Parenting Is Trying

A friend of mine was sharing how hard it was for her when she first became a mother. Her husband went off to work each day, leaving her at home with a colicky child, who cried for hours without stopping. She was thousands of miles from any family or friends she could ask for help, and she was losing her mind.

She went into the pediatricians, and asked for help. The doctor said "Just let her cry. Don't pick her up or try to soothe her."

"But! I can't do that!"

"Sure you can. Look, when you pick her up, does she stop crying?"

"Um. No."

"So, since it doesn't make any difference, give yourself a rest. Just let her cry."

Which my friend totally could not do; it felt negligent. If your baby is crying, don't you at least TRY to calm her? Don't you get points for at least trying? Can you truly accept that you won't make any difference by trying?

I mean--for the first 9-10 months, you are that baby's world. Everything you eat and drink, you evaluate as to what affect it will have on the baby. Then, the baby is born, and there is still almost nothing that baby needs beyond its mother--to be held, to be fed, to be changed...babies need mothers and not much else.

How can you even wrap your head around the idea that you could make NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL? And how could you NOT EVEN TRY?

Maybe the doctor was right--but that's one of those times that the pallid Truth has no authority over the maternal instinct, wrong as it might be. I wouldn't have been able to just let the child cry, no matter who logical the argument.

Which just goes to show you that we new moms are SO whacked out on hormone cocktails that we cannot think straight. It's probably a good thing for the survival of the species that we don't.