Insanity...
Here's a post of a more sombre nature, but something that has been very meaningful to me this past year
For some reason an article posted by a friend caught my eye and so I was reading about how a baby should sleep from birth to 3-5 years. According to that article I suck as a mother. And yet my child is an amazing sleeper and (I think) the world's happiest and healthiest baby. But what really got me is the hypocrisy of a culture that can condemn me on how I raise my baby and then tell the woman over there it is perfectly right for her to have an abortion.
Both Paden and I have felt this issue of abortion strongly since having Olivia. The thought of people killing their children is even tougher to swallow when you're holding your little girl as she gurgles to you.
Our culture will tell a pregnant woman exactly what and how much she can eat, what foods she must at all cost avoid, what oven cleaners or perfumes she must not go near, how heavy an object she can lift, even what positions she can sleep in. Everywhere you turn, someone is there telling you how to be a good mom to your little unborn child. (And this is not to say that all of it is unhelpful or false.) But then they also turn around and say that - since a woman has a right to her body - so long as the little person is still inside her body she has a right to snuff out that life. How can they possibly not realize that they have just judged the value of a life based on location? What kind of crazy culture tells us exactly how to treat a newborn (you can find week by week guides on The Right way to care for a baby) and yet they have no qualms about saying we can kill all the babies as long as they haven't gotten to see the world outside the womb where they are growing? No one would say Olivia is less Olivia when she weighed five pounds eleven ounces versus now when she weighs fifteen pounds two ounces. So what, beyond location, made her less of a person one year ago when she weighed only two pounds? She was no less dependent on me for life and nourishment at that size than she was after being born.
As Paden brought up last night, and it's the only response in trying to understand this, sin is insane. No sane person could possibly say what our culture says. No sane person would say "It's fine to kill the baby, oh, unless it's passed through the birth canal in which case now it's the most horrible thing to not breast feed and rock the child to sleep and always care for its every need." Or even "It's fine to kill the baby, but if you decide to let the baby live and be born one day, then you had better not drink a glass of wine because excessive drinking causes FAS."
Insanity.
For some reason an article posted by a friend caught my eye and so I was reading about how a baby should sleep from birth to 3-5 years. According to that article I suck as a mother. And yet my child is an amazing sleeper and (I think) the world's happiest and healthiest baby. But what really got me is the hypocrisy of a culture that can condemn me on how I raise my baby and then tell the woman over there it is perfectly right for her to have an abortion.
Both Paden and I have felt this issue of abortion strongly since having Olivia. The thought of people killing their children is even tougher to swallow when you're holding your little girl as she gurgles to you.
Our culture will tell a pregnant woman exactly what and how much she can eat, what foods she must at all cost avoid, what oven cleaners or perfumes she must not go near, how heavy an object she can lift, even what positions she can sleep in. Everywhere you turn, someone is there telling you how to be a good mom to your little unborn child. (And this is not to say that all of it is unhelpful or false.) But then they also turn around and say that - since a woman has a right to her body - so long as the little person is still inside her body she has a right to snuff out that life. How can they possibly not realize that they have just judged the value of a life based on location? What kind of crazy culture tells us exactly how to treat a newborn (you can find week by week guides on The Right way to care for a baby) and yet they have no qualms about saying we can kill all the babies as long as they haven't gotten to see the world outside the womb where they are growing? No one would say Olivia is less Olivia when she weighed five pounds eleven ounces versus now when she weighs fifteen pounds two ounces. So what, beyond location, made her less of a person one year ago when she weighed only two pounds? She was no less dependent on me for life and nourishment at that size than she was after being born.
As Paden brought up last night, and it's the only response in trying to understand this, sin is insane. No sane person could possibly say what our culture says. No sane person would say "It's fine to kill the baby, oh, unless it's passed through the birth canal in which case now it's the most horrible thing to not breast feed and rock the child to sleep and always care for its every need." Or even "It's fine to kill the baby, but if you decide to let the baby live and be born one day, then you had better not drink a glass of wine because excessive drinking causes FAS."
Insanity.
This is so true. And it bugs me how much guilt I have felt after having Asher for pretty much every decision. There are so many "rules"! Don't give him a pacifier. Don't let him cry it out. He should sleep in your room. If you don't breastfeed you're selfish. Etc etc. who cares, as long as you love and care for your child?
ReplyDeleteYes! I am totally there with you. I still know all too well how easy it is to make a new mom unsure of herself because I really really really want the very very best for Olivia and how do I know I'm doing it? And honestly sometimes I wish there WAS a manual!
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day only us parents have the right so say how the child is raised. We are the one holding and loving the child and random people writing these things (half of whom I bet don't have kids) can't possibly know if your child should cry it out or be formula fed. (Not to mention these same people will tell you in ten years that time out is outdated)
:)