2011 - Talk Birth

I’m sure many of you know Perfect Mama—she gives birth with joy and ease, preferably at home
and possibly unassisted. She breastfeeds responsively and for as long as her child needs—even through
subsequent pregnancies and babies. She uses cloth diapers, or even better, no diapers at all because she
practices elimination communication. She eats only organic foods and is perhaps vegetarian or vegan. She is
always happy and creative and ready to play. She homeschools. She stays home, or, she effortlessly balances
fulfilling work with a baby on her hip. She babywears and co-sleeps and grows her own food. She is “green”
in her life and buying habits. She does not circumcise and she never forgets to boycott Nestle. Her family
does not watch TV. She uses gentle, patient, loving discipline—no snapping or snarling. She never yells or
gets angry and she never, never feels resentful or irritable.
I see in myself, in my friends, and in online communities, a ready tendency to judge or evaluate
other mothers based on this inner checklist of good, “natural mothering” behaviors/practices, rather than
seeing her as who and how she really is. There is also the tendency to hide the “ugly” parts ourselves or the
parts that don’t conform to the checklist.
I actually meet many of the criteria on this checklist and in many ways (at least on paper!) I am
“Perfect Mama.” Except, I do not always do it all with a smile on my face. That is my major failure. I
am painfully aware—mindful—that, though I always love my children, I do not love every single moment I
spend with them. It hurts to recognize and confess that I do not always cherish and adore being a mother.
When I look past all the “right answers” on the checklist, guess what is left? Just me. For better or for
worse.
I’m afraid that many of us trade the rigidity and prescribed values and ideals of the dominant culture,
for a new set of natural family living values that we cling to with just as much rigidity and dogma.
If I look at being a mindful mama as an entity, a goal, an ideal to achieve, an assignment on which
to get an A, then I’ve missed much of the point. Being a mindful mama isn’t about a rigid constellation of
proper behaviors and ideas. It isn’t about struggling to conform to a mold. It is about being there, showing
up, being present for life as it unfolds, and offering myself to my children fully, imperfectly, and whole.
Cultivating self-acceptance alongside the “witness.” And, picking up the pieces when I fall, and trying again.
Finding My Authentic Mothering Wisdom
I continue to discover how I might clear our mental space to find my own authentic mothering wisdom.
I am learning that being a mindful mama isn’t truly about a specific collection of beliefs and
behaviors—the checklist—but is about responsiveness and presence.
I open my heart and vow to be here now. To tune in—to really look and breathe and smell and
hear. Perhaps if I throw out the checklist, it is enough to look daily upon my life and my children with
gratitude and love. To pause in the moment and drink it in. To really see my little ones before me. To
stretch my arms wide to embrace them and to embrace the flow of life. To hold myself in the inner light of
love and compassion. To try to do better—but in moving forward, rather than looking back with harshness
and self-criticism. Perhaps I can love and accept right here, right now, even if that nowness sometimes
involves a Happy Meal, or a raised voice, or red food coloring, or an Elmo movie.
Perhaps parenting authentically, from the heart, can’t be learned in a book or through application of
a theory, but only through being there and being aware—of both the beauty and the messiness. Perhaps
it means a loosening of attachment to attachment parenting as a prescribed set of practices and beliefs.
Perhaps it means being a more loving friend to my own imperfect self.
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