How Baby

I try not to talk about what we did or didn’t do with Momo, parenting-advice-wise. For one, every kid truly is different – it sounds like a cliche, but it’s true. Two, like most parents, we may have cut a few corners in the interests of our true master at the time, sleep deprivation. Those two things combined mean that most of our parenting action plan – and it wasn’t that long! – didn’t survive even the first encounter with Momo. And from that point, it was just a constant recalibration of everything we’d wanted to try because we thought it was “best”, favoring the things that actually worked.

I admire people who pick a track and stick to it through hardship, because it’s the best choice for them. Like, people who exclusively breastfeed through pain, teething, infection? Phooar. That’s badass. But on the other hand, sometimes I think people can get stuck on worrying about doing the Right Thing all the time, like the perfect smartest most loving baby is a video game unlock code away, and it causes a lot of mental anguish as you feel you ‘fail’ when you compromise that golden plan.

And at the same time, I’d never tell an expectant parent NOT to make plans – that planning, that nesting, that worry, that’s sacred. It’s one of the first things you do that really makes you a parent, you know? I don’t want to be one of those ‘just you wait until they get here…’ people, gosh. I just want people to know that it’s okay when plans change, and not to cling to something that’s not working, just because the current research says it increases reading comprehension among kindergartners or whatever, you know? Don’t worry about doing the best when you can only give your best.