Babble: The Over-Parenting Crisis

I came across this article last week and have been meaning to post it ever since. I've been thinking waaaaaay too much lately, but I guess that's something I've always done...

I recently bought a bunch of parenting books on amazon because I had this moment of crisis (ha ha, just a moment, Michele?) where I wondered "What if I'm doing this ALL WRONG?" I mean, without Justin here to even me out, what if I'm making huge errors, being over protective, holding her back, completely stunting her growth and development??? Now, if I'm being rational, I KNOW I'm doing a good job. I know it. She's doing great. But I still worry. And I have to wonder, is this just normal--mothers have always felt this way--or do I feel this way as a result of the hyper-parenting trend in our society? With all of the attention on celebrities' babies, all the "necessary" gear, all of the scary warnings out there about everything from vaccines to BPA-free plastics, it's hard to navigate through as a parent without getting swept up in the hype just a tiny bit.

I always breathe a sigh of relief when I come across an article like Granju's, because it bolsters my confidence and eases my worries (at least for a while). I sometimes feel that the message out there is, "if it isn't hard, you're not doing it right!" or "the more effort the better!" Instead of letting things unfold as they please, I have like it's my personal responsibility to make things happen. I should be rubbing Evelyn's gums and chanting over her while she's asleep in order to assure her teeth will eventually come out. She's not crawling/walking/composing sonnets yet? Exactly what have I been doing all day long?

Granju, while she is a leading advocate for "attachment parenting" describes her parenting philosophy as one of "benign neglect." She says

Until recently, the essential tasks of parenting were seen as nurturing and
socializing children. Today, however, this simple mandate seems criminally
neglectful. Now, parenting requires constant vigilance, unflagging attention to
every detail of our children's lives, and ever present monitoring of their every
activity.

While I agree wholeheartedly with her sentiment in the article, if I look at myself, I can see areas where I've succumbed to the hazards of obsessive worry and over-parenting. The fact that I waited to introduce Cheerios to the girl until she was almost 8 months old for fear she'd choke is, I know, silly. (I'm still nervous to continue introducing other "real" solid foods.) I still worry about her breathing at night, even though she is more than capable of getting herself out of a pickle--what she would suffocate on in her barren crib, I'm not sure, but I worry about it just the same. I worry that my lame-o housekeeping skills will make her ill, crawling around inhaling who knows what, and yet, the child has yet to have so much as a cold (knock on wood).

I think when it comes down to it, I have a lot more work to do on ME than HER.