what worries me about gentle parenting

Lauren Derret - 29 Mar 16

I will begin this blog by saying that I am not judging any parenting styles, I believe 100% in a mothers right to choose how she parents her child, BUT, I feel very strongly when I see some mothers tied up in knots trying to follow a style of parenting that has been sold to them as the ‘right’ way, using valuable research and statics aplenty as it’s unique selling point and playing on their fragile emotions.

I’m pretty sure this blog will cause offence to some, some women who have very strong opinions on this topic may hate every fucking word I’ve written, somehow undoing all their good work, but my reason for this blog is to help to bring some clarity for any mother who is need of it. Apologies to the rest of you.

I want to talk about the massive movement of gentle parenting. Now, I am actually shaking whilst writing this as I’m fully aware of how popular this style of parenting has become and I fully understand why it’s raised such popularity, it’s the ideal, it’s how a lot of us all wish to parent, it’s the bench mark for how to raise secure, confident, loved children. Could we want anything more than that? I’m shaking because I’m also aware of the backlash a blog like this can cause, and yet I’m still writing it as my feeling is too strong to ignore.

I’m half way through the latest book on ‘why baby’s sleep matters’ and whilst I feel hugely educated in the importance of babies sleep, fascinated by the talk of babies hormones playing such a huge part, I also feel a whole other myriad of emotions that have become bunched up in side of me. And then just last night, I was talking to a mumma who by her own self admission, even with an amazingly high level of gentle parenting and clearly doing a fantastic job raising her young, is questioning herself to the point whereby when I said the simple words “you are enough” she became quieter still and said “but I’m not enough”.

That for me was enough! It wasn’t the first time I’d heard a gentle mother feel this way. A short while ago I was walking down the high street, I saw a local mumma with her twins in a buggy and her 5 year old on a balance bike. I said “Hi, how are you?” She smiled (with her mouth not her eyes) and then fell apart. She said that she was so exhausted, that all she needed to do was buy some dinner for that night, but had had to leave town as the kids were upset and the boy didn’t want to ride his bike and she’s so exhausted and that they don’t give her a second to think and that she’s exhausted and that she feels so fucking awful because she shouted at them and that she’s exhausted and then she told me that they were in mountains of debt because she couldn’t go back to work as her kids came first and then she told me she was exhausted”

I hugged that mother on the street, I told her it was ok, I told her that she’s human, I told her that parenting is hard, I told her I get it. I asked her if she had any support nearby, she said she had none, I then told her to go home, put a Disney movie on, give them all a packet of buttons and take an hour off. She looked relieved, she thanked me, she stood up straight and somehow in that short conversion she seemed stronger.

Now, I don’t have the research or the stats or any qualifications in parenting, but I’ve been parenting on the ground for near on 20 years. I have my own real life experiences and those of my peers around me. I have parented when I was a naive 23 year old, looking back it was a kind of gentle parenting, I was compassionate, I was loving, I gave my child confidence and a sense of self, but it came from my maternal instincts, not a book.

I’m now parenting a 3 year old amongst all this research, these stats, this evolutionary information and I can tell you now, parenting along these guidelines is so damn hard and the pressure on us mummas now is so much, it may just break us. Every day is racked with guilt, guilt about every word I say to my child, the way I say the word to my child, if my child has a varied enough diet, a varied enough style of play, enough of my undivided attention and in the process I’m loosing myself, his mum, the one who still needs to stay strong for him. Surely I can only do my best with my son?

Consider for a moment how diverse us as adult humans are. How diverse our set of needs are. Can our babies needs not be that diverse too? How does it make the mother feel who strongly believes that GP is the right way to parent, and yet her baby has been born with such a free spirit that they become anxious when being over handled, put into slings, put in bed with us because the book says that’s what they need. How does that leave that mother feeling? I can answer that having been in this exact situation myself, it left me to feel rejected. Rejected by my own baby who wouldn’t allow me to do what I was being told was best for him. He fought attached parenting pretty much from day one, but the books kept telling me that it’s best, I believed the damn book and before you know it, my baby was becoming distress, I was feeling rejected and our relationship suffered. Our bonding period didn’t kick in for around a year (you can read my blog about bonding here). When the way we parent affects our relationship with our baby we need to assume that our babies may need to be parented a different way regardless of any book we’ve read. One size really doesn’t suit all!

I really want mummas to get the message that they are enough that the emotion of guilt need only be applied if you have done something intentionally to hurt or upset. If you are parenting to the best of your ability then my dear, you are enough.

Imagine a parenting spectrum, one end being abusive and the other being full on be there for your baby for every second in case it needs you. Now sit and think about where you feel you fall in that spectrum. Ask yourself if where you are on the spectrum is comfortable for you and be realistic with your family dynamic (whilst considering your baby’s needs obvs). If you are happy with your place, then take peace from that, you are doing your very best and that is ok. If you feel for you to feel more comfortable and enjoy your parenting experience rather than beating yourself up everyday for not complying to the guidelines then shift your place on the spectrum and know that that is ok.

For us to survive this incredibly hard, emotional, all consuming journey of parenting we need to find a sustainable level for us and our family dynamic. Whilst we can appreciate the science and research showing us the damage we could do our young by doing X Y Z, maybe we could consider the damage that we may be doing them by putting on a front, crying all night and feeling like parenting is just too damn big for us.

If you are a mother who needs to go back to work to pay the bills to keep the baby feed and warm but feeling like utter shit for doing so as you know that it may have long term effects on your child, then who’s going to feed and keep the baby warm? These books always reference us in the caves and how it would have been and how our babies haven’t evolved much since back then so therefore need the same type parenting than that which they would have received in the caves. All the women there to hold the babies 24/7, those women in the caves who gracefully wet nursed each others babies, those women who’s sole purpose was to mother those babies and yes it’s right to do so as the bastard research tells us that’s what babies need. But, we’re not in the caves any more, we are women who may have to work, who may choose to work for their own personal growth, who may have to put their twins in a buggy to walk to town to get tea, who don’t have any kind of support around them. And these women are collapsing under the weight of gentle parenting leaving them wide open to regret for not enjoying their journeys and wide open for feelings of failure.

Surely being mindful of your actions, being comfortable on the spectrum, feeling empowered as a mother would also have a massive impact on our babies cognitive development too? Surely these babies will feel that ease in their mothers?  Not to mention how that mother will be feeling about herself as a parent and therefore maybe changing her relationship with her child in the long run?

Whilst babies development is hugely important, so is the mothers. She’s also evolving, she’s still learning, she needs to find her own groove, and being bombard with how to do it right may not allow her the space to find her comfortable parenting style.

We are not super humans, we are human adults,  we should offer ourselves the compassion we offer our children, we are as important.

Mumma, YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH, find your comfortable space on the spectrum, your instincts are strong, you know what’s best for your child.

Please always be kind to you xxx

Lauren Derret

I’m Lauren, mum of 4 humans, each with their very own birth story. Red wine drinker, keen blogger, trash tv watcher and pretty hard core potty mouth! But, with a good heart and a passion for setting lovely women like you onto a path towards a positive birthing experience, and we’ll have fun doing it; always a bonus! I teach The Wise Hippo Birthing Programme and am a Doula Uk recognised Doula

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