How I'm Learning to Live in the Gray as a Parent

Caring for a child truly has the power to change you and make you a better person.

I have been reflecting lately on the balance of having strong goals and ideals and yet holding them loosely enough that I’m not judging others (or myself!) when they do something different or don’t live up to my ideals.

There are some things about pregnancy and birth and parenting that are like I expected and planned for and there are many other things that are not. There are so many variables and thus the need for so much grace.

The way Grayson came into the world has given me so much more empathy for women whose births didn’t go smoothly or as planned, yet my breastfeeding journey with him has been so healing and beautiful. It’s hard for me not to be an all or nothing person, but I’m learning to hold two things at once: his birth was hard and scary and even traumatic, but that doesn’t mean parenting him will follow the same path. In fact, it’s good for me to be so so proud and rejoice in the fact that I have nourished this boy with my own body so that he is a chunker who has never needed a drop of formula. But on the same note, I have so much more empathy now for women who struggled with birth, breastfeeding, or any other aspect of becoming and being a parent. Some parents make different choices than I did or would and some barely had a choice and did the only thing they could do to ensure their child came into the world with the best chance of living the fullest life possible.

I listened to a podcast recently on which the host said that these types of issues aren’t moral ones. C-section or crunchy home birth, breast or bottle, sleep training or cosleeping--they are all valid and can all be loving choices. Still, I cringe thinking that, writing it. I don't really want it to be true. I'd rather cling to my ideals. It's easier to keep believing I'm right and to feel superior to those who may make parenting choices that differ from mine. But then I had an emergency C-section and a lot of my closely held ideals about pregnancy and birth crumbled. If you haven't read that whole story and would like to, click here. Have I reached the place in which I'm happy my birth turned out the way it did? No, and I don't know if I ever will, but it has enhanced my capacity for empathy and softened my propensity to judge, and I am thankful for that, as well as thankful for modern medicine (also something I have very strong opinions about so that has been humbling as well).

All that to say, the weight of making these kinds of things moral issues is not the light burden of Christ. So I am thankful for the gift of an incredible breastfeeding experience with my son, but know it was a gift (that I believe I very much needed to help heal from the trauma of his birth).

I have often found myself not solidly in one single camp in life, not adhering to one single philosophy. This makes things more difficult and complicated because I must be constantly analyzing and thinking things through. It would be much easier to simply accept the group’s rules and let groupthink make decisions for me. But ultimately I think this is a good place to be. For example, I love so much about attachment parenting, I breastfeed on demand, we bedshared with Gray for months, and we baby wear him a lot, yet we decided to sleep train him. We also never gave him a paci till he was almost eight months, and that was only for a week.

But you know what?

All of those things are fine if approached as a parent who wants the best for their child and is making a decision based on their best judgment and interpretation of the info out there.

With the internet, we have access to basically unlimited information, and this honestly makes parenting decisions scarier—maybe you just didn’t research enough or read the right study or consider all the risks or all the options. But at some point, we have to make a decision and even all the information in the world isn’t enough. It’s so so hard to simply trust your judgment when it directly affects a little person’s life, and I think that’s really the main reason why parenting is hard. You often have to do what is difficult when your little one doesn’t understand. It is hard, but it is beautiful.

This little boy is worth it all. He is resilient, a little joy, and so so loved.

It's so easy to make snap judgements, especially with the limited glimpse into peoples' lives afforded by social media. But more than anything else, parenting has given me a gentler lens with which to see into the lives of others. Thinking of how I likely would have judged myself (if I had been on the outside looking in) for having a failed unmedicated birth, having to transfer to a hospital for an emergency C-section, and realizing that all the essential oils, tinctures, soothing playlists, baths, dim lighting, breathing exercises, and birth affirmations didn't do s*** for me, has been eye-opening. It has forced me to reconcile my ideals with reality, and yet not go to the opposite extreme and throw the baby out with the bathwater (seems like an appropriate, if cliche, metaphor here). I still would love to have an unmedicated birth and believe it's the best option if possible, I still see the value in all that "crunchy" stuff. It's just that any ideology--the medical establishment, the hippie homebirth community, tired mom culture, and the list could go on--is only part of the truth, the story. Choosing to sometimes live in the gray (I promise I didn't write this blog to make this pun!) is what it means to stretch and grow your mind and even rewire old and unhelpful thought patterns.

Here is to continuing down this path. My son is not even a year old, so I know this is only the beginning.