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No Right Way

An Assessment of Modern Parenting Guidelines

By Mikaela MerrittPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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The moment you find out you're going to be a parent is incredible and unique. Some feel scared, others excited, and to some it is even akin to a miracle. No matter your initial feeling, each parent-to-be eventually comes to the same question: "But how do you parent?"

At some point, every parent-to-be begins to worry about what to do and how to do it so that their child grows up healthy and strong. They don't have to look very far. If a woman is noticeably pregnant, she gets advice from strangers at the grocery store to eat only organic food until she's done nursing, and to never eat chocolate. Before then, her own mother will nag her about the simplest of actions, telling her all about her "seasoned methods." A man that plans to adopt will be told to spend as much time as possible with them, more than any biological children, or he won't love them. If you're young, your thoughts don't matter, you'll just ruin everything, hon, take it from me. Looking up doctors will lead to Google ads that promote endless, useless parenting advice books that you neither asked for nor want, yet you find yourself wondering what you might do wrong if you don't read it.

Once the child is actually born or brought into the home, even the government tells you what you can and cannot do. Don't front-face your baby's car seat until they're two years old, even if they meet all size requirements. No children under the age of twelve are allowed home alone, even if they've been helping with their younger siblings since they were five. Oh, you have a drop-side crib in Idaho? Well, that's child endangerment.

Doctors tell us when babies are ready to be taught different principles like going potty and talking based on common development. They tell us when we can let them walk, what they can eat, and demand we give them shots and medicines and supplements, or you're ruining their bodies before they can even crawl.

Even baby furniture tells you what to do. "No blankets or pillows in the crib, even if that's the only way they'll fall asleep, or they'll suffocate and die." No turning it into a toddler bed until two years of age, even if the child is already demanding agency, and you don't want them to feel like their bed is a cage. No full-sized toothbrushes until age two or three, they could shove it to the back of their throat. You must buckle your child just to eat, even though there's already plastic around their legs and a tray blocking their body. Choking hazard, "for ages 3+," do this, don't do that, you're killing your child.

With all of these demands, it begins to feel like you'll never be a good parent, especially when the "proven" methods and guidelines don't work for your child.

So let's take a step back.

While there may be legitimate, biological heath factors to certain demands (mostly those given by doctors), a lot of it is just noise. Pardon my language, but I'm here to call bullshit on 90% of what we believe is wrong and right for our children's physical and mental well-being.

As parents under 25, my husband and I have heard it all. We didn't put a pillow in our son's crib. We only gave him age-appropriate toys. We avoided watching TV when our baby was awake. It got to the point where we felt like we couldn't even live our own lives. And what's worse? Our son, even with the limited expressions of a baby and no concise language, was able to communicate that he was miserable. He woke every hour, screaming himself to sleep. He screamed when I tried to brush his mouth, ignored his toys, cried when I put him in his crib. He cried when his diaper was even slightly soiled, laughed when he was clean, but fought me as I put on a new one. I began to realize that all he wanted was some independence.

I put a pillow and blanket in his crib when he was only two months old, and he slept much better, never even hinting at suffocation. I got him toys meant for toddlers or even small children, including the "choking hazard" ones. He has never so much as gagged, and loves figuring out how to play with these complex things. In fact, he has never tried to swallow a piece of food if he can't make it soft, and actively avoids simple toys. More recently, I gave him his own adult-sized toothbrush. Now he gets upset when I don't let him brush his own teeth. Just this last week I turned his crib into a toddler bed, and at a year old, he is finally sleeping through the night, because he can choose to go to bed. He even plays in it from time to time when he feels himself getting tired. I'm even starting to potty train him, and he is much happier with the limited diaper time. He even watches movies with us, looking to me or his dad when something intense happens, as if to make sure we're noticing it, too.

I understand that these are not common behaviors, but that is precisely my point. No child is the same, and no one knows your baby like you do. So stop listening to the "experts," that formulaic guidelines from mass studies, and start listening to yourself. Not to say you shouldn't still be careful; safety and sincerity is still important, but that doesn't mean you can't evaluate and act on your child's behaviors on your own. Take your life back, and let your child do the same. Tell those self-inflated authors to stick it where the sun don't shine. Heck, ignore me for all I care, but if you do choose to listen, I say there is only one do and don't you need to know.

Don't be stupid, and do listen to what your child is trying to tell you. The rest can go to heck.

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