In all the years I dreamed of motherhood, thinking of what it would be like to have a baby and be responsible for its rearing, I never anticipated this near constant feeling of being just shy of proficient. It seems that no matter how good a day I have with Signe or how amazing she is, I feel like I could be doing it a little bit better.

I’m sure this is in part because I tend to be a perfectionist and I’m a bit hard on myself. E.g., I walked out of a doctor’s appointment where the doctor called Signe supergirl and all I could fixate on was the doctor’s suggestion that I should be producing more breastmilk.

But I think feelings of inadequacy are part and parcel of parenthood. Just about the time you are feeling smug about being able to breastfeed your baby for almost six months, you hear another mom talk about how she’s using cloth diapers and you’re right back to feeling sheepish because you use disposables and you’re killing the planet. I guess it’s a grand plan to keep us humble.

It’s also what keeps us from being too judgmental of other moms. For the most part.

Because I know how hard motherhood is and how ubiquitous the feelings of not quite doing it well enough are, I try not to pass judgment on the decisions other moms make for their kids. If I’m on some mommy message board reading about how another mama is feeding her four-month-old 32 ounces of formula, two servings of rice cereal, and two servings of fruit-based baby food every day, I try to ignore my first thought (which is that this crazy overfeeder is likely one of the causes of rampant childhood obesity in this country) and applaud her for paying such close attention to her offspring.

However, and I know this is probably opening a large can of worms, I have issues with parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids. I understand that they are doing what they think is right and safest for their babes, and I know how hard those decisions are. But when those decisions are based on what we now know is erroneous information and especially when they put my child in danger of diseases we thought were long gone, well, I get a little pissy.

So I greeted this story and this one warmly.

I’ll leave decisions about breastfeeding vs. formula, cloth diapers vs. disposables, wooden toys vs. plastic ones, tummy sleeping vs. back sleeping, and staying at home vs. daycare to each individual mama. But can we all please start vaccinating our kids now? Please. Lest we welcome back polio and small pox.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 11:29 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.