I find I am always trying to figure out what the line is, where the ideal is, between respecting other people and sharing my own beliefs. I find that over the last few years I’ve started understanding that what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for other people – and that’s okay. It’s hard to be okay with sometimes. It stems from insecurity, wondering if what I’m doing really is the best thing for me, worrying about being judged. I find that it takes a very strong person to be confident in yourself and your own choices while at the same time fully supporting other people in theirs.<\/p>\n
Take breastfeeding. I chose to breastfeed, and I love it – I wouldn’t choose any other way for myself. But I also don’t think formula is the devil, that it will cause kids to be less intelligent, or that parents who feed formula are doing a bad thing. Sometimes I feel sad that a mother isn’t getting to experience the joy in nursing that I do, but then not every woman who nurses feels that same joy anyways. But at the same time I do want to encourage new mothers to nurse, if they have that option. I think it does have benefits and I want to make sure to give encouragement so that someone who is on the fence about it has the tools and support they need to give it a try and hopefully succeed. Plus I would love to see this country move towards more of a breastfeeding norm so that people don’t think it’s weird or shocking to breastfeed in public, or past a year, or at all. (I was really quite shocked when I was pregnant at how many people actually scoffed and laughed at me for stating I was going to breastfeed. But in this culture we’re in right now it’s seen as a really hard, probably-not-achievable thing.)<\/p>\n
Or how about natural birth and epidurals. I had good births, and I hope my third one is the same. But the more I learn and talk with others the more I realize that my births are unusually easy. I do think that labor can be a beautiful, wonderful thing to one person, and definitely not to another. Women should be able to choose how they want to handle it, if they want that epidural and IV or not. Though I do think women should know that can cause labor to slow down, pushing to be longer, and does have some possible side-effects such as a spinal headache or being completely numb instead of just dulled. Does that mean every woman who gets an epidural will have that list of things happen? Of course not. I have heard many women speak fondly of their labor-with-an-epidural experience and had it end in a very nice vaginal birth, as planned. But I have also heard women speak of getting one of those side-effects and saying, “I didn’t know that was possible.” At least if you know the information you can choose for yourself.<\/p>\n
Those two topics are of course very near and dear to my heart, but it doesn’t stop there and it certainly isn’t limited to baby topics. Every day we live our life we make choices, like what type of car to buy (SUV? Minivan? Used? Brand new?) or what type of food to eat (organic? local? frozen meals? artifical sweeteners?). Where does the baby sleep, when will you start solids, what type of diapers to use, will you keep pets in the house, will you turn on cartoons, will they take a pacifier, will they play with all those plastic lights-and-music toys? Will you see an RE or not? Will you do IUI? IVF? Adopt? Every day we make choices. Other people make different ones. What works for one person may not work for another, and that’s okay. I recognize, however, that the choices we make, the way we speak about our opinions and the way we live our lives all have an effect on other people. Maybe you talking with your friends about how you chose to make your own baby food spurred a friend to look into it themselves. Maybe your recounting of your rough no-epidural-labor confirmed another friend’s decision to get an epidural the moment she walks in the hospital door. Maybe seeing you breastfeeding your baby made a stranger think about giving it a try next time, or encourages a mother to breastfeed in public too.<\/p>\n
I try to be respectful, I try not to be pushy. I try to listen. Sometimes I fail – I have been known to be grouchy and spiteful, especially when provoked. I’m working on that. I can look back at the last ten years and see how much I’ve matured. I remember as a teenager seeing things as absolutes. If I’ve learned anything it’s that everything is gray-toned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I find I am always trying to figure out what the line is, where the ideal is, between respecting other people and sharing my own beliefs. I find that over the last few years I’ve started understanding that what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for other people – and that’s okay. It’s hard to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3273,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272\/revisions\/3273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lunardreams.net\/baby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}