Mothering Matters

Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop her own individuality - especially while you struggle to keep your own.
The Mother's Almanac (1975)

It is a marvel to me how new mothers today keep anxiety at bay, with the endless bombardment of information about perfect parenting that they receive. Each stage of the baby's development is analyzed and the list of things to avoid and things to watch out for continues to grow.

Websites abound with opportunities for mothers to express their concerns and solicit answers from other mothers that have successfully faced the particular terrorizing problem that this poor mother is shakily facing.

Parenting experts get asked questions that wouldn't have even made it to the problem stage during past childrearing days. "My child will only pee in the shower. It is becoming very difficultto take him anywhere because most commercial bathrooms don't come equipped with a shower. What should I do?" I'm not kidding. I didn't make this up. Replace the bathroom issue with "my three year old will only wear pajamas and refuses to get dressed," or fillin the blank with the favorite command or demand that Dennis or Denise the Menace has decided to stand their ground on.

The problem, as I see it, is that the mothers of today are better educated and have more experience in the business world. Therefore, they believe it is prudent to approach mothering as a task that can be accomplished by planning your work and working your plan. After all, how hard could it be to manage one little person when you have successfully managed a whole department of peers with no sweat?

The part that they might have overlooked is that when an employee doesn't toe the line, you have the option of firing them. Not so with your children. They can emancipate themselves from you, but you are in it for better or worse, richer or poorer, and in sickness and in health. Therefore, it is a good idea to decide early on whether you are going to be "the hammer" or "the nail." Do you set the rules or are you going to allow your children to run the show? On the other hand, if you try to control every move they make, you will end up controlling nothing because your expectations are unrealistic and unattainable. Too much talking at children just increases their ability to tune you out and ignore anything you say.

The formula for a one-way ticket to the crazy house is to approach mothering in a linear manner. Mothering requires a doctorate in multi-tasking but the essence of the job is non-linear. As I see it, the number one job of a mother is to be a grounding pole for her children.

Imagine a small boat that is tied to a buoy. The job of the buoy is to stay put so that the boat can float out and away from its source point but it is also safely tied to home base. Therefore, the little boat can't float too far out into unfamiliar or dangerous waters, before it is equipped to handle the challenges.

The trouble is that being a buoy isn't a particularly exciting or recognition yielding position. It is crucial to the inner security of a child that someone act as the buoy but who wants to do it, given the other demands and commands that rumble around in the inner regions of the mothers of today?

The still prevalent image in our culture of the "good mother" goes something like this. "She is quietly strong, selflesslygiving and undemanding. She is unambitious. She is receptive and generally intelligent in only a moderate, concrete way. She is of even temperament. She loves her children completely, unconditionally, and unambivalently."

How is that for a stultifying and suffocating definition that would require that most woman would need a frontal lobotomy to be able to scale down their true sense of themselves, in order to get one-sided enough to meet this job description.

Our new mothers are getting mixed messages. Bottom-line is that the outcome of the "Be all that you can be and tone yourself down since you're a MOTHER now" is what is creating the massive internal questioning around the job of mothering. No wonder there is so much performance anxiety.

Too much control and too many directives create little puppets on a string. Too accommodating and passive parenting and your home and your life will be in constant chaos and drama. So what is the best approach to the mothering maze? There isn't one.

The perfect parenting style does not exist. What works for one child will stifle another. What creates security for one will repress the talents of the next. Every mother starts out overwhelmed and anxious. Some just manage it better than others.

If babies came with directions, this would be an important one. Babies must be coaxed into life. They need your face in front of them beaming love and acceptance. They need to hear your voice. They need to be held in your arms. They need to be included in conversations. They need to be where the action is. They also need quiet time. Time when they are not bombarded with talking televisions, or talking, singing, squawking toys or people. Actually, they need exactly what we all need to develop and grow.

"Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired as mothering, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop there own individuality - especially while you struggle to keep your own."

Happy Mother's Day 2008.

Susan McNeal Velasquez teaches mentoring seminars locally on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. Reservations are required. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. Go to: www.beyondintellect.com for additional information. You can reach Susan at: (949) 494-7773. Want to receive weekly articles by e-mail? Send your name and e-mail address to: SusanVelas@aol.com