Details
Rent Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It
Author:
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Pub Group West
Published: Feb 2003
Genre: Family & Relationships - Parenting - Motherhood
Retail Price: $15.95
Pages: 234
Synopsis
Our capacity to forget is amazing. I still remember being in labor, thinking to myself, "This is the hardest thing I've ever done. If I can get through this pain, I can get through anything! "Yet the next day I whimpered like a newborn when the nurses came in to rip off the bandages securing my IV. I still remember those sleepless nights of early motherhood, when I'd get no more than twenty minutes of rest in between successive bouts of feeding/crying/diapering, telling muself. "I will Never do this again!" And yet now I occasionally see a cute, gurgling, chubby, happy baby and think to myself, "Hmm... it wasn't really that bad, was it?" I suppose it's a useful defense mechanism, to forget your pain and difficulties; otherwise how would we keep on going? Who would birth more children, stay up with them through sleepless nights? Of course, we tend to forget the good stuff, too: it's hard to remember that the kid who's flailing and screaming in a monumental temper tantrum is the same one who gave you a big juicy hug yesterday and said, "I love you, Mommy!" for the first time. I wrestle with this forgetting, because there are things I want to remember. So I try to write things down, I try and think about them as they happen. And because I've scribbled a few words or reminded myself of something I foolishly think I have staved off forgetting--until, suddenly, life reminds me that I have not.
Reviews
1--Real mothers feel ambivalent. Some feel it occasionally, some feel it all the time. They're all normal and they're all good mothers. 2--Having to function to the highest threshold of quality human interaction raising, loving, and socializing a baby/child while constantly fatigued and pulled with hardly a respite is a recipe for disaster. Yet most mothers make a success of it, and that leads us to minimize the difficulty. Good mothering is fiendishly difficult, and the constant disrespect shown to mothers and mothering proves we humans are not nearly as rational as we say we are! 3--Like all humans, women are all very different from one another. In simple terms, some women were born with the ambition and inclination to be full-time moms. Other women are at the opposite end of the spectrum. Never did they even dream of full-time stay-at-home parenting. And both types are terrific mothers who love their children, would throw themselves in front of a bus without hesitation to save them, and who raise wonderful kids. Let's be sensible about this and accept the fact that various women are different from each other at a total, fundamental level. And they're all good mothers. 4--Bad mothers abuse their children. Bad mothers routinely neglect their children, drink or do drugs without getting help, bring dangerous people into their homes with their children. Good mothers discipline without abusing and appropriately balance caretaking with teaching independence--but they don't do it all the time. They make mistakes. Everyone does. And moms differ greatly on the best way to raise children. That diversity *is* the right way. Every family is different, every child is different, they need to be raised differently. We need that variety of expertise and experience. Children benefit from that and so do adults. 5--So quit judging mothers! That applies to everybody.