Fake it Till you Make It

You find out the life changing news, you are pregnant, you will be having a baby. In that moment the battle between expected happiness and complete fear is overwhelming. One minute your thinking about cute nursery décor and then the next you’re wondering… OMG I know nothing about raising children and for that matter do I even know how to keep one alive? 

You start doubting yourself and are convinced you must be the only woman alive who has absolutely no maternal instincts. You suddenly start remembering that time you had to hold your friends kid, and how it screamed at you! Or how you get really awkward around your cousin’s kid because you’re not sure if he has a lazy eye or if he is just eyeballing you. You think back to the time you begged your parents for a dog, only to be bored with it a few months later. And it that moment, you are 100% convinced you known NOTHING. The only thing you KNOW is that you don’t KNOW a single thing about kids.

But that’s okay because you are going to fix all that. Within a few months you are going to transform yourself, you will be known as the baby whisperer. Soon your friends kid is going to be laughing and giggling in your arms, and your cousins kid is going to be begging to sleep over at the ‘cool’ aunts home.

So there you find yourself in the parenting aisle of Exclusive Books paging through thousands of books, looking for the answers to all your pending anxieties. By the time you get to the counter you have a stack of books including What to Expect When Your Expecting, How to Raise Happy Children, Emotional Intelligent Parenting, as well as every parenting magazine insight. The only reason why you haven’t got The Idiots Guide to Parenting is because it was sold out.

Once you have purchased these pearls of wisdom, you send hours studying the content – as if you were writing an exam. Trying to remember the most important details. You become obsessed with your pursuit of becoming the ultimate parent. You may even find yourself randomly using the bathroom towel to practise your swaddling techniques, or doing research on which brand of diapers has the best repertoire.

All of a sudden other parents become your benchmark, you scrutinise every product they consume. What pram is best, which diaper bag did they get, sometimes even looking into other women’s baby shower bins at the baby city to see if your missing anything.

You then do the responsible thing which is to take Antenatal classes, where you and your partner will learn everything you need to know about birth and early parenting. You spend the first few weeks at class wondering when all this giving birth stuff will be done, and can we just move onto the part about how to look after the baby.

After 9 months of preparation and research, you are feeling confident again and it’s time to get the show on the road. So after all the fireworks and drama of birthing is complete your little human being is finally in your arms and you are ready to put all your theory into practise.

Baby cries… you check if she is hungry (because that’s what the books said). You decide she is, so you begin to breastfeed (as the book showed you) but that’s an epic fail. Baby continues to cry, you try again… baby cries louder. Nurse comes to help, baby eats. 10 minutes later baby cries… okay, she can’t be hungry… check nappy, nappy is fine… baby is still crying. You suddenly need to remind yourself not to panic because the books said babies cry and that’s normal – but then you realise your baby is the only one who is crying and all the other babies are sleeping happily. Okay, she needs to sleep… so you try swaddle the child (you know you are the pro at this after all your practising) but the baby wriggles straight out of it and is screaming louder than ever now… Nurse comes in to assist and baby stops crying. It’s at around this time that you begin to cry and once again you are overwhelmed with the feeling of complete incompetence.

The wrestling match between mother and child has begun, and for weeks to come Mom will be faced with a set of new challenges everyday. It’s very much like being on a reality show such as survivor or amazing race. Mom is only given a certain amount of clues, and must choose wisely in order to continue to the next level. Each day mom masters some techniques but fails dismally at others. She must use her strategic skills in order to stay on the island.

Raising children is nothing like the book. Ever heard someone say “they preferred the book” when referring to a movie? Well parenting is much like that… the book version is much nicer. There is structure, mom is always the hero and children are seen and not heard. However the reality of childcare is highly unpredictable, mom is seldom a hero but more likely the wounded soldier and the children are often the understated antagonists.

Okay, so yes… I am being very dramatic. What I am getting at is that while there is value in gaining knowledge on parenting before baby arrives, don’t underestimate the importance of on-the-job-training. The sense of accomplishment you feel as mom when you finally start to get things right is the best feeling in the world. Mother’s instinct is not a myth, it’s real and comes highly recommended. And while my ambitions of becoming a baby whisperer  failed, in the end all I need was the beautiful relationship I now share with my dear daughter – which I give credit to my life experience and not to the books collecting desk on the shelf.