Guilt vs. a healthy level of responsibility

The recent guest blog, regarding Mother's Guilt was pretty timely. I'm soon to have our second child (37 1/2 weeks!), and thinking alot about wanting to protect Abbie's feelings where possible (i.e., don't make her feel pushed out/ ignored).  I've recently read another chapter of the Free Range Kids book, and have only a tepid response towards it. It is titled "Relax: Not every little thing you do has that much impact on your child's development", so I thought that it'd be good medicine for me. Instead, it was quite a hurried chapter, skimping on aspects that could be covered better. For instance, it describes worry as a fashion, that it is an element of 'helicopter parenting': by worrying, you are doing it in order to prove yourself to be worthy as a Mother. I disagree. Concern about how you and your partner bring up your children is healthy, it shows that you are taking responsibility, that you care. Yes we carry Mother's guilt, and as long as we open up and share our insecurities with our friends and family, we can cancel out the ones that we needn't have worried about and make decisions or acceptances about the others, safe in the knowledge that we are not alone. To quote KT, "let’s remember that in this game of parenthood there is no right or wrong, so let’s all learn from one another, support one another and celebrate they joy of parenthood with each other."

The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt. Ayn Rand

To start off, here's a list of my own (a kind of guilt-off to KT's list):

· Guilty for being uninspired when it comes to games and play with Abbie (B is so good at this)
· Guilty in my pro-breastfeeding opinions. I'm still trying to work out how to express them sensitively, whilst not avoiding something I believe in.
· Guilty for giving into Abbie when she asks for cake or biscuits (because I fancy it too or too tired to fight over it)
· Guilty for being a Mum solo. No other career. No financial contribution to the family.
- Guilty for being pregnant, and so not 'pulling my weight' as much as I could/should do. Two thirds of my pregnancy seem to have been dominated by fatigue.
- Guilty for spending money
· Guilty for not having a spotless home (what am I doing at home all day you must think?)
· Guilty for letting the washing pile up   ( " )
· Guilty for never ironing                      ( " )
· Guilty for letting my husband get up in the night even though he’s going to work the next day
· Guilty for having a cold, and being under the weather, and therefore not being 100%
· Guilty for not having attention on Abbie while I sneak a look at FaceBook or reply to text messages.
- Guilty for not always being energetic or enthusiastic when giving Abbie her bath / reading at bedtime.
- Guilty for not staying in touch with friends and family very well, particularly phonecalls in the evenings, because often too tired out by day job.

There are various levels of guilt - those that really hurt and those that are easier to brush off or just accept.  It's taken me a year to accept myself as a full time Mum, for example, and it still wobbles, I still worry about other people's misconceptions or judgements (must be lazy/rich/not tough enough/dull/not worth the PhD anymore etc., [quick anecdote: at a wedding, someone on finding out I'd quit my job for Mumhood suggested I did an Open University degree with all my spare time, I've also had the question put to me "what are you going to do now you're not working?", they've since had a baby and realised the flaw in that question!]) - just as KT most probably gets the opposite over her decision to work. But actually, as I read through the list above, the guilt isn't really that bad, because most of the time I admit to it - partly through humour either with B or other friends, as an easy way to test the waters. Am I OK? Are you accepting of these failures? Do you do them too or similar? Any suggestions or work arounds?

I'm OK, You're OK

Bearing in mind that the intentions are always positive - we try to do our best - helps. Also that actions one person may feel guilty for, you do not or do not do, but may have something you regret, that they don't. It's what the general approach is, that say 80% of the time you're getting it right, that's the best most normal people can manage.  That's what is so great about having other parents to talk to. It is also a good feeling to quell their insecurities, leaving all of you with a little less of the forehead creasing. Expressing my worries to others isn't a way of proving myself as a caring or devoted Mother, but just to say outloud the questions I'm carrying in order to find some answers and hopefully stop worrying so much!

Quickish review of the FRK Relax chapter

Skenazy reminds us that the perfect childhood is not always the route to perfect adulthood, or rather, that a difficult upbringing can lead to a 'happy, successful' adulthood (p104). She refers to Barack Obama, whose father left him aged 2 years old; Julie Andrews, whose mother was an alcoholic and who found out the person she thought was her father wasn't her father but somebody else. Basically, our children are not formed 100% by our input, so we should relax. She also cites the work of Dr. Kirsten Condry, who runs the KIDS Child Development Lab, part of the Psychology Dept at Rochester Institute of Technology. She predicts that many aspects of what a child is like will be found to be determined by a genetic component, "You can't say, "Oh, if every parent does this they get the same child out of this behavior or that"" (p105). This is something that I am being reminded as I talk about preparing for a second child myself, both by friends who now have second babies and one with non-identical twins. You cannot apply experiences with your first child on what to expect with your second.

An example of epigenetics

However, Condry's research area is in perceptual and cognitive psychology, including visual perception and counting and matching tasks. I'm not sure how this matches entirely onto the field of genetics and the additionally broad field of child development. Skenazy is perhaps being a little simple in her presentation. In the reading I carried out as a research scientist looking at mother-infant interactions and child development, I came across studies that highlighted the power of mother-child interactions on how genetic predispositions express themselves (epigenetic theory). It is not that nature and nurture influence a child's development entirely independently, but that they do so bi-directionally: nurture can also influence nature by the modifying the way in which some genes are expressed. For example, Bakermans-Kranenburg and Van Ijzendoorn (Research Review: Genetic vulnerability or differential susceptibility in child development: the case of attachment, 2007), reviewed gene-environment interactions in studies of mother-infant attachment and found support for "not only more negative outcomes for susceptible children in unfavorable environments, but also positive outcomes for susceptible children in favorable environments". How we care for our children can interact with how some of their genes develop.

Another irritation with the chapter is the assumption that most parental worrying is over their academic or physical development, rather than social and emotional development. E.g., she talks about worrying over whether Baby Einstein and related products matter later in life (their likelihood of becoming a lawyer, doctor etc.,) or about breast/formula milk and a child's weight trajectory into adulthood. I do not care about whether Abbie gets an A at school, if her GCSE's are Arts or Science oriented or a mismash of whatever subjects ring for her. I also do not want to obsess over her figure at aged 21/2 years, as long as what she eats is mostly healthy (yes, despite all the cake) and she moves around enough, that is all there is to it!

Instead, I feel a greater responsibility for ensuring, as much as I am able, that my/our parenting decisions promote her capacity to be a well-rounded, reasonably normal, independent person who feels loved and secure in who she is. It will be these qualities that actually will lead her to, and enable her to, make the most of her life and most likely excel in whatever she puts her mind to, beit academic or otherwise.

This wasn't really covered in Skenazy's discussion and I felt a bit dismissed by the tone of her writing: that parents are all just silly, and perhaps self-centred, unnecessarily worrying when they don't really impact on their children at all.

I do maintain a responsibility for the wellbeing of my children, and hope that most of the time I get the balance right, feeling a bit guilty sometimes, but for most of the time not feeling guilty (actually feeling proud!). I'm trying my best and pleased to do so. I accept the responsibilities of having a family and enjoy the rewards of seeing my lovely children blossoming. I really cannot wait for our family's next chapter, that of becoming four, no matter what glorious learning curves (and sibling rivalry) come with it!

Some perspective

There are also things that you really ought to feel guilt about and that not all do: This is taking us into the social services arena when this blog is more about the 'normal' scenarios of parenting. Discussing abusive and neglectful actions that really do damage families, is a long way away from discussing worries about drinking too much caffeine in pregnancy or how many vegetables you manage to get your toddler to eat. This is not for today's writing.