Parenting in a fishbowl

Nobody said parenting was easy. Most people, instead, say it's the hardest thing they've ever done. It's exhausting, exhilerating, humbling. And it changes you.

But this isn't a post about the lovely and transformative powers of parenting or a flowery exposition about how much I love being a mommy. (I do, but that's not what I'm here to say today.)

Our modern, middle-class world is very different from life just 100 years ago, and is so totally different from the many centuries and millennia of human culture before that. Where humans used to live in tribal groups, we now live in cities and towns with larger populations but more separation between nuclear family units. Where humans used to live in multi-generational groups, we now have mom, dad, and two kids (or any other variant thereof - please don't flame me and say, "What about two dads, or single moms, or whatever else?" They're in my mind. I promise.)

New mothers used to have a lot more experience with small children. New mothers used to have sisters, aunts, and other women to show them the way. If a woman could not nurse (or raise) her own baby, another woman would step into that role. And I'm sure that was great.

But that's not who we are now, as a species. Or at least not in middle-class America. (Yes, I know there are exceptions. Stop arguing with me!!) Most young women have not seen a real, live birth until they give birth themselves (and maybe even then they don't see it...I didn't). Most young women have never witnessed breastfeeding (except maybe as very young recipients, if we were lucky). Many young women have never changed a baby's diaper until they're changing their own baby's diaper (this one shocks me, since I was the queen of all babysitters as a teenager). (And I'm not even going to describe how much less most young men have experienced of providing child care.)

So we're not terribly well-prepared to be parents.

That being said, most of us muddle through all right. When I shared the pulpit on Mother's Day with our minister, Bill, he made a good point. He said, "This is what I’ve seen, anyway, not having any children. I’ve noticed that parenting advice from people with children to people with none tends to end with something along the lines of, “you’ll be fine, you’ll figure it out.” Sometimes there is a lot of advice leading up to that point, sometimes too much, but it often ends there, with a gentle realization that mothering or fathering is something that has to be lived to be learned." (Full text here.) And he's right. Most of us are fine. We do figure it out.

But we also sometimes have a hard time, and the well-meaning advice we receive from the audience (family, friends, the internet, that woman in the grocery store, etc.) can make it worse. Other bloggers have written about it, and the new word "assvice" was coined.

So what do you do when you see that young mother struggling at the grocery store, toddlers on the go, holding onto her temper by an ever-shrinking thread? Do you speak? Do you hold your tongue? What if she asks for help?

I've been that mom, and I've seen her, too. I've received all kinds of advice, as much of it good as bad. I've certainly given my share as well. But I've clammed up, too, and sometimes I regret my silence.

What I try to remember is that the older lady in the grocery store who complimented my children, the hygenist at the dentist's office who told me I'm a great mother, my mom telling me that she loved watching me interact with my kids, their words stayed with me.

And I try to be that older lady in the grocery store. I make eye contact with that struggling young mom. I smile. I sometimes even tell her that she's doing a great job.

Because sometimes just keeping your head above water is enough.