Reluctant Pioneer

I am used to being a bit different from other folks.  I was a vegetarian for 7 years.  When I was a graduate student for the first time in Operations Research, I was one of two American women in most of my classes.  My hair was dyed red with a buzz cut and rat tail in the 80s in a small southern college town where that was truly unusual.  (A lovely image, I’m sure)

By the time I went to graduate school in Psychology, I ate meat, I had long curly hair (highlighted blond, thank you very much), and I was in a program in which most of the students were women.  I got used to thinking of myself as being more normal, more like everyone else than I used to be. 

But parenting has flung me back to the fringes.  I have not left those hippie roots.  I am finding out that as a parent, I am more buzz cut veggie than blond meat eater. 

And now I am learning the most surprising discovery on this parenting trip thus far:  Parenting is completely individual and unique.  Even if you find parents whose philosophies are similar to yours, their lifestyles, needs, and personal experiences are still different enough that some of their major choices are going to be different.  Obviously, we believe we’re making the choices we think are best for our monkey.  But we also believe that other people are making choices that they feel are best for their safari animals, too. 

Nonetheless, it is Freaking. Me. Out!  In all those previous incarnations where I knew I was outside the main group, I always had a compatriot.  But in parenting, I feel alone.  Most of my friends stopped bfing very early.  Few people bring their children to bed with them.  Most people actively are trying to make their children sleep on their own through the night, and we just don't care.  Few people make their children’s food.  Most people started solids before we did.  Even the Super Baby Foods book, which I agree is quite crunchy, bugs me immensely because she assumes that most children are weaned off the bottle or breast by 8 months.  That’s ludicrous!  Breastmilk or formula should be the primary food for all children below the age of 1.  Kellymom even recommends that not more than 25% of calories come from solids before the age of 1.  So now I’m even crunchier than a crunchmeister. 

I swear that if it wasn’t for the people who read and comment on this blog, I would feel like the biggest freakshow on this planet.  I don’t know why I crave validation from some authority figure or some social group for what we’re doing when we are so incredibly sure that we’re doing the right thing for our family.  But I do!  I read AsDrSears.com several times a week to be reassured that bringing the baby to bed is OK and that not sleeping through the night is OK and that waiting to start solids is OK.  But I have to admit that I’m really bummed on his lack of detailed information on feeding (e.g., when, how much, etc.). 

So why don’t I just do what everyone else is doing?  Despite wanting to find some folks who are doing something similar to us, I am still so strongly rooted in those hippie roots:  trust nature and natural foods; look for and distrust commercial influences on the “way things are” and try to emulate what did they do in the “olden” days.  And by olden days, I don’t mean what our parents did or even what our grandparents did.  I mean, what happened before the industrial revolution?  And even then, not what the elite did before the industrial revolution (e.g., use wet nurses), but what did most people do?  And even then, not the stupid things they did, because beer for breakfast wasn't limited just to college students waaay back in the day. 

So yes, Dave and I have become pioneers at our daycare, reluctant pioneers but pioneers nonetheless.  I am much more comfortable being the third person down a new path, not the first one.  Yet, here we go.  One step at a time, one triumph at a time, one weird ass crunchy mama issue at a time. 

5:12:00 PM