Ok – I don’t get it. What is the world coming to that moms have lost the instinct, the knowledge, of how to soothe and calm a baby? It now takes a man, a so-called expert to teach us?! Watch the video (which a friend forwarded to me this morning) and see how a complete stranger is able to soothe a crying baby but not the moms.
Mind boggling. And very sad.
You know what it is? It is the whole anti-baby, anti-children culture of modern society. And even for those who like children and babies, it is often to view them as objects to coo over and cuddle with. And then when the baby acts up, everyone runs away and pushes the baby back to the caregiver, who may not necessarily be the mom.
Most of us grow up with little or no contact with babies and young children. And so we do not know how to relate to them and care for them when we have our own. We have no real life model to model after. Instead we look to books, to experts to tell us how to care and to parent our little bundle of joy. Isn’t that sad?
Our mothers were told to go and work and contribute to the household income. And so were we. We were told we could be anything we wanted to be and being a mother just was not part of the list of impressive roles we women could be. Afterall, you know, anyone could be a mother!
But as we have seen, not everyone knows how to be a mother – even in its most basic role. We don’t know how to soothe a baby, how to nurse a baby, how to feed a baby, how to bathe a baby, etc….And when we look to our mothers for help. They most likely don’t know either!
And so we have a whole industry thriving because of our ignorance. We now need experts to teach us. The irony is that many of these experts aren’t even parents!
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Articles for Christian SAHMs can be found at Building Up Moms.
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I think it’s more likely a case of new moms being nervous, exhausted and stressed out, which the baby will pick up on and it becomes a vicious circle. My friends used to hand their crying, inconsolable babies to me, and I would soothe them to sleep, because I wasn’t tired and upset about not being able to care for a baby like they were. And, because it is very hard to stress me out, I also managed to soothe my own children when they were upset.
But to say that today’s moms can’t turn to their own mothers for advise just doesn’t make any sense. I’m in my 40’s, I have no doubt my sons will feel comfortable asking me for my opinion when their time comes to be parents, and I have no doubt I’ll have advice to give, should they ask for it. I also know that my friends will be able to do the same. I think you’re tarring us all with a very thin brush.
And I think you are being oversensitive 🙂 I am referring to women in our generation asking our moms for advice. Would YOU ask your mom for advice on parenting and would she be able to advise you? Probably yes IF she had been a SAHM and probably not if she had been a WOHM who’d farmed out mothering to babysitters and daycare centres. Today there is a small but strong minded, educated, professional women who have gone against the career-feminimist movement of yesteryear who have chosen to raise their children on their own.
I agree with Serene. After my baby was born, my mum was rather clueless about certain things such as bathing a baby when I asked her for advice.
Like most mums during her generation, she slogged it out in the corporate world while my greatgrandmother brought me and my brothers up. Like me, a first time mum, my mum ended up having to re-learn alot of things so she could occasionally babysit for me.
Oh, no. Not oversensitive. 🙂 Just conscious of the fact that not all moms are useless. 🙂
Yes, I used to turn to my mom for advice when my kids were small, I didn’t always take her advice (used to think I knew more than her at times, and I’m sure there were times when I did.. things HAVE changed since her days) but it was nice to have her as a sounding board. My MIL, on the other hand, well.. she just liked to lecture me about what a great mom SHE had been and how moms these days just take the easy way out. Not exactly what a new mom needs to hear, right? It was never a direct accusation, but it was implied. Funnily enough, her daughter has turned out to be the world’s worst mom, whereas my MIL has had to (begrudingly) agree that I actually do a fair job.
I was a SAHM (and still am, largely), and so was my mom.I think that makes a huge difference. But that’s just me.
Anyhoot.. I wish everyone all the best with their babies, it’s certainly not an easy task, being a mom!