Damned if you do, damned if you....well I guess we're all just damned

One of the traits I will be hoping not to pass on to my daughter is how many swear words I can fit into one sentence (or one blog title, for that matter). We've backed of the "fffff" noise for now, but I'm still crossing my fingers that "Fuck off" won't be among her first words.

But I digress and climb up on my soapbox for just a little minute. It would have been unimaginable to me before motherhood to understand the complex sensitivities moms have on topics such as sleep and food. I understand the palette of emotions--there are some things you have to feel strongly about in order to stick with them, and I understand why people feel their way is the way. You have to believe in what you're doing as a mother because most of this stuff is hard, way harder than anyone tells you it is going to be. But I also understand how insecure you can feel about your decisions at times. Is there ever really any way to know for sure that one approach is better or worse than another? We all have such different goals, situations and philosophies, I'm not sure how anyone can think one size fits all.

Case in point #1: sleep. It seems to me a real quick way to piss off the universe is to talk honestly about how you get your kid to sleep and how much sleeps she gets. Heather Armstrong broached that topic on Dooce, recalling her days sleep training her kid, and got 475 comments on the topic. They start supportive of her approach or at least of her honesty but start to unravel toward the end as people accuse her of being an unloving, terrible parent whose child will grow up to be a demon. First of all, I would seriously pull my eyelashes out of my head if 475 people had anything to say about any of my parenting choices, good or bad. Second of all, seriously? Are these people advocating something? Are there studies being done that prove one person's parenting style will impact another's? Why the hell does anyone care what some chick in Utah did to get her daughter to sleep? I'm not sure these "debates" ever change anyone's mind as much as allow people who seek to feel superior to others to do a little public dance.

Case in point #2: breast milk. Wanna conduct an experiment? Walk up to three different new moms in Target or some other mommy watering hole and make a strong statement against either breast feeding or bottle feeding. Chances are, you'll either get a whooping or make someone cry. Being able to feed your child and meet her needs when she can't speak for herself makes everyone fraught and everyone an expert, and we all deal with the parenthood machine differently. During my milk woes of late, I have gotten lots of support from friends who are reminding me I'm not a failure if I can't breastfeed. My friend Lisa is working up her manifesto on how "lactivists" make moms a quivering mess of insecurities if they can't conform to certain breastfeeding standards, and she has helped me see that there are actual problems in the world, and formula-fed babies just aren't one of them. On the other side (and I hate to say "other side" because they aren't really disagreeing or all that different--just different experiences), my friend Dawn just wrote me this morning to tell me that she bears the brunt of tons of unwanted opinions, conjectures, comments and diatribes for being a committed breastfeeder:

"You should see the dirty looks I would get when I dared put my baby to my breast (under a blanket in a corner--well okay, not always, but come on--it's totally natural, right? And it's not like I stripped to the waist and sat on a street corner, and I almost always used a blanket unless I could be sure NO skin other than the back of the baby's head was showing), the blatant misunderstandings, the comments: "Your baby is fat because she's nursing", "Are you SURE you don't wouldn't be more comfortable breastfeeding in a bathroom stall or this nice janitor's closet?", "He is STILL nursing?" (at 6 months). . . . So, again, I say, piss on the world. You do your best and go on your way. I've told you about my own compromises, in spite of my "success" with breastfeeding. The people who give you a break about your bottles don't give me a break for my breasts and vice versa."

I'm not posting these differing opinions to start shit between two people on whom I rely for lots of support and advice (which they may hereby withhold since I've been posting their emails here for the world to see, but PEOPLE there are comments here for a reason--share this wealth of knowledge so I don't have to!). I just want to point out that there is no choice you can make that will make everyone happy. Sometimes the choices you make don't even make you happy. Parenting can be hard work with long hours and sucky duties (notice I said CAN be; it can also be many wonderful things, of course), but what can you do? It's totally worth it.

I'm climbing down off the soapbox here because what the hell do I know? We're all trying to raise our kids the best we can (except for those trying to raise serial killers--they have a much easier task since apparently everything can cause a child to become one: not breastfeeding, breastfeeding too much, crying it out, co-sleeping, discipline, no discipline). What I need way more than all the bad feelings on all sides of the equation is a beer. It's Friday, and who couldn't use a little happy hour?