"You'll make a rod for your own back!"

I am willing to put a lot of money on the majority of people not hearing the phrase "rod for your own back" much, if at all, before they have a baby.

It's not really thrown around when you start drinking coffee every morning. I don't think I heard it when I started having a glass of wine on a Friday night. Looking back to my days as a smoker, I don't think I heard it then. The lady at the Yves Saint Laurent make-up counter didn't use it when I went to treat myself to some high-end war paint for my wedding. Not a soul said it to me when I started seeing Steve. 

Yet in all of the above cases I DID make a rod for my own back. I did or do depend on these things. I needed to do these things regularly after I started them. 

Then I had a baby.

You know you can get all that "Welcome to the World" paraphernalia for newborns? Someone should start a line of gear for new mums that's "Welcome to the World Where EVERYONE Will Tell You EVERYTHING Will Make a Rod for Your Own Back". Because apparently it does.

Fairly recently a friend of mine had a baby. I remember my first visit to meet the baby, she sat there with a 48 hour old newborn and essentially apologised for herself as she explained that she had cuddled him all night the night before. Not to enter into a co-sleeping debate. But in a "oh I KNOW I'm making a rod for my own back, I've been so stupid" way. 

Why is a new mother of 48 hours, after nine months of growing her baby, apologising for holding her baby close to where all it has ever known? She's not alone. I think I remember almost all of the women I was pregnant with saying very similar things when their babies were very young. I even know of someone who refused to rock their baby AT ALL because she didn't want to make a rod for her own back! 

Two things are at play in that. First is the age old problem of women placing unrealistic or unattainable expectations on themselves to become the vision of mother earth perfection HOURS after birth. Because creating beautiful, wondrous life isn't quite enough for one day.

The other is something probably beyond my literacy skills to express. It's the months of enforced advice through pregnancy, sometimes not entirely well meaning and often with the threat of "just you wait" about it. It's the social, cultural and economic pressure that being a mother is not enough at this time. You should want to or will have to work too. Build a career. Be "YOU". Socialise. Live a life where you are the perfect mother without looking like, sounding like or somehow seeming at all like a mother. What I mean is there is a lot more pressure to leave your children today and somewhere we have interpreted "one day they must be able to be without us" as "they must always be able to be without us". 

I am NOT entering in to the working mum vs SAHM debate. It's too personal, with too many factors and I respect mothers from both camps too much to form a summative opinion. 

The debate I am entering into is this guilt related to comforting your baby. It was triggered this morning when I read a parenting forum post from a woman celebrating not being a "human dummy" as she had weaned her baby off breastfeeding. Babies DO need to self-settle. Mums and babies/children DO have to give up breastfeeding at some stage. What I object to is this feeling that sometimes there can be too much pressure on mothers to foster too much of their babies independence. My baby is 7 months old. She has literally YEARS before she needs to not need her Mum. If I do something once, she will not need me to do it 8 times a day, everyday until she is 30. She rejected the dummy herself after 4 weeks. She stopped sucking her fingers after 2 months of having them permanently in her mouth. Not everything becomes an immoveable habit.

In some instances she will tell me when enough's enough. We do not need to make so much of our measure of successful parenting about how little our babies need us or how often they comfort themselves.

I'm not saying these things don't need to happen. Just arguing the flip side for a little change up in thinking. Essentially just allowing a little less guilt if your tiny one needs a little more of you today. Mine has a cold. Today self-settling does not exist. Today she is a baby and I am a Mummy and I am going to do EVERYTHING I can for her.

Lesson:

1. Next time I'll know there's no such thing as making a rod for your own back with a brand new newborn.

2. I'm going to tell every single brand new Mummy I ever meet to cuddle their baby without apology or guilt for as long as they want!