I will post about all the goodness later today — I said I would, and I will. I just have to figure out a way to do it. So far all my brilliant ideas involve serious violations of privacy (in other words, not so brilliant). But I’ll figure it out.
In the meantime, my head has been buzzing about a book I haven’t even read yet — How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm. I first heard of it on the Science of Mom blog, and instantly became obsessed with one quote, which I’ll note below, after this boring preamble.
Parenting styles. The thing about parenting styles is that you don’t have one, until you become a parent. And that’s when you realize that all the baggage — er, cultural gifts? — that have molded and shaped you are powerful forces just waiting to be foisted upon — er, lovingly shared with? — the next generation.
The story of our sleep woes with Seve are long and long. The short version is that I hit the frustration wall sooner, and harder, and was willing to try sleep training — which my friend Jaimie coolly describes as “for suckers” — but P was not. And was uncharacteristically insistent on that point. I was placing a high value on sleep, so high that I didn’t care how we achieved it as long as it happened. P was focusing on process. Or, more accurately, on relationship. And he was right.
(And oh, for the record, it actually brought tears to my eyes to type that sentence: he was right. It’s like my body rejects the idea that I might have been wrong.)
This different approach is not rooted in the fact that P is a softie and I’m a hardass. Those are fluid roles and we wear them both. If anything, this baby-before-sleep approach felt like it was culturally derived. P was born in Europe, and many of his attitudes toward children are more inclusive than the North American norm: “Of course you take your children with you when you go to a restaurant … they’re not nuisances that need to be locked away. If you want your kid to be well-behaved out in public, you have to take them out in public.”
Again, I thought he was just thinking of this as a problem to be solved: we want civilized children; the means by which we achieve that end is to subject other restaurant-goers to their wails while we civilize ’em. I’m not going to type that tear-inducing phrase again, but you see where I’m going with this … it wasn’t about teaching our children how to behave, it was being with our children that was important. Because we were living this — at last! — we were living this quote, which has stuck with me for days:
Your child being valued enough by you and integrated in your life is more valuable than enforcing a rigid sleep routine.
(Sleep expert James McKenna, on the Argentinian practice of letting children stay up (very) late to participate in social outings with the family)
You can read an excerpt — introduction and first chapter, “How Buenos Aires Children Go To Bed Late” here — and you oughta. McKenna’s quote appears midway through the first chapter (page 27 of this excerpt).
In truth, our kids are very well-comported in restaurants. But this quote reminds me … that’s not because P insists that Seve use a napkin at home, or because I insist on an x-hour nap every afternoon. It’s because love and trust are (I hope) foundational elements of our relationships with them, not a preoccupation with routine, and certainly not a clock.
Afterthought …
This post may/will annoy the many mamas I know whose children are still struggling with sleep. To clarify … I don’t believe that good relationships are the key to good sleep, largely because the opposite proposition — that bad sleep is the result of bad relationships — is odious. This is more an explanation/justification of our own parenting practices. Not even our parenting practices, but our lifestyle, which is highly inclusive of our children. There will be people who are inclined to give you the stink eye because your child is out with you at the café after 8:00 p.m. There will be those who give you pitying smiles when you confess that your two-year-old still has trouble sleeping through the night. And not to give Spain too much credit, there will be grandmothers who are speed dialing “protección de menores” because it’s June and your baby isn’t wearing three sweaters (in further fairness: that’s a grandmother thing, not a Spanish thing). Those people are the problem to be solved. Ideally with a slap upside the head, though in a pinch, like if anyone else is watching, a reverse stink eye will suffice.
Joy and Woe 
We’ve taken our daughter to the pub after a gig and got the stink eye. I talk loudly in a very British accent. I don’t know if it reinforces the stereotype of Englishers being piss artists or scares their Canadian sensibilities back into passive aggressive non-action. I certainly commend you on taking your kids everywhere. That’s the only way they learn how to behave.
“… passive agressive non-action.” I think that’s a much more accurate national motto than “a mari usque ad mare.”
That should totally be a thing.
So true!!!! We are all only babies for such a wee time!!
I wouldn’t judge the people in the café at 8pm, because to paraphrase someone else you quoted, I only judge people when I know the whole story.
Which reminds me that I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’ve been pleasantly surprised not to have been accosted yet in public about bottle-feeding. I’m far more embarrassed to pull out a bottle with this baby than I was to pull out a breast the first time around.
Here’s an interesting reation for you: when I read this comment, I thought to myself, “Well, who would get on her case? The liquid in the bottle could easily be breastmilk.” Which … uh … yeah. Anti-formula bias is insidious.
That said, you have a months-old baby in hand, so you could whip out a boob just for old time’s same. You don’t have to do anything with it. Pretty decent way to get a table in a crowded Starbucks, I’m guessing.