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If I could do it over…

Cindy on May 17th, 2009

I’m probably just as good a mother as the next repressed, obsessive-compulsive paranoiac.” — Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions

If you could go back and relive your early years of motherhood, what would you do differently? Do you wish you’d used cloth diapers instead of disposables? Made your own baby food? Or stayed home from work a year or two longer?  If I had to do it over again, I’d wipe out the myth of The Perfect Mom.

Like June Cleaver’s apron strings, the myth of The Perfect Mom won’t unravel easily. But as a woman with more than two decades of maternal experience, I’m here to tell you that we need to stuff this exhausted fairy tale in the place where all the dirty disposal diapers go.

I only wish I’d realized it sooner.

My husband and I were married five years when my ob-gyn’s office called with the happy news: I was pregnant with our first and only child.  While I knew from the getgo that I wasn’t perfect-mom material, I wanted to get everything right. Which is another way of saying I worried too much.

I worried about my Lamaze breathing techniques. I worried about the quality of my prenatal vitamins. And while waiting in my ob-gyn’s office, I’d manage to find every magazine article listing the awful things that could happen to your unborn baby if, say, you accidentally swallowed your eye shadow, consumed bacon fat, or picked up a weird rash at the community pool.

Of course, the pursuit of mommy perfection got even more intense after my son was born.  And so did the worrying.  Was my baby sleeping too much or too little? Was his relentless wiggling a symptom of hyperactivity or something more sinister? Had I stopped breastfeeding too soon?  Worse yet, by the time the kid was in kindergarten, I’d already started berating myself for providing store-bought cupcakes in lieu of homemade treats.

Seriously, I did loosen up by the time my son was in Cub Scouts, and realized my parenting skills were no worse (or better) than the other moms I’d met. Regardless, it shouldn’t have taken a vast library of childcare guides to get me through the early years — but there you have it.  What I needed more than anything was a permission slip to be human.

I also wish Anne Lamott had written her memoir, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year, eight years sooner.  Her candid recollections of early parenthood have relieved thousands of nervous first-time mothers.

“One of the worst things about being a parent, for me,” Lamott wrote, “is the self-discovery, the being face to face with one’s secret insanity and brokenness.” Finishing Lamott’s book, I sobbed with the realization that I hadn’t been alone in my fear of being an imperfect mom – or being a mom, period.

Even today, the cultural pressures on women never seem to let up.  Whether we stay home with our kids or work in an office across town, we’re expected to perform flawless balancing acts in the circus of family living.

Instead we ought to be reminded that there is no foolproof, one-size-fits-all method of parenting. Motherhood is something we learn as we go along, and we’re bound to fall short from time to time. Meanwhile, I wish we’d all stop comparing ourselves to other moms, including the fictional Donna Reed “role models” embedded in our collective psyche. Parenthood is no place for card-carrying perfectionists.

Ever since the first family set up housekeeping in a fire-lit cave, moms have been devising ways to protect their kids from real or imaginary monsters. That’s not such a bad thing. Still, it helps to temper our worries with common sense — and a little humor. We need to lighten up on ourselves.

Things have a way of working out, after all. My son, the once-wiggly toddler, graduated college and moved into his own place last year.  Despite my inevitable parenting slips, he grew up to be a sturdy, independent guy who loves his imperfect mom — and often reminds her not to worry so much.

Tags: Anne Lamott, domestic arts, Donna Reed, home and family, June Cleaver, midlife issues, midlife motherhood, motherhood, Operating Instructions, parenting, Perfectionism
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