On Parenting, Nursing, and the Generational Divide

This is a difficult post to write, as it reveals some very personal feelings about my relationship with my own mother that I have always kept private. So I'll drop all pretenses and speak in honest truths that are hard to speak in hopes that some of you can relate to my own feelings.

I'm 30 years old. My daughter is my first and only child at this time. I was 4 day shy of my 30th birthday when I gave birth to my daughter. I had planned my pregnancy, I had researched my birthing options, and I had done everything different than my mother. I had a midwife instead of an O.B.,I planned for a birthing center birth, but had a home birth, I was completely un-medicated, and I did delayed cord clamping by choice. We co-sleep, feed on demand, and have never once given our daughter formula. We practice baby lead weaning, and believe that positive discipline is the best approach to raising a healthy engaged child in this world.

My mother had an unplanned pregnancy as a newly married woman at 19 years old. I was born in a hospital, stayed in the NICU for the first few weeks, and when I was brought home I was put to sleep in a crib of my own. I was fed formula from the beginning, and never breastfed once. I was fed on a schedule, and napped on a schedule. I was left to cry myself to sleep if I woke at an inconvenient time, or if it was time to go to bed. Our situations were so far removed from each other, that it has been hard for us to relate to each other on many of these issues.

When my mom was young, she went to doctors, friends, family and neighbors for advice on how to raise her children. That was the way her mother had done it, and that was the way she did it. The concept of reading books about parenting, searching blogs, websites, joining online mommy forums, is all completely foreign to my mother. She doesn't understand why I don't take her advice as gospel when it comes to raising my child.

She knows almost nothing of modern parenting. Her vocabulary doesn't include the wonder weeks, attachment parenting, or elimination communication. Being an eco parent means nothing to her. She has never heard of Dr. Sears or even baby led weaning. She thinks that cloth diapering is old fashioned. She thinks it's safe to surround your babies by pillows on a bed, that you can put your newborn to sleep on its tummy, and that the best way to get a baby to sleep through the night is to just ignore it's cries and it will learn to just stop crying for you eventually. She thinks that cracking the window makes it fine to smoke around children. She believed a bar of soap in the mouth taught a toddler not to say bad words, and that spanking you taught you to behave. She honestly believes that you can "spoil" an infant by responding to their cries every time. She feels that babies can be manipulative in nature, and that children can be "brats" when they are misbehaving. She thinks it's hippie parenting to talk to your child about their feelings. 

Sadly, I have heard from other women in my daughter's birth month mommy support group, that this same generational divide has made it hard for us to connect with our own mothers and to seek their advice. The digital generation has access to so much more information than the generations before us. We have the ability to find all of our options, research them at length, review what works for some and not for others, and make an educated decision about our choices. We have the option of questioning medical professionals who feel that it's appropriate to give parenting advice on issues that should be parenting issues, not medical issues. We question advice given if it doesn't feel right to us. We're a generation of young mothers trying to break the cycle by parenting in a more natural and loving way. In a way, going back to the roots of parental instincts balks at everything our mothers did. It spits in their proverbial faces and calls into question their decisions. It's no wonder that parenting in this generation lacks support from our own mothers and grandmothers. We're a generation of women often feeling unsupported and lost when we have no one to turn to but each other.

You may be asking what this has to do with nursing. My mother has managed to make quite a few comments about my nursing on demand. My daughter is nearly 10 months old, and I feed her when she shows signs of wanting to nurse. I follow her cues. I don't feed her on a schedule or by the clock. I've been told by my mother that I feed her too much, and that I'm going to make her fat letting her eat whenever she wants. I've been told that I don't let my infant get hungry enough.... as if an infant can't feel the difference between being a little hungry and really hungry. I've been made to feel embarrassed about nursing my daughter. I've been expected to leave the room or cover up with my parents around. I've been asked when I'm going to stop nursing. I've been side eyed for suggesting that I'd go longer than a year because my daughter might not feel ready to stop that soon. I've been told it's "unnatural" for children over 18 months to nurse (even though most of the world nurses while their toddlers are learning the world of solid foods).

Something is very wrong with America. We have a perverse desire to break new mothers. We take it as gospel when a doctor says you should or shouldn't co-sleep or night nurse after X amount of months. Somehow, we've allowed previous generations of mothers and so-called professionals to cast a shadow of doubt on our own instincts of what feels natural and right to us. 

I feel as if we are pioneers, venturing into a new (or long forgotten) territory of motherhood. We are the generation that can bring back the instinctual practices of parenting, one that will teach our own children to do what feels right instead of what others tell you is right. For now, I choose to raise my child in the way that I wish, and I will continue to battle the criticisms of my mother and her generation's parenting advice on my own generation.