There is No Right Way to Parent Your Child
I mean, a doctor might beg to differ. But I know better.
There is, I am learning, a lot of pressure that comes with being a parent – and it’s not just the get-your-body-back, sleep-when-the-baby-sleeps, stop-worrying-about-the-state-of-the-house pressure (although that’s all there too, in the back of your mind).
It’s the pressure that comes with knowing that, no matter what you’re doing, someone, somewhere – sometimes someone in your kitchen, drinking tea and looking out your back window – thinks you’re doing it wrong.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to stop worrying about what other people think. Just in case you’re wondering, no, I’ve never succeeded. I used to tell my therapist about the anxiety I felt when I realised that there were people out there, people I didn’t know, who hated me enough to create nasty threads about me; who disliked me to the extent that they would stop buying their favourite magazine because I worked there. “But,” she would ask, “Do you think these are people whose opinion would matter to you, if you knew them?”
She didn’t get it. The answer is yes! Everyone’s opinion about me matters to me! I couldn’t care less what their political views are, or whether they like handkerchief hems (ugh) or the resurgence of the bootcut jean (double ugh, although watch this space because I am fickle and will probably be wearing them by spring, ie, in two months’ time).
So, when I see and hear strangers giving their opinions on child-rearing, two distinct thoughts cross my mind. The first: I must never reveal to anyone that I indulge in that terrible habit. The second: I must immediately stop indulging in that terrible habit.
My son is 14 weeks old and he has yet to spend a full night sleeping in his own bed. Whatever about waking up, which he likes to do at 90-minute intervals – once, on December 20th, he slept for four hours straight and I thought, this is the beginning of better times, but I was wrong because he has yet to repeat it – there will inevitably come a moment (sometimes several moments) where I will take him into the bed and I will lie him down beside me and I will stick my boob in his mouth and we will both fall asleep (for a maximum of 90 minutes).
This, to be clear, is Very Wrong. Co-sleeping is dangerous! Babies should never sleep on their sides! Babies should not be covered up! (I do not cover my baby up, but sometimes I wake up and I have, in my sleep, covered myself up, and he is snuggled up next to me with some rogue duvet gathered around him and instead of thinking, oops, I usually think, aw how cute and snuggly.)
The truth of the matter is, without these little co-sleeping intervals I would be even more tired than I am now (which is very tired indeed). I would spend half of my night soothing and rocking and lulling him back to sleep, only for him to wake, screaming, at the very moment he was placed on his back, in his bassinet. (Yes, the $1,500 bassinet, pictured above, aka the worst purchase of my life thus far.) Sometimes you just have to go against the experts’ advice.
On which note: you’re not supposed to put a baby in a Bumbo, did you know this? They say it’s not good for baby’s core strength development, or something. Unfortunately, I only discovered this after putting Atlas in his Bumbo for 10 whole minutes! He’s doomed, and it’s all my fault! (He hated it, and it’s pretty tight on his chunky little legs, so it’s going in the Goodwill pile.)
A jumperoo, too, can negatively affect the development of their hips, by the way. Playing white noise to soothe your baby can cause them to rely too much on it for sleep! Don’t shake your bottle of breast milk, something something nutrients something. IT’S A LOT.
Basically you’re supposed to raise your baby in some kind of puritanical dungeon environment. A flat, cold bassinet; black and white pictures to flash in front of their faces at regular intervals; and toys made only from pieces of old rope. (That part is untrue, please do not take my advice on this, or any, topic.)
The thing is, I was determined, before Atlas was born, that I was going to do everything perfectly. I would lay him on his back at night and I would simply have patience with him until he nodded off to sleep. I would show him all of the flash cards and wooden toys and I would never let him nap in his swing and as for screens?! Not until he’s five, thank you very much!
That was Before. This is After, and the most-watched video on my YouTube account is this. Experts, schmexperts.
Have You Heard of a Little Show Called ‘Fleabag’?
WHERE HAVE I BEEN?! This is what I’m asking myself as I watch Fleabag – yes, for the first time. Fleabag is the perfect example of a TV show I resisted watching simply because people were going on about it and I thought it wouldn’t live up to the hype, but IT DOES! (See also: Succession.)
Print is back, baby! (Also, Wild Women Do – And They Don’t Regret It)
I subscribed both to New York Magazine and InStyle recently – the former, because I got a cheap subscription and the latter because I got it for free, using the rewards from the Fetch app (where you upload your receipts and get points for shopping, something at which I am, as you can imagine, excellent) – and I am rediscovering the joy of reading journalism as printed on paper. To compound the retro vibes, I do so while listening Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours on vinyl, but don’t worry, I’m not even remotely cool as I own approx eight records and one of them is Beyoncé and another is the Pretty Woman soundtrack, the best soundtrack ever made.
InStyle is a bit crap, honestly – the shopping pages are outrageous (I love a $2,000 bag as much as the next person but would be happier if it was juxtaposed with a pair of $100-or-less shoes, thanks), it’s absolutely full of ads and the interviews are Q&A style with people I don’t care about like Gal Gadot and Anja Rubik, but New York Magazine is vg. Highlights have been a feature on men who’ve died at Rikers, and I am very much looking forward to the Joss Whedon interview. Of course, I could read it online but instead I am relishing waiting two days for my magazine to arrive and reading it long after the rest of the world has stopped talking about it.
We’re all playing Wordle now, aren’t we?
I got today’s in two tries. TWO! Things can only go downhill from here, really. Like the NY Times Spelling Bee, Wordle is a remarkably simplistic comfort in remarkably un-simplistic (arguably uncomfortable to boot) times.
When I had my first child your grandmother Maisie said people will give you loads of advice. It can’t be avoided. Just smile and say thank you, do what you feel is right and ignore them.
You are doing a damn fine job of parenting that handsome man! You could have made this article as long as piece of string with all the weird counter info people give. I ticked every single box you did with my smallies and I think they are all developmentally sound 🤣🤣🤣 keep doing what you are doing because by the looks of that handsome boy you are doing it really well 😊