After two years of being called “mommy”and a dozen parenting books, the sum of my advice boils down to the most rudimentary understanding of how to be a good parent: lead by example, love unconditionally, be available, be consistent, and pray for the best. There it is. That is the sum of my knowledge on parenting. I’m sure that none of you are reeling from such earth shattering revelations, but truly, this is all I know. It is a crapshoot. I absolutely love being a mom, but I have no idea what I’m doing. Parenting represents both the most rewarding and demanding task that I have ever undertaken. Motherhood takes an enormous amount of time, energy, and resources. So much so, that it is other areas of my life that need to be examined and nurtured. In truth, I must admit that on occasion my husband and I feel more like roommates or co-parents rather than lovers. The first year of our baby’s life, we did not go anywhere without him. He was the rightful center of our universe. Needless to say, this took a toll on our marriage. It is only recently that we have found that we are better parents when we are partners in every sense of the word. Throughout the year, we have found a few minor things make all the difference in our marriage.
*Babysitting Cooperative. We were invited to join a babysitting cooperative by some friends of ours. We coordinate play dates in our homes that would allow each couple to spend some time alone. We feel much better about leaving our son with adult parents and a toddler friend with whom he has an ongoing relationship than a young teenage girl. This saves us a lot of money on babysitters which we would not entirely trust anyway. This arrangement also has provided the collateral benefit of developing an ongoing relationship with another medical family.
*Take a Lesson from our Parents’ Generation. Remember when you were a kid and your parents’ friends came over right before you went to bed? Perhaps they brought their children and you had a slumber party in your bedroom. Recently, we started having friends over on Friday nights to play cards. This entailed getting over my Martha Stewart compulsion to clean and entertain and allowing our guests step over toys and eat order-out pizza. If I waited until our house was clean and we had the time and money to truly entertain, we would never invite anyone over.
*Adhere to Strict Bedtimes. This is an important step to maintaining sanity as an individual or a couple. Our son goes to bed at 8:30 almost every single night. Having a regular bedtime makes putting him down easier because he has developed an internal clock that tells him when it is time to sleep. The time after 8:30 belongs to us. We do chores, we watch TV shows that aren’t on PBS kids, and we talk–really talk. If hubby is gone on call, I make long distance phone calls or read books.
*Time Away. After our first year of marriage, we made a pact to not buy gifts for each other for anniversaries, holidays, birthdays, and the like. More than once we have been criticized for not celebrating life’s moments with romantic gestures. Nonetheless, we save our money to go on a romantic getaway while our son stays home and gets spoiled by his grandparents. In order to defray all of our anxieties about leaving him, we try to take two days vacation after our trip to devote exclusively to our son.
*Family planning. The “when” and “how many” questions of family planning have as many unique answers as there are families. There is a combination that works for every single family, even though choices vary wildly. In truth, we all get the children that God intends us to have when he wants us to have them. We have tried to develop a general plan that will enable us to devote enough time to each child, ourselves, and each other. With any luck, this plan will work! Seriously, before we had kids, we believed that we wanted four children. After the birth of our first child, we both discarded this plan in light of the rigors of my husband’s very long and demanding general surgery residency. I honestly feel that my parenting, my sanity, and my marriage would suffer if I tried to adhere to this plan. It is a hard reality, but we will be planning our children around the ebb and flow of my hubby’s residency.
*Let others in. A child thrives with more love. Even though I like to believe that I am the only person who can comfort him and provide for his every need, this is a delusion that serves only my needs. Allowing family and friends to take an active part in his upbringing allows him to build strong relationships that will carry him through life. In turn, this lightens the burden for both me and my husband.
Sometimes we feel guilty when we do something for ourselves without our baby boy. He is growing before our eyes and our time with him seems fleeting. But in the end, we will hopefully provide him with a model of a strong, loving relationship and a strong foundation to grow on.