How people view me

The last two days have been uneventful again. Lovely, sweet, quiet days. Toddler groups and soft play. Library visits and walking. Playdough, stories, songs and house work. I used to hate people like me!

Something about the contentment of stay-at-home parents *did* seem smug, years ago when a family and a house and everything was all I wanted in the world. I can’t blame people from being sickened by my happy, mundane, homey, warm lifestyle. :) Let them think I’m smug. I know that it doesn’t matter that I technically have all the time in the world to clean the oven, it certainly doesn’t mean I’m any more likely to get down underneath the dratted thing than any other woman. I know that being here all the time doesn’t make me any better a mum than any other arrangement. All being here means is that I’m here. That’s enough reason for me.

It’s very nice from the point of view of being able to try EC (still going very well) and breastfeed on demand (ditto). Oh! On the “On Demand” point… I failed totally and utterly to defend myself yesterday. Like the chicken that I am. It was the first time I’ve ever heard of Ezzo in the UK outside of AP circles – a mother approached me at soft play with unwanted advice and, heaven help me, I had not the first idea what to say.

It was an old friend I haven’t seen for years, who I was fairly close to at my previous Church. In that time, I’ve had two babies, and so has she (hers are 2 years and 2 weeks, slightly younger than mine on both counts). So we both have two daughters similar in age. She is also breastfeeding, though I don’t know her history on that with her first.

She saw me winding Morgan and came over, and in the kind of “hi how are you” type conversation I mentioned that Morgan was asking to finish feeding but I knew it would make her wind worse. She said,“Have you read Babywise? Worked wonders with my two, otherwise they’d just feed all the time and that’s what gives them wind.”

I said, “Nooo, I haven’t read Babywise and I wouldn’t. We’re about as far from routine as you can imagine!” Clearly giving her the impression that I let my babies manipulate me and just simply don’t have the discipline to teach them better! She shrugged, looking rather sorry for me, and walked off after saying that she was sure the children would enjoy getting to know each other. I felt really sick. What I had really wanted to say was, “WHAT? People in this country READ that sick, awful stuff?”

Or even just, “You DO know that he’s been excommunicated by at least one Church for perverting the gospel?” It saddens me that the reason so many people trust this stuff is the author’s faith. I worried all the way home that I’d been a poor advocate for attachment parenting and that maybe I could have said something, just anything, to demonstrate that actually I’m not screwing up so majorly by feeding my children when they are hungry.