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“You are such a good mother!” - the most incorrect compliment that can be given to a woman. This phrase means something like this: “You raise your children the way that seems right to me.” These are only the values of the speaker, and not the absolute truth.” Psychologist Ellen Boder says so. Read her column about why you shouldn’t look at other people’s opinions.
The idea of “being a good mother” is as common to women as the idea of “being thin.” This in our society means “being a good woman.” But this assessment is always made by others. It is determined by other people's values, standards and ideas. This turns out to be a very limited judgment.
When you put different people's ideas about how to be a good mother into one head, your head becomes a complete mess.
- I have to sleep with the baby. We can't let him sleep with us.
- I have to bring down the baby’s temperature to make him feel better. You need to use only natural remedies.
- I should spend more time at home. It's time to get back to work.
- I have to enroll my children in new clubs. My children and I need to relax and be idle more.
- I have to feed them only organic, gluten free foods. You need to take a simpler approach to nutrition.
- I should be calmer. We need to be stricter with them.
- I have to demand discipline from them. It's worth being gentler.
- I should clean the house more often. Stop paying attention to nonsense.
If such a swarm of thoughts is buzzing in your head, it means that you are following someone else’s path. Trying to be good to everyone is useless. This only increases anxiety and self-doubt. It's time to go in search of your own answers.
When we try to be good mothers, we miss something more important - the ability to be ourselves.
I used to say the phrase myself: “You are such a good mother.” I told this to friends who doubted themselves and whether they were raising their children correctly. With these words I wanted to say: “I see how you care about children. I know raising them is not easy. I believe in you, love you and will support you." I hope my friends understood me correctly.
But I don’t say that anymore, because when we try to be “good mothers,” we miss something more important for our well-being and the happiness of our families - the ability to be ourselves. Sounds simple, right? Just be yourself. Love yourself, accept yourself. But it's easier said than done.
We need to learn to stop, monitor sensations and their changes, otherwise we risk missing something important. No matter how well you know yourself, the experience of motherhood will inevitably change you.
We change our lives and go through a serious adaptation process. Motherhood can inspire and inspire, but it can also stifle and limit. It doesn't happen day after day. To overcome all this without losing our last strength, we must recognize ourselves anew.
Motherhood shatters our unrealistic self-image. Having become a mother, everyone learns through trial and error, learns what she likes and what works, and where she can’t do without help, from her own experience.
We learn that the simple things can be the most important: a nap and a quiet evening with your husband are the best things in life. We discover in ourselves the enormous ability to love and experience. Let's get to know our limitations: even though we adore children, we cannot be with them all the time. We learn that our patience is not endless: sometimes by eight in the morning our little angels completely deprive us of it. We want to give our children the best, but if we don't set boundaries, the life force will run out before the child turns three.
The main thing for me is to show the children that I see them, love and care about them
For me, trying to be a “good mother” means trying to become a different person. It took me a while to realize that some approaches to motherhood didn’t work for me. For example, I'm a lousy mother animator. I can invite guests to a birthday party and order a cake, organize a hike or a picnic, but nothing more. My son was upset that I couldn't teach him anything. We tried. Knitting, felting, weaving, building fairy houses are my baby’s favorite activities. This is not given to me. But, realizing this, I began to hire talented teachers and animators who stage performances and develop my children in every possible way.
The main thing for me is to show the children that I see them, love and care about them. I want them to feel comfortable and safe around me. It is important for me to be predictable for them, to set clear and adequate boundaries. I want to establish and maintain a deep connection with them.
This approach to motherhood is just mine, no one else can teach me how to do it. This approach requires me to pay attention to myself: I should always have strength and energy.
So no, I don't want to be a good mother. I want to be the mother I was meant to be. I want to be someone who is full of love and gratitude for my motherhood, continuing to learn with every step of my parenting journey.
I go my own way, making my way through the thickets. Sometimes I'm caught off guard, but more often I'm inspired. I hope you too are following your path.
about the author
Ellen Boeder– psychotherapist, mother of two children. More details on her website.
Svetlana Vasilyevna, maternal coming outs appear again and again and become a new trend. It’s getting to the point that now inserting a comment about how you experience joy and pleasure from living together with your child is impolite and incorrect towards other mothers, tired and exhausted, who will immediately accuse you of hypocrisy and the desire to appear better than others. What do you think about it?
I think that being at someone's disposal all the time at any moment of the day or night is really difficult. And this has nothing to do with happiness. Especially if the child does not sleep well and does not allow him to get enough sleep - then caring for him can really become torture. Therefore, a woman, of course, should not be constantly left alone with her child - someone should be nearby. But there is another side to this problem. The reason for fatigue from a child may also be the mental immaturity of the parent, who, for a number of reasons, is not able to perceive the birth and development of a child as a miracle, with admiration. If you see a child as a miracle that you brought into the world, but at the same time you do not own him, who is a separate person, and you, the parent, are simply honored to be present as he grows, develops, then you have an alternative to this exhaustion, this surrender at his disposal. These are personal relationships, if we speak in the language of existential analysis. But if your attitude towards your child is objective, then everything is different. Today, object relations dominate: what you like must be bought and consumed, used. This is a trait inherent in narcissistic personalities, of which there are more and more people in our time: such a person loves his wife like a car, like a thing, and if she gets old or no longer likes her, he easily changes her. Such a person will love the child for his useful qualities. And this is what it means to love, as one loves good, comfortable, useful things. If a child becomes uncomfortable because he doesn't let me sleep because I can't be proud of him yet, he may stop making his mother happy. It all depends on what meaning you attach to it. As in the famous parable about Chartres Cathedral, when the builders were asked: “What are you doing?”, and each answered in his own way: one - that he was cutting stones, the other - that he was very happy to participate in the construction of Chartres Cathedral. These people live completely different lives, although they essentially do the same thing. It’s the same with a child: if you see individuality, originality and uniqueness in a child, then you are able to admire this in him, be surprised, serve his growth and development, experience wonderful experiences, and if you feel used, trapped, then you instantly you're burning out...
-Yes, but if he still has colic and sleeps little...
Yes, then the “thing” becomes uncomfortable. What to do with it? To brag - I boasted, and then I begin to understand that the child is now with me until he is eighteen years old, and I become scared. At this moment, sobering occurs, and the person is faced with a choice. He either changes the object relationship to a personal one, or suffers further. In addition, to this sobering is added the hysterical accentuation that is present in many women, because of which they cannot withstand the constraint.
-That is, there are some categories of women who are more predisposed to dissatisfaction with motherhood?
Certainly. Hysterical individuals need more freedom; they cannot stand constancy and routine. Vivid examples from literature and cinema are Scarlett O'Hara or Anna Karenina. Remember how they treated their children: the first was greatly annoyed by the children, she considered the sawmill a much more important occupation, the second eventually left her eldest son, and was cold towards her youngest daughter. Psychologists are well aware that in the first months of life, stability, repetition, peace and routine care procedures are especially important for a child, that is, the satisfaction of his basic needs at the level of the first fundamental motivation. But the repertoire of these interactions is still very small - and, by the way, it is thanks to its limitations that the child learns to somehow navigate in this world. What can you do with your baby? Feed him, lull him to sleep, change him, bathe him. All this is done constantly, at the same time of day, because rhythm is very important for development. A child needs the stability and predictability of an adult. Of course, communication is also necessary. He himself will let you know how much and when. But that’s all, he doesn’t need anything else for now. Margaret Mahler called this period in development the “mother-room.” If I, an adult, am informed about what happens to a child at one or another stage of his infancy - at 4 months the nuclear self is formed, at 9 months the intersubjective self appears, and so on - then it becomes very interesting for me to observe him. He changes all the time, becomes different. If I don’t know anything about this, I don’t realize it, then I see only my own constraint, I see that the child’s development is still happening too slowly, gradually.
That is, “maternal burnout” also occurs because mothers do not know very well how the child develops during the first year of life?
Yes, and that's why they don't know what to watch. I advise everyone to read the book by D.N. Stern's "A Baby's Diary: What Your Baby Sees, Feels, and Experiences." This is a wonderful book. It may also be that the mother does not know what to do with her newborn baby. Now in Western schools, children are shown special videos, quite long, about how a mother communicates with her child, looks eye to eye, rejoices at him, and purrs something in his ear. We have many adults who have never seen this at all: for example, because mom died, or she was completely cold. Therefore, they do not know at all how to relax with a child.
—Do you agree that for the first year and a half it is important for the mother to be at home, next to the child, and not try to work somewhere or earn extra money? It is clear that situations may be different, and some mothers are forced to work, but if we consider the option when there is no urgent need for this?
For a child, having his mother nearby is vital from the age of approximately 9 months to 2 years. And earlier, in the first months, of course, too, since his mother feeds him breast milk. After breastfeeding ends, by and large, it does not matter at all which parent will take care of the child - mom or dad, as long as this adult is sensitive to the child. I would understand what he is crying about now: is he hungry, or does he need to change his diaper? Or does your tummy hurt? Again, the repertoire of reasons for crying is small. And he not only understood, but also responded immediately.
Another problem of modern mothers is separation from society. Before the birth of a child, a woman actively worked, communicated with colleagues and friends, traveled, did what she liked, and then one day - and she was at home, within four walls, alone with the baby, cut off from the rest of the world. My husband is at work all day, and grandmothers these days are less actively involved in the lives of their grandchildren. Some young mothers admit that they wanted to go out the window with their child...
Well, what can you do here? Of course, a woman should not bring herself to such a state where she is ready to jump out of the window. Still, when you become a parent, you need to grow up a little before that. Because the worst thing that can happen is a parent who hasn't grown up yet. You need to think about how you can help yourself. It is not at all necessary for a woman to take care of her child around the clock herself. Let's say my husband is at work. This means there is at least some money for a nanny. You need to look for someone who can help you, sit with your child, at least a couple of hours a day. However, husbands also usually do not work 24 hours a day; they are at home in the evenings and on weekends. Undoubtedly, it is very important for a woman to share the care of a child with her husband. Good relationships in a couple are tested during this period. And the main task of a young father is to make mother’s work easier. Become her support, please her with something. The child very subtly feels how the emotional state of the mother changes when the father approaches her, and this begins to shape his character. Already from the first months of life. When we are together next to this miracle, then nothing is scary at all. For example, a husband can get up at night and bring the baby to me, sleepy, for feeding. This is wonderful, it greatly enhances the relationship. A woman, half asleep, feeds her child, sleeps better, and in the morning sees her husband off to work with gratitude. And he gives her this opportunity because he understands that sitting with a child is harder than working in an office, and it’s easier to do it when you’ve rested at night.
-Why do young mothers, even with the support of their husband and nanny, continue to complain about difficulties?
I think that the point is also that modern women are not prepared for the birth of children throughout their previous lives. After all, now the technical side of caring for a baby has been extremely simplified: there are diapers, there are automatic washing machines, multicookers, dishwashers - and women still have more opportunities to relax, even if there is no nanny. I remember my parenthood: it was constant washing, which took a lot of time. What happiness came to our family when we bought the “Malyutka” machine - but after washing in this miracle of technology, the diapers still had to be rinsed and wrung out by hand. But my whole life before this had taught me to do hard housework. Tempered. Now this aspect of everyday life has been greatly facilitated, and women, accustomed to comfort, find it difficult to adapt to the new way of life. A few decades ago, a woman’s experience included pioneer camps, early exercises, hardening from kindergarten, hiking in adolescence, “potatoes” at the university. By the way, as in the experience of Russian noblewomen, who were not brought up in hothouse conditions and could leave their comfort zone for the sake of something good and valuable without any problems. Today's women are not very seasoned in this regard - and there is nothing good about that. If a person is accustomed to everything being easy for him, everything being brought to his home, he does not need to make additional efforts, then there is no reason to be surprised that before this test - the birth of a child - he turns out to be weak.
It would seem, on the contrary, one can rejoice in the fact that the achievements of technological progress make it possible to free up time from laundry and washing dishes to communicate with the child. Now you can go to the swimming pool with your baby, do baby yoga, and listen to old fairy tales together on your smartphone...
Yes, but sometimes you don’t know when he needs these fairy tales and baby yoga, and when it’s too early. Sometimes mothers are in too much of a hurry - this is also not very good. In fact, a child in the first year of life does not particularly need baby yoga - he needs much more so that everything is calm and that his parents understand what his needs are. And communication, which is still very primitive, but nevertheless... The child develops from simple to complex.
Nowadays, they strive to make the birth itself as comfortable as possible: use epidural anesthesia, cesarean section, so as not to feel pain. However, another position is also gaining strength: pain is an important experience necessary for the birth of a healthy child and the development of a woman as a mother. What do you think about it?
As always, there is no right answer here. If a woman is not at all prepared physically and psychologically, then this pain can be traumatic for her. When was childbirth easier without pain relief? When people lived closer to the land, engaged in physical labor, they were more resilient, because they constantly trained their body, the ability to withstand discomfort and inconvenience. And if a woman has not been hardened since childhood, if she grows like a mimosa in a botanical garden, then during childbirth she becomes absolutely helpless, it’s hard for her. She does not have the muscles, including emotional ones, to withstand this load. She becomes scared and easily falls into despair. And then some kind of medical help, pills, injections becomes necessary. —
-Does postpartum depression occur for the same reason?
Depression can have different sources. There are people predisposed to depression. And there are people who become depressed simply because reality does not match their ideas. Instead of accepting reality, saying: “Well, it turns out, how interesting!” and accept the challenge of this life, they break down in horror and begin to cry and be sad.
Maybe motherhood brings more joy with age? After all, the child grows, talks, hugs, makes some discoveries every day...
Yes it is. This also comes with your own age. A lot still depends on whether this child was wanted or not. And, of course, from universal human maturity. One day you look at a child and think: “God, this is some kind of miracle. How did we grow such a beautiful creature?” The birth and growth of a child can be looked at as something incomprehensibly beautiful. This, of course, does not prevent him from being firm when necessary, but certainly not in the first year of his life. Interviewed by Anastasia Khramuticheva
Photo: Scanpix
Once I got into a conversation with a young woman, about thirty years old. And she was surprised that she didn’t want to get married, didn’t want to have a family, and especially not children. “All these family values, motherhood, sacrifice, femininity are no longer relevant! Now no one is concerned about this!” - she exclaimed. “What are you concerned about?” - I was surprised. “Something else!” - the girl answered evasively, and I wanted to understand this problem.
I see that this is a problem in many ways: in children who are increasingly left to their own devices, in numerous examples of broken families, in the loneliness that surrounds me everywhere, writes MyJane.ru. People stopped working in the name of their love, they also stopped truly loving, replacing close relationships, which require a lot of attention and effort, with surrogates of random and short-lived relationships. What's happening to us?
What are we concerned about?
My interlocutor replied: “Something else!” - and I tried to imagine what it could be. Unfortunately, I came to disappointing conclusions. I couldn’t find anything that could fully replace the happiness of a warm family hearth, a home in which love and tranquility reign, in which you are comfortable and always welcome, where you can be yourself and you don’t have to break yourself for it. Perfect picture. This practically never happens now, because you need to work hard on it. Nothing comes for free, especially building your own home. But we don't want to strain ourselves. It’s stressful at work, but it’s hard to get away at home. So we “break away”, not caring about who is next to us and how they feel from our “breakaway”. What is modern man concerned about?
Success,
Career,
Getting pleasure.
Ultimately, YOURSELF!
Yourself, loved one, unique, special, original, talented, beautiful, smart, etc.
Achieving your success
Achieving your comfort
With your interests...
Many of us, deep down, think only about ourselves. Even in love and friendship in the sense that excludes the concept of family and home.
Of course, everyone puts their own meanings into these concepts, but, in general, we are similar. “I would rather travel the world than take care of my home nest! It's boring! How much time is wasted on household chores, and who needs them!”
Yes, you need it to be cozy, to have the very concept of home, that is, a place where you and your family members can relax and unwind. And your efforts never go in vain, since you invest your time, energy, love into them, which spreads to others.
To be honest, I also don’t really like ironing clothes and washing floors, but I really respect cleanliness. You can, of course, hire a housekeeper and a nanny, put the house and your child in their hands, and go on a trip around the world yourself. What about family? Who needs it today...
Home and family as mental support
For many people, the house turns into just a place to sleep. We spend most of our lives outside the home: in the office, in the workshop, in the store, in the club, pub, on the street, etc. A child who has barely learned to walk and talk is sent from home to kindergarten, to a circle, to school, to a university, and then to the same office. And he runs home, really, only to spend the night and tomorrow, early in the morning, to go somewhere beyond his borders again. We give our son or daughter into the hands of people who are essentially indifferent to them. Of course, you can find a good nanny, a kind and smart teacher, a talented teacher, a prestigious school and kindergarten. But they will never be able to replace a child’s own mother and father and that unique atmosphere at home, which is necessary for every person as the mental basis of his existence.
It is in the family that we find satisfaction of our most important needs in
- attention;
- recognition;
- complicity;
- help.
Here we ourselves learn to give and give warmth, which will become the main condition for our personal happy life. Our parents, whether they want it or not, give us a model of relationships that we, one way or another, will implement in our adult lives.
If our mother had no time to bake pies, wash dishes and communicate with us, because she was preoccupied with her career, survival, and her own interests, then her children inherit exactly the same model of life.
Mom teaches her child to love!
And love very often looks like sacrifice. A truly loving person is more focused on giving rather than receiving. What lesson can a mother give a child who is not used to investing in the family and does not know how to give her strength and attention to her loved ones, her loved ones.
Many women perceive household duties as hard work and an unbearable burden, consider themselves housekeepers and annoy everyone at home with their constant claims of ingratitude. And yet, this is exactly how they show their love. By doing something for another, we give him part of our soul and our warmth. Without this, a home is impossible, no matter what is meant by this concept.
Home is a haven for the soul
Home is a fairly broad category, which we are used to looking at too narrowly. We associate a house with an apartment, walls, an enclosed space of the home and with loved ones. But if you look at the house through the eyes of an advanced modern person, you can see it in all its breadth of meaning. A home is a mental support for a person, something that makes his life meaningful. You can call the whole planet home, a group of friends, a cafe where you like to drink coffee in the morning, a minibus in which you go to work every day, and an office where you have to stay most of your life. Home in a broad sense is a place where you feel good, where your essence is freely manifested, where you are the way God created you.
And if you are not comfortable within the four walls that the people around you are used to calling home, you, of course, will prefer traveling around the world, tents, hostels and even lawns in the park. And all because neither you nor your loved ones cared enough to create a HOME within these four walls.
It is precisely this “something else”, in my opinion, that the young woman who does not want to have a family dreams of. She does not need a nominal house, a formal family, an apartment, children, etc. She doesn’t want to have a family like her own or the family of her friends and acquaintances... This is not a family - this is horror! She needs a home as a haven for her soul.
Family is no longer a value
Indeed, one has to go far for examples. Now there are just one or two happy families. Everyone has some problems, scandals, claims, the number of divorces exceeds the number of marriages. Everyone is afraid of relationships and working on them, and in order to avoid mistakes and losses they agree to civil marriages, cohabitation, temporary relationships, or even the absence of them at all, because everyone is concerned only with THEMSELVES!
Beautiful fairy tales about ideal relationships that occasionally flash on screens only fuel hostility towards the real family model, which, alas, is too far from them. Why create a family where chaos, indifference, selfishness, mutual claims and constant criticism will reign, where you are not noticed, ignored or are too pressed and stifled by their dictates. Why do I need this deep insanity of family ties that oblige me to something, force me, load me, immerse me, suck me in? Freedom for Yuri Detochkin! I'll find something else for myself!
Fortunately, a person is still determined to look for this “something else,” without realizing to himself that he is looking for exactly what he has declaratively abandoned. That is, modern man, no matter how much he swaggers or sticks his head in the sand of his own illusions, wants the same thing that they wanted and expected from an ordinary family before. Love, warmth, understanding, calm, help, recognition.
Only he forgets that this process cannot be one-sided, everything must be paid for, in this case with the same coin: love, warmth, attention, time, etc. There is no other way.
And there is no need to despair when watching examples of unhappy families. They are unhappy only because they did not want to invest in their relationship. But if you don't invest, you won't get anything. Only by giving love yourself, by learning to do something for others selflessly, and not to receive gratitude or a reciprocal act, just because you love them and want to make their life more pleasant, warm and worthy. Sometimes it’s not even worth any huge sacrifices, effort or time. Just a smile, a hug, a joke, attention, a word, a call, a text message, or anything that is not directed at oneself, but at a loved one.
When we do something for others, we do it for ourselves, for our heart, which is determined to give. Giving is much more pleasant than taking. Only by understanding this simple thought and starting to act in this direction can a person appreciate what a real family is and the real happiness of having your own home, no matter what he puts into this concept...
And we need to have a brilliant career as a mother and wife. And if we don’t even try to climb this career ladder, disappointment will be an integral part of our old age. Because missed opportunities and rejected responsibility bear very bitter fruits in the future.
And it is important to remember that everything will bear fruit in due time. What will they be like? Much depends on us. From our life vector, from the values that we bring into this world... into the world of our family.
In our society, it is not customary to sincerely talk about how we really feel. Especially young mothers. Otherwise, we risk running into criticism. Moreover, it is completely incorrect.
Say out loud that you're tired? Get the answer “Why did you give birth then?” Complain about the futility of your efforts? - “What did you expect?” Declaring out loud that you are disappointed in your own motherhood? - you will be anathematized and burned at the stake of furious condemnations.
I love my children. Very. But that doesn't mean I enjoy the whole process of motherhood.
It pisses me off that they don't let me sleep in the morning. I want to cry at the sight of porridge smeared on the freshly washed floor. I shudder from screaming throughout the entire apartment “Mommy!!! I pooped!” I am very tired of constant activity, the result of which disappears in exactly 5 minutes.
I don't want to do what I don't like. I don't want to step on designer parts. I don't want to get up in the middle of the night to turn on the light in the toilet. I don't want to change diapers a hundred and fifty times a day and wipe up spilled milk. I don't enjoy making pureed puree for hours that will be smeared all over my head in three minutes.
I don’t like being the person whom every passerby considers it their duty to rub his nose in his hypothetical mistake. It is completely normal for our society to approach a tortured young mother and say that she is taking care of her children completely wrong. Well, honestly, how many times a day does each of you receive comments like “he’s cold” or “she’s hungry, so she’s screaming”?
And how many times during your entire motherhood have people come up to you and said something like “You’re doing great. Children scream and there is nothing wrong with that. Can you handle it? Never for me either.
Of course, I melt from the hugs of my children. And from the toothless first smile. And from the first uncertain “mom”. But this whole other personal hell is very difficult.
It's hard to stop managing your time. What about time, your body! “You can't have coffee! You are feeding! You are not allowed to leave home for more than two hours without the children. You can't hire a nanny. “Who did you give birth to?” You can’t take care of your appearance and self-development. “Children need a mother, and you... eh...” And you know all this, with such an expression on your face as if you were committing a crime comparable to the Holocaust.
But these are the newfangled “What are you doing??? Slapped a child on the butt??? All! Now he will grow up to be a sociopath and will never be happy again.” Did you raise your voice? Out of frustration, did you use an obscene word in your speech? Did you dare not praise the child for the one thousand three hundred and fifty-eighth Easter cake in the sandbox? You are the mother echidna. Receive a comment behind your back like “well, the same unlucky ones manage to give birth, but how many normal people suffer and do nothing.”
Dear, dear, beloved, wonderful mothers! You are gold.
We are all tired of routine and constant immersion in the world of childhood. We all sorely lack normal conversations on adult topics with adults. We all periodically lose our visors from unbearable childish whining. And we all sometimes want to escape from it all to a desert island.
And guess what? We have the right to this! We have the right to feel bad about motherhood. We have the right to be tired. We have the right not to want all this.
We can all sometimes take our children to grandma (hire an hourly nanny, pretend that we don’t see our husband’s needs and dump our offspring on him) and, forgetting about everything else, enjoy a big cup of coffee on the summer terrace of a small cafe in the city center. We can write “Mom’s day off” on whatman paper in big red letters and lock ourselves in the bathroom. It’s not a crime not to run to a child at the first whine. And even forget to feed him once. And not even alone.
We have the right to be happy! And don't put our children's needs before our own.
I really love the phrase: “happy children grow up with happy parents.” So here it is. The most wonderful mothers in the world, you are great and you can do it
Someday this will all end. Strength to you.
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