On My Mind

I don't have the time to make an prescriptions.  As  I have entered the blogosphere I am stunned by how many inspiring blogs there are out there and how many wonderful books there are on the subject of mothering.  I was listening to NPR last night and a political science talk by Francis Fukuyama.  I was a Political Science undergrad.  Kind of funny considering I come from a family that never read the newspaper.  But, the aspect I liked was not public policy it was how is it hat we organized ourselves the way we did in political systems.  I was essentially pondering questions that my family thought I was a snob for pondering and frankly, my classmates blew me out of the water because of their understanding and retention of world history.

My brain continues on this quest to always want to understand, how is it did we arrive her.  How did this psychotherapy client arrive here and what influenced their world view, how did this couple arrive here, how did I arrive here, how did we as a culture arrive here.  I would love to be smarter so my depth of pondering these questions was more sophisticated.  But, nevertheless, I appreciate that I at least start these thoughts, even if they don't reach conclusion.  I love looking at the history of psychotherapy.   What is it that therapists do in the room, why, and what is the cultural history of psychotherapy?   This etiology of what we do now in our culture is something I am also striving to understand because I loathe dogma.  I was raised very dogmatically religious and found it to be mind numbing and now I resist with a vengeance - perhaps to my own peril at times - things that the culture has bought of on.  If it is the new 'in' thing I question it.

What is on my mind often as I evolve as a mother is how did we, in America, arrive at mothering the way we do it now?  All this pressure to parent in deeply attuned ways but doing so in a vacuum?  The mother's I am around are dislocated from their extended families so they are doing it alone or in larger playgroups not sharing the real deal of what is happening behind close doors - their triumphs and defeats - a plea for help on a bad day?  We look at tribal cultures that baby wear and co sleep and want to be like them  but we are applying their style of parenting sans the tribe to share the load, why?  Where is the tribe?  Moreover, can parenting this way be done without a massive impact on the mental health and nervous system of the mother?  I do think some have a natural mothering gene, just like I believe in my bones I have the natural psychotherapist gene.  I am really good at my job.  I am not natural at mothering. 

Saturday night we hosted game night with two childless couples.  One in their 60's, the other in their late 40's.  Both intelligent, spiritual, connected people.  When they walked into my house and they saw my two boys running amok with excitement at these new visitors, bouncing off the walls, "look at me", "come here", all of them had looks of shock on their face.  They said, "wow, this is a lot of energy.  I am not used to this."  to which I replied, "Me neither.  My nervous system gets blown out every day."  It was surprise validation from an unsuspecting place.  I always thought it was just me, that I suck but here are some health people and they were overwhelmed.  What I felt, after they left, was longing, again for a tribal community of mothers that share care of kids.  I also realized that while I love Alfie Kohn, Naomi Aldort and even Dr. Sears, good old behaviorism, if it keeps mom's nervous system calm, means the kids are alright.

I am just aware that the way parenting is set up right now is not good.  I am also aware I have some choices about that that means relating to other mothers and sharing the load. I have talked about my angst in doing that.  That I was criticized to a pulp by my own mother so I get really anxious around other mothers thinking they are doing the same character assassination of me. It isn't so much a lack of boundaires on my part as a primal fear remnant from my young life.  I was reminded by my close friend yesterday that most of us are judging all the time but the judgements are fleeting and often not character assassinations.  It is hard to remember that if we received the character assassination types of judgement.

The bottom line, though, for me is I need a tribe. I don't have the natural, "stay calm" gene when two kids are wresting over a toy.  Where is the tribe?  And what is the deal with all the discipline and parenting style fear mongering that is a totally joy killer in parenting?  Why are mom's and me buying so many books about parenting and moving from fear rather than joy?  Why are we constantly worried about screwing up our kids?  I mean, when I am just present, in my body, not over thinking how I am parenting, but guided by good principles, a good plan and have dropped the expectations for my kids behavior to be perfect  - parenting is a real gas.  It is really fun.  But all this crap about injuring our kids, doing it right, doing it alone, and playgroup moms not being frank about the challenges and sharing the load...bums me out.  And I want to know evolutionarily how it is we got here.  Lots of books to read on this subject.  Don't have time until July.  What are your favorite books on the history of mothering in the America or what are your thoughts?  Maybe the stuff of my PhD dissertation?