Bad Mother

The best book that I read before going to get Zi in China was Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman.  The subtitle is:  A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace.

I really enjoyed it when I was reading it, and now that I am taking care of Zi, it is proving to be the very best parenting book that I read.  As you could probably tell, the last few days were pretty tough.  To add to my misery, my workaholic husband has not been able to get home in time for me to go to yoga either.  Most of the world knows how badly I need my yoga classes...but I digress.

The worst thing that happened yesterday was that Zi fell off the bed (which, of course, I put her on and then turned away to grab something out of a drawer).  She doesn't seem to have any permanent damage (not even a bruise really) and there was no blood.  She just cried really hard and I felt like I was in contention for worst mom of the year.  Amazingly, several of my friends and family emailed me or called me and told me their own horror stories.  This is what Waldman does in her book too...she talks about the horror stories.  We all have moments when we dump the stroller onto the sidewalk, throw the baby in the play yard and walk away, make a drink too early in the afternoon, or, as I did, let a baby fall four feet from the bed to the ground.

Waldman's thesis is that in our contemporary over nurturing culture (Nurture Shock is another excellent book and is about the harm we do to our children when we put them in bubbles), we have set mothers up as either sinners or saints (think about reality tv shows, the buzz over Britney Spears mothering, or just simply the pressure to be the perfect parent).  She talks about public reaction to her comment while on Oprah that she loves her husband more than her kids (she was repeatedly called bad/unfit/irresponsible).  She argues that we can love our spouses more (after all, we are stuck with them after the kids leave) and that we need to stop pretending that we don't make mistakes.  We do.  Sometimes, we walk away from a bed with a baby in it.  Sometimes we blog when letting her play by herself (as I am doing now).

To achieve this, she claims, we need to stop calling ourselves and other mothers (again, read Spears driving with her kid in her lap) "BAD MOTHERS" when they make mistakes.  We need to recognize that everyone is doing the best that they can.

I need to recognize that in myself.

Here is Zi's reaction to my attempt to blog (this was taken by the computer camera -- watch her hand at the beginning trying to pry mine off of her so that she can get to the computer):