My Mommy Mission Statement

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Since learning I was pregnant with my first baby almost two years ago, I’ve wondered what kind of mom I’d be. I naively thought that by the time my baby was born, I’d have it all figured out. After all, I did have nine months to research. And research I did! I began reading article after article, blog after blog, trying to figure out how to be the best mom I could. My goal, in essence, was to have a “Mommy Mission Statement” written, notarized, and set in stone. In my mind, this mission statement would guide all of my parenting decisions. If I ever became confused, I could just refer back to my core set of beliefs about parenthood and they’d essentially make the right choice for me.

I became obsessed. I read about the Cry It Out method, and I agreed with some of its tenants. It made perfect sense in my mind that if we reward crying with love and cuddles, babies will learn that crying equates to attention. And who wants that!? But then I read about some Eastern cultures that practice co-sleeping and pick up their babies at the first little squawk. Their belief was that this helps children feel more secure and confident. And I certainly wanted my baby to know that I’d always be there for him, good or bad.

I read about spankings vs. time-outs. I read about natural or attachment parenting vs. the Babywise method. I learned how you should breastfeed exclusively until your baby turned one and I read about how you should let your baby direct weaning and feed him solids as soon as he showed interest.  I read that you shouldn’t use pacifiers if you are nursing, but that pacifiers also seem to help prevent SIDS. For every situation no matter how insignificant, I read about two, completely opposite methods of parenting. And I agreed with something from both sides in nearly every case.

My Mommy Mission Statement was not going well at all. Although I learned a great deal about everyone else’s beliefs’ about the right way to parent, I still had no idea what kind of parent I was going to be. I wasn’t sure what I believed about parenting. And just when I stumbled upon something I thought I could come to believe, I read something else that completely contradicted it. And I thought I could believe that too.

Labor and delivery rolled around as it inevitably does, but I still had not figured this motherhood thing out. So I kept reading. I hadn’t yet accepted the fact that there will always be two opposite ways of doing things; or that one of my virtues and vices is the ability to see and agree with both sides. This was useful when I had to write an argumentative essay in high school because I could successfully argue for either side. It will also probably come in handy when I have to mediate fights between children, but it’s really inconvenient when I need to have a strong opinion on something.  It made writing my mission statement incredibly difficult.

Difficult as it was, I felt that this endeavor was too important to quit on. So I kept on reading. I felt kind of like Forrest Gump. I just kept on reading. And reading. And reading. And reading. Until I just didn’t feel like it anymore. And so I stopped.

That point for me was this past month. I did not give up on my mission statement. But reading wasn’t getting me there. I’d read all I could. I read about me. What I, as a parent, should do. Over and over again, I read about me. And the question suddenly occurred to me, “When did parenting become about the parents?”

 When my sister and I were fighting, I don’t remember my mom saying, ”Ok. Now, I’m an attachment parent. What would an attachment parent do in this situation?”  When my baby sister was born, my mom didn’t say, “What sleep training method should I use?” And when her baby cried, my mom didn’t think, “Oh no! If I pick her up now, I’ll  be teaching her that crying gets attention and I’ll ruin her forever!” My mom didn’t do any of those things.

What she did do was love us. She listened to us. She got to know us. My mom recognized that she had three, individual daughters.  She knew and loved each of us, and she let that guide her parenting choices. She didn’t parent Mallary and Shaylee the same way she parented me, because she knew we were different people and we would respond best to different things. My mom and dad’s method of parenting wasn’t about them. It was about us.

So after twenty-three months of obsessing and researching, this realization has finally allowed me to begin writing my Mommy Mission Statement.

“I am a parent committed to raising a healthy, happy, responsible, and kind child. I will do this by being a “child-focused” parent. I will get to know my child as an individual by listening both to what he says, and what he doesn’t say. I will love him no matter what. I recognize that when I have more children, each of them will be different and as such will need different things. I believe this means there is no one right parenting style and I believe that as I listen to, love, and get to know my children, I will learn what type of parent each child needs. My abundant love for them will allow me to be that parent.”

I didn’t end up with the clear cut, notarized mission statement I wanted.  It won’t make decisions for me. It certainly leaves room for me to change my mind.  But it’s not about me. It’s about my children. Don’t get me wrong. I definitely see value in being a self-aware parent. How else will you recognize your mistakes and fix them?  But I see more value in being aware of your child and what they need. I’m not going to stop reading parenting articles. But my goal is to make informed decisions based on what each of my children need and not on what some scholar or parenting expert believes is best. After all, they don’t know my child. I do. I believe the best type of parent is one whose parenting decisions are more focused on their children than themselves. Those are the type of parents I had and that’s the type of parent I choose to be. That’s my Mommy Mission Statement.

Do you have a Mommy Mission Statement? What does/would it include?