This post is the second of a three-part series on parenting failure. The first post in this series examined the concept of genetic parenting failure, which posits that our children often inherit our problems. In this post, I move on to a second category of parenting failure that is familiar to all parents: pseudo-parenting failure.
First-time expectant moms and their partners often spend a lot of time reading books, browsing the internet, and talking to friends about everything they need to know to become great parents. They plan the delivery, how to start nursing, the baby’s sleep schedule, their own sleep schedule, and how their newborn will gradually settle into a routine of naps, feeding, and nighttime sleep.
Inevitably, their plans go awry within their first days, hours, or even minutes of becoming parents. Their parenting almost immediately fails to meet their own expectations, and they feel like failures as parents.
After a few months, just as they have realigned their expectations with reality and found a way to get enough sleep to reconnect with their friends and community, they begin to hear the comparisons. Sweet baby Mollie down the street sleeps all night without stirring at all! Their nephew, Anders, had doubled his birth weight by the time of his two-month checkup. Breastfeeding is a breeze for their neighbor Lilly, who has extra breastmilk and called to offer a donation! They’re not even at the rolling-over stage, and it seems like everyone else is doing better and having an easier time, which leaves them feeling like failures.
A few months later, they finally feel brave enough to go out to a restaurant with their baby. They get her settled in the highchair and place their order just as the crying begins. Thinking she’s hungry, they offer her banana-flavored puffs, which she swipes off her tray and onto the floor. They offer a bottle of milk, which she immediately tosses to the floor, still crying. After she has cried for several minutes and everyone else in the restaurant seems to be watching them, her mom picks her up, lays her in her lap, and nurses her. The crying finally stops, and the exasperated parents overhear comments like, “If they would only...,” “I’d never bring my child to the restaurant acting like that,” and “Maybe they’ll learn how to parent someday.” The feeling of failure comes right back.
Feeling like failures as parents is a natural and understandable response when we fail to meet our own expectations, face constant comparisons between our child and others, and encounter criticism when our children don’t meet societal standards. These situations aren’t true failures. They seem real, but they actually represent pseudo-parenting failures.
Pseudo-Parenting Failures are Perceived
My initial response to these perceived parenting failures is to remember that they are, in fact, precisely that: perceived. As parents of children of any age, we sometimes create unrealistic expectations for ourselves. This is perhaps even more true for parents of newborns. For instance, babies sleep in various patterns, and there are techniques to help them and their parents get rest and navigate the night safely. Similarly, although there is significant pressure for new moms to nurse, those who have to pump and bottle-feed or use formula are in no way failures.
As the months pass, babies grow, develop, sleep, and eat in different ways, making comparisons often unhelpful. While some developmental milestones are more consistent, many recognize notable differences among children. For example, typical infants might roll from front to back as early as two months or as late as six months. By fifteen months, some may only say one or two words, while others can say up to eighty or a hundred.
One of the most difficult comparisons for parents to avoid is comparing siblings. It is very common for a toddler who is a second child to develop expressive language more slowly than their older sibling. This apparent delay usually occurs because the older sibling talks all the time, making language less necessary for the toddler. In this case, the parents did nothing wrong and are not failures in any way.
When people judge others’ parenting, they often ascribe to different styles and philosophies, forget what parenting is really like, or haven’t had children. Some of the loudest critics of others’ parenting adopt an authoritarian approach when raising children. They highly value competitive success and external appearances. Parents who take a more nurturant approach can remind themselves that their goal is long-term relationships, not just short-term performances in public.
Parents Can Parent Themselves
A nurturant parenting style, characterized by high parental guidance through the empowerment of children and strong responsiveness to their needs via empathy and consideration of their input, is the healthiest. (For more on parenting styles, please see my post, “Parenting Styles in Focus.”) Parents also need nurturant relationships and can benefit from applying these principles to themselves and their parenting partners.
For example, parents can view their hopes for their newborn’s sleep and feeding as loving guidance rather than strict, self-imposed rules. When things don’t work out as expected, they can respond to themselves and each other with empathy and look for the best possibilities for the next moments and days. When faced with comparisons or criticisms, they can gently acknowledge their feelings of jealousy or inadequacy and redirect these emotions by reminding themselves that their child is developing along a spectrum and is healthy.
The idea of parents parenting themselves reminds us that at every moment, we strive for the overall well-being of the family. That means the parents’ need for love is just as important as the child’s.
God’s Response to Parents
I think that God interacts with us every moment, just like a nurturant parent does with their child. God sees what we do and understands how we feel. The theologian and philosopher Charles Hartshorne refers to this idea by saying there is a divine “feeling of feelings.” God deeply and experientially understands our feelings of frustration and inadequacy that make us think of ourselves as failures. God doesn’t sit by as an idle bystander with these feelings, but uses them to see and guide us toward the best possibilities for the moment that lies ahead.
God helps us parent ourselves, helping us overcome the feelings that come with pseudo-parenting failure.
I’ll explore the continual pattern of divine responsiveness and guidance more in the next post in this series, “True Parenting Failure.”
image: forge-flux ai
Where was this post 33 years ago! Good stuff, Chris!
Very interesting, even for this non-parent. I can sure imagine how I would constantly feel like a failure.