The most important reason these women do what they do on social media: they get paid to do it! You don't get paid (usually) in real life to be a mom. The unseen labor of household help (cleaning the house, watching the kids while filming, childcare while research is done/videos are edited, etc) and the money to pay for it looms over these videos. It's easy to say "take what you want and leave the rest", but that's the best I can come up with.
I do think people on social media should do a better job of not assuming that just because they made one choice for their baby doesn't mean that every other choice is terrible, though. It goes like this: people's temperaments, life circumstances, etc might make it so that other choices are better for them. You don't have to defend why, e.g., cosleeping is the best choice under every possible circumstance. In fact, through a simple exercise of the imagination, you can probably think of how if some things in your life were different, you would do things differently. The dogmatic attachment to one's minute parenting decisions isn't ultimately about the children; it's about the parents proving themselves as better than everyone else.
Lol editing the first sentence: "people on social media should understand that just because they made one parenting choice doesn't mean that every other choice is terrible"
“Did I inadvertently recreate the conditions of the infamous Romanian orphanage?” This line is pure gold, perfect to help me snap out of any future spirals. Amazing read!!! I love all your writing on parenting 😌 PS. you sound like you’re doing a great job as a mom too :)
Recently signed up to substack purely to get Borowitz but along the way the process forces you to choose some newsletters subscribe to which I duly did. Yours is the ONLY one I found I couldn't unsubscribe from, purely on the basis of this episode ( which is also the only one I've read so far and I still haven't finished it. ) But the thing is, I enjoyed it so much I don't think I'll ever unsubscribe. So well done you!
Plenty of Mom's are expressing a spectrum of parenting doubts. The throughline tendency is to compare their parenting choices to the parenting choices made by their Mother.
Well written, and I can sympathize. Speaking as a mostly a single parent here, divorced when kids young and co-parented after that. Perhaps successfully, or perhaps was not the best choice - it is what it is.
You raise a number of good points, but as the risk of adding more guilt I need to say I would have preferred less words. I prefer the 1.200-1,500 word range.
Oh, and I like your cartoons and artsy images. ;-)
This way of thinking about parenthood is so alien to me that I'm not sure any advice or encouragement I can offer could possibly break though. That said, perhaps the reason this way of thinking is so alien to me is because I know the following sentence to be profoundly untrue:
> The decisions you make as a mom are the most important decisions you’ll ever make, provided you aren’t someone with access to nuclear codes.
The fact that this sentence was slipped into this article in such an offhand ways, presented as just obviously true, I think is the crux of the whole matter. Very few of the decisions we make as parents are of any consequence whatsoever. Once you understand that, you are free to love your kids and enjoy them and relax into parenting in a way that will never be possible if you continue to believe (incorrectly) that your actions set the trajectories of your children's' lives.
For whatever it's worth, you sound like a great mom.
I recently became an uncle so have been exposed to a little bit of this discourse through my brother and his wife (bottle feeding vs formula, limiting screen time, should you play classical music for the child? etc).
My personal opinion is that .. it's fine to think about these things but you should be careful about how much importance you put on them.
The basics are important: your child is healthy, you're supporting them intellectually and emotionally, you provide a safe environment for them, stuff like that.
Anything else is kind of tinkering around the edges trying to achieve what is "optimal". Again, it's fine to consider, but if it's causing you emotional grief, then maybe it's not really beneficial for anyone.
Good point. Parents who are looking out for their children's best interests in good faith are unlikely to permanently damage their children due to a handful of "wrong" decisions out of the hundreds that they make in the first few years of these kids' lives.
The most important reason these women do what they do on social media: they get paid to do it! You don't get paid (usually) in real life to be a mom. The unseen labor of household help (cleaning the house, watching the kids while filming, childcare while research is done/videos are edited, etc) and the money to pay for it looms over these videos. It's easy to say "take what you want and leave the rest", but that's the best I can come up with.
I do think people on social media should do a better job of not assuming that just because they made one choice for their baby doesn't mean that every other choice is terrible, though. It goes like this: people's temperaments, life circumstances, etc might make it so that other choices are better for them. You don't have to defend why, e.g., cosleeping is the best choice under every possible circumstance. In fact, through a simple exercise of the imagination, you can probably think of how if some things in your life were different, you would do things differently. The dogmatic attachment to one's minute parenting decisions isn't ultimately about the children; it's about the parents proving themselves as better than everyone else.
Lol editing the first sentence: "people on social media should understand that just because they made one parenting choice doesn't mean that every other choice is terrible"
“Did I inadvertently recreate the conditions of the infamous Romanian orphanage?” This line is pure gold, perfect to help me snap out of any future spirals. Amazing read!!! I love all your writing on parenting 😌 PS. you sound like you’re doing a great job as a mom too :)
Thank you so much!!
Dear Cartoonshateher,
Recently signed up to substack purely to get Borowitz but along the way the process forces you to choose some newsletters subscribe to which I duly did. Yours is the ONLY one I found I couldn't unsubscribe from, purely on the basis of this episode ( which is also the only one I've read so far and I still haven't finished it. ) But the thing is, I enjoyed it so much I don't think I'll ever unsubscribe. So well done you!
Best wishes,
MC.
Plenty of Mom's are expressing a spectrum of parenting doubts. The throughline tendency is to compare their parenting choices to the parenting choices made by their Mother.
Well written, and I can sympathize. Speaking as a mostly a single parent here, divorced when kids young and co-parented after that. Perhaps successfully, or perhaps was not the best choice - it is what it is.
You raise a number of good points, but as the risk of adding more guilt I need to say I would have preferred less words. I prefer the 1.200-1,500 word range.
Oh, and I like your cartoons and artsy images. ;-)
This way of thinking about parenthood is so alien to me that I'm not sure any advice or encouragement I can offer could possibly break though. That said, perhaps the reason this way of thinking is so alien to me is because I know the following sentence to be profoundly untrue:
> The decisions you make as a mom are the most important decisions you’ll ever make, provided you aren’t someone with access to nuclear codes.
The fact that this sentence was slipped into this article in such an offhand ways, presented as just obviously true, I think is the crux of the whole matter. Very few of the decisions we make as parents are of any consequence whatsoever. Once you understand that, you are free to love your kids and enjoy them and relax into parenting in a way that will never be possible if you continue to believe (incorrectly) that your actions set the trajectories of your children's' lives.
Good insights.
For whatever it's worth, you sound like a great mom.
I recently became an uncle so have been exposed to a little bit of this discourse through my brother and his wife (bottle feeding vs formula, limiting screen time, should you play classical music for the child? etc).
My personal opinion is that .. it's fine to think about these things but you should be careful about how much importance you put on them.
The basics are important: your child is healthy, you're supporting them intellectually and emotionally, you provide a safe environment for them, stuff like that.
Anything else is kind of tinkering around the edges trying to achieve what is "optimal". Again, it's fine to consider, but if it's causing you emotional grief, then maybe it's not really beneficial for anyone.
Good point. Parents who are looking out for their children's best interests in good faith are unlikely to permanently damage their children due to a handful of "wrong" decisions out of the hundreds that they make in the first few years of these kids' lives.