 |
| Little Feet; Footprints to Follow... |
I've been reading this recommended book and have found that the author expresses a great many ideas in common with my own.
I would be curious to know what you think of the passage below? Leave a comment; this is a good forum for sharing our thoughts...
Excerpt from What Mothers Do (Author is Naomi Stadlen):
Taking trouble over a baby is definitely tiring and sleep-depriving. But mothers could probably cope better if we all acknowledged how complex and difficult it can be. If a mother says she is short of sleep, this could be a sign not of her failure but of how well she may mothering. I believe that the real, dreadful quality of maternal tiredness is the mother’s sense of struggling against prevailing disrespect. The baby may tire her, but we, if we aren’t careful, can exhaust her.
Excerpt 2:
The odd thing is that mothers often
don’t realize that this is true of many mothers. For example, when a mother
takes her baby out to the park or shopping, this can change the mood of them
both. Once they are out, the baby seems interested, and the mother feels proud
of her achievement in getting them both through the front door. She then feels
less tired. This means that when other mothers look at her, they see a
calm-looking mother with a happy baby. In the same way, when she is looking at
them, she is almost sure to mistake their temporary calm for their permanent
state. It won’t occur to her that she is giving the impression of being a calm
mother herself. Instead, she may well return home feeling discouraged because
she seems to be the only mother who is finding it so tiring.
