about how we shouldn’t judge other parents because everyone is doing their best. We all know this isn’t anywhere near true, though, don’t we? I collapse utterly exhausted into bed every night with the grim knowledge that I rarely do anywhere even NEAR my best as a mother, the same exhaustion that Arthur Read’s worn out mother feels, although she has the consolation of being completely imaginary and all of her mistakes are fixable, are of no consequence. Her children will always be the same age, forever.
Beck also blogs at Frog And Toad Are Still Friends.
look! i’m reading a blog! did you miss me? we;ll i’ll probably disappear again soon but in the fall i’ll be back to regular reading. . .
oh, my actual comment: caliou also has crappy parents who let that little piss ant cry and whine AL THE TIME.
and you know that i don’t buy into this whole “you’re ok i’m ok” parenting attitude. some parents are doing some horrible things, but we often want to turn a blind eye and not criticize for fear of being too judgmental. sometimes we just have to speak up and let our opinions be heard.
Oh, Beck, I knew I loved you. 🙂
I also loved this:
“And when I feel MOM GUILT, I have EARNED it, and a good friend would not talk me out of it.”
Yes, I just left a lengthy comment at Veronica’s and I actually wrote a very similar sentence – but I think I ended up editing that particular one. I was going off on too many tangents, posting in the comment section again. 🙂
It’s all part of Oprah-itis. See what happens when you so much as mention “right” and “wrong?”
“Hell hath no fury…” and all that.
GREAT post, migraine and all. 🙂
The idea of “Mommy guilt” has always struck me as a concept that tries too hard.
If you have true guilt, deal with it. If you are suffering from a false guilt, get over it.
I truly don’t get all the hand-wringing.
Becoming a grandma raises these questions all over again. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home full-time when my 4 daughters were young. My oldest daughter Anne has a 15-month-old toddler son; I take care of him three days a week while she works. My second daughter is expecting a daughter at the end of the month and plans to go back to work full-time, putting the baby in daycare. My third daughter is expecting a girl in December, fortunately she has flexible work options. Even though I bite my tongue constantly, all three accuse me of being judgmental. The other two are in Boston; Anne lives in Manhattan, a 40-minute commute from my home in Boston.
I worry that I will be perceived as favoring the grandchild I see so much more often. I need a new external hard drive if I take as many pictures of the girls as of Michael. And can I have 3 separate grandkid blogs?
Anne wasn’t willing to listen to me on childbirth options, didn’t want me there when she was in labor because she and her husband wanted to do it themselves. She wound up with a C-section that she now thinks was unnecessary and wants me to be there next time. When Anne was born, I didn’t want my mom to take off from work because my husband and I wanted our privacy. For the other 3, I planned my pregnancies around my mom’s schedule.
I was lucky enough to have 4 drug-free births, including two at home, so I understand that my daughters might feel threatened by my advice, feel I had it too easy so what do I know. My years as a childbirth educator and breastfeeding counselor also contribute to my being perceived as judgmental.
Being the babysitter who makes it possible for her to work as well as Anne’s mother is potentially a quagmire. Anne and I have navigated the challenges reasonably well, considering she is the daughter with whom I have the most turbulent relationship. Fortunately, she is more forgiving of herself than I was of myself. But sometimes I worry that she is too casual, then berate myself for judging my daughter. I am a worrier; she like my mom is not.
My mom died 4 years ago. About five times a day I wish I could call her up for grandmothering advice from the one person who knew me and Anne equally well. When I frequently called my mom in tears over my latest struggle with Anne, we used to look forward to watching her struggles with her kids.
I adore my grandson and feel almost no guilty about how I relate to him. I know what I am doing, and I have no other distractions to prevent me from doing it. However, I feel guilty all the time about not knowing how best to support my daughters.
This is a great post as usual Beck. I have been reading my favorite mother blogs but not commenting for the last 7 months. My blogging has concentrated on my grandson’s private blog and political blogging. But I have resolved to spend August on mother blogging, as I eagerly await my first granddaughter.
I just had my first big laugh of the morning here! Thanks, Beck. I see myself in Ruby.
My parents made an awful lot of terrible mistakes. I think they were often times doing the best they knew to do with the resources and support they had as children and then as adults. My mom often says she wished the internet had been around when we were kids because she would have learned so much more about more appropriate ways to go about things.
However, regardless of what she knew or didn’t know about being a parent, she was terribly neglectful. As the oldest child, I was left to cook meals, entertain my sisters, keep the peace, etc. She was most often very lazy, demanding, selfish and often absent.
The fond memories I do have of her, still don’t involve her being super mom around the house or even with us as far as lots of stimulating educational activities. It was simply when she sat with us and watched Little House on the Prarie. Spending time WITH us, no matter what the activity was what really seemed to matter to me as far as my perception of her and whether or not she was “doing her best.”
Ultimately, like I said before…you just have to surround yourself with other people in your life that will hold you accountable. People who know you and people who won’t let you just sit in depression over the crappy mom you feel like you are and also won’t let you be that. I would never make it through my days as a mom of 2 young children if I didn’t know and cling heartily to Jesus and if I didn’t have friends that I could call and tell them what a horrible job I’ve done today and the knowledge that they know me well enough that they would call me out on that.
And honestly, we really can’t compare ourselves to any parents out there. We are all unique and our situations are all unique. All we can do is love and support our friends and fellow moms the best way possible.
I think your post was great.
The thing about parenting is that it’s just so doggone hard. It’s not like, get them through infancy and your done. It’s not even one issue a day. It’s multiple extremely difficult issues all day long. As a parent, you are supposed to have the right answer to everything. But, there is no right answer. For every situation and every child the right thing to do is different and as a parent you are supposed to just “know” what to do. Which would be fine if parenting was all you had to do. But there’s other things in life to distract you from parenting like, managing a home and being a spouse, paying bills, going to work for some, taking care of your parents, etc. It’s just so stinking hard.
Sheesh, those migraine posts can be controversial, can’t they? 🙂
I think some of my mommy guilt is completely reasonable. There are certainly parenting moments that I should feel guilty about. The guilt fuels me to try better the next time.
Well, I’m a couple days late on reading this post so the discussion may be over now, but I thought I’d add my two cents worth.
I think all mothers feel guilty from time to time about not doing enough to be a good mom. It should be a prompt for us to examine our parenting. Sometimes there’s reason for the guilt, sometimes not.
I agree with your term “huggy mommysphere.” Everybody wants to feel good about themselves and their parenting style. Nobody wants to offer any hard and fast parenting advice. People get defensive over the topic of parenting and I believe there’s a reason for this. It’s that mom guilt you were talking about. When someone expresses an opinion contrary to what someone else thinks/feels/practices then immediately they are criticized. Yes, I sometimes get defensive when my parenting choices are called into question whether directly or indirectly, but many times it has made me rethink some things.
I agree with JulieBoBoolie who said that we are judgmental for all the wrong reasons. Whether you choose to sleep with your baby or use a pacifier is a matter of preference. Seeing your child hit, pinch, or bite another child and then making excuses for it is poor parenting.
As a Christian, I believe my primary responsibility is to shepherd my children’s hearts. Some of the best parenting advice I’ve read was in a book by John MacArthur who sums up the basics of parenting this way: 1) teach your children the whole counsel of God’s Word 2) discipline them when they do wrong 3) don’t provoke them to wrath.
One more thing. I read this in a book by Tedd Tripp called Shepherding Your Child’s Heart: A parent shouldn’t discipline their child just because they think others will judge them if they don’t.
Great post, Beck. I must admit that I’m awfully judgmental, but most people don’t know because I keep it to myself. 😉 That’s because I realize I don’t know the whole story, or even if I know enough and it’s a valid criticism, I realize it’s not really my business. That’s why we need real relationships, not just virtual ones–where we can observe and comment and strengthen one another, and moms of older kids can help moms of younger kids.
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