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Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Preachy Advocacy
I’ve been reading a thread on Ravelry avidly. A lady just found out that she is pregnant, and the pregnancy was totally unexpected and unplanned. It has been interesting to read her initial reactions to it (dread, fear, shock, etc), and to see how they have evolved as she has processed the news further. Her whole life has turned upside down, and it’s not just the pregnancy that has done it, although it seems to have been a catalyst for a few of the events. She has discussed some ideas with people in the thread, talking about all manner of pregnancy and labor-related things with those in the thread who are interested in contributing. I haven’t posted in the thread myself. Instead, I have contented myself with reading the thread and learning from those sharing anecdotal stories of their varying experiences with pregnancy, labor, birth and rearing a child. I’m not ready to have kids yet, though more and more lately I feel like it’s something I want to do. I don’t have a reason why, which is part of what keeps me from saying with absolute certainty that I want to be a mother at some point. It was interesting to read the posts of those who have gone through it, and especially of those who have not only gone through it but assist others in doing so. I mean, these people see a lot more than one person who only goes through it a few times and has a biased experience based on her own body’s capabilities and chemistry.
People feel very strongly about what the “right” way is to give birth (natural versus with the assistance of drugs versus c-section), and what the right way is to nurse your child and bring them up. There are the people who feel like breastfeeding should be out there in the open for all to see, arguing that the baby shouldn’t have to be hidden just because it eats “naturally.” The people who think that those who bottle-feed for any reason are lazy and gave up on the natural way. There are people who very obviously look down on anyone who had to have a c-section for any reason, or who had drugs to assist the very painful process of vaginal birth. The more I read, the angrier I get, not because people aren’t entitled to their opinions about what is best for them and their child, but because they are projecting those beliefs onto everyone else and making bad situations worse by making women feel guilty who, for one reason or another, did not or could not do it the way that the advocates believe is the best.
I am not an expert when it comes to having children. The closest I come is having a monthly period, and that’s, well, exactly the opposite of pregnancy. So I’m as close to it as the north pole is to the south pole, really. I do, however, have some strong opinions about it, despite not having done it myself. I was around for all of my step-mother’s first pregnancy, and also around for the early stages of my older half-sister’s life. I witnessed the nine months of morning (noon and night) sickness, the changes that she went through, and then the “aftermath”, so to speak. (She was born by c-section because she was breech and they couldn’t turn her, so right there, her pregnancy gets discounted by a lot of people online. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, you know?) I was there when the lactation specialist visited, and I was there helping when we made baby food for the baby. She wasn’t my child, but I was a major part of her life for her first ten months or so until I moved out after my graduation. So I was there for that part.
It doesn’t take a genius to take in the norms that emerge when it comes to having a baby. For instance, babies are going to poop. It happens. They spit up, they pee, they poop, they drool, they snot, they make messes with their food. It’s normal. They pretty much control the schedule for the first part of their lives, too. The fully-developed humans work around the schedule of the baby and go through sleep deprivation and lack of showers in order to facilitate the normal growth and development of this tiny, in development human being. These are the things which seem to be standard across normal early parenthood. And that’s where the “norms” stop. After that, everyone has their own way of dealing with aspect of it. Cloth diapers or disposable? Breastfeeding or formula? Jars of baby food or homemade? Do you do baby swim lessons? Do you listen to Mozart for hours to facilitate development? At this point, I have to shrug and say, “Hell if I know.”
What really bugs me is that it seems to me that parenthood is a very personal thing. I can understand giving advice and anecdotal evidence when requested to do so, but there are so many people who are willing to give out advice without being asked, or going far beyond the request so as to be pushy about it. The thread I was reading devolved into a bunch of people going back and forth about what they experienced and what was the “right” way of doing something. All of this, of course, without taking into consideration that there are plenty of reasons that it might not work or be able to work that way for any other person. It takes all kinds of people and situations to make up the world, and for as many pregnancies there are, that’s how many different parenting and child-rearing styles there are likely to be. I feel like as long as the child in question is growing up as healthy and strong as possible, it shouldn’t matter whether mom is able to breastfeed or whether she used disposable diapers to catch the refuse.
This kind of advocacy bothers me more than any other kind. It is the same as evangelism in that it doesn’t consider what the audience wants, instead pushing its own view of what’s right regardless of extenuating circumstances or differing opinions. I’m not saying that these people aren’t entitled to their opinions and views. They are every bit as entitled to theirs as I am to mine, but I should be entitled to feel differently than them without feeling persecuted by them for the difference. I guess this comes down to my dislike of someone touting any one idea as the only truth and asserting that all around them should agree.
Ultimately, I had to stop watching the thread. I ignored the user who was pushing the hardest and who started the “argument” (it was very civilized, but I didn’t understand why it had to happen at all), but that doesn’t stop the conversation from happening. I wish the lady who started the thread all the best, and I sincerely hope that she has a smooth pregnancy and that parenthood suits her perfectly. I can’t read the preaching and pushing anymore. That particular user, it seems, is just not willing to let the subject drop until she has somehow proven that she is in the right on each issue on which she believes herself to be an expert. And maybe she is an expert – I have no way of verifying or disproving this claim. But whether she is an expert or not, she is giving her expert advice in a venue that is really inappropriate, since she can have no way of seeing whether her advice is the most appropriate for the people in question. And frankly, it comes across as very judgmental for those who do not adhere to the way of behaving during pregnancy, of birth or of child rearing that she believes is best.
Opinions are all well and good, as is active and healthy discourse about those opinions. It can open up people to ideas that they maybe hadn’t considered before. However, I think we should draw the line at making actual statements of how things “should” be and what is the one and only “best” way of doing anything. Whatever happened to live and let live?
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