Three years ago I was in the depths of terrible post-partum depression. During the worst of these times I was a blink away from doing something, anything that would have taken away the dreadful days. At the time I couldn’t admit how I was feeling to anyone and it took an acquaintance to point out that what I was feeling wasn’t normal. Part of the depression was due to a need to be a great mother. Not just a good mother to my children but a great mother – to my children and, perhaps just as importantly, to the outside world. Anything less was to admit to being a failure and that didn’t sit well with me. So when I felt I wasn’t being a great mother I felt sick with failure, adding massively to my depression. Silly, really, when I look back at it. I so loved being a mother first time round so when my second son was born and I wasn’t coping I didn’t know why or, more importantly, where to turn.
Since then I have taken the pressure off myself. Some might say too much when they see me in the hammock with a G&T while my children create havoc in the garden. But I am unbelievably happier and I’m pretty sure my children are too. So when I read Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box, the new book by parenting author Ann Dunnewold (who wrote The Postpartum Survival Guide) I simply wished I had had a copy of this three years ago. It’s a wonderful book about how to avoid extreme parenting and create a new mindset to become a ‘perfectly good’ – rather than a ‘perfect’ – mother. As mothers, we are increasingly aware of the images that the media perpetuate: the patient, happy, calm mother baking cakes while the children sit quietly doing their homework before going obediently to bed. Even if we know that these images are not realistic it is not always easy to know how to challenge them on a day-to-day level. What separates this book from others like it is that the author discusses strategies to counter extreme parenting and offers, as Dunnewold puts it, ‘a new paradigm for motherhood: the perfectly good mother’.
Part One, ‘The Problem’, discusses the causes and consequences of extreme parenting and how cultural expectations about the role of mothers have led to a loss of perspective about parenting and created more anxiety and less freedom, enjoyment and satisfaction from the job of mothering. ‘Mommy thinking traps’ like overperfecting, overprotecting and overproducing and irrational thinking are described in detail and suggestions for defeating the thinking patterns are included. One of my thinking traps (and one I am still consistently guilty of) is that I believe my children should always come first. The ‘Perfectly Good Mantra’ that is suggested is the same one my therapist gave to me and that is “Taking care of me means more to give to my kids.” It is good advice.
While Part One lays out the groundwork, it is Part Two and Three that are really of interest. In part two of the book, ‘The Solution’, Dunnewold discusses revising expectations, changing the words we use about our own actions and developing new ways of thinking. What I really liked about this book is that the author doesn’t suggest a one-solution-fits-all. Dunnewold talks about each mother defining what a perfectly good mother would be for her. She lists stepping stones to achieve your own vision of what makes a perfectly good mom – rules like taking care of your own needs and being yourself and not the mother others think you should be. Like all the suggestions in the book, the advice is sensible and useful. I underlined lots of points to re-visit in this section because, yes, I’m a geek.
The advice goes further than simply explaining how we ourselves can change. In the final section, ‘Sharing the Solution’, Dunnewold discusses the need for no more ‘mommy wars’ by connecting with other women, supporting each other and being upfront about the true nature of parenting. This is a subject close to my heart: mothers can be so judgemental – I’m on the receiving end of some of that at the moment – and that needs to change. As the book says ‘there are funny, smart, kind, and supportive women out there. Find them and connect with them, building your own web of perfectly good mothers.’ I am doing just that and I am coping a great deal better with motherhood for it.
So how to spread the perfectly good paradigm to bring about social change? There are plenty of suggestions in the book about how to do this, for example by mentoring other mothers, becoming a spokesperson, forming a group of like-minded moms or getting involved in political action. This section works for all parents: even if you have not been guilty of extreme parenting you can still pick up the ideas here and use them as a basis for change to help all mothers. Central to the theme of the book is the idea of slowing-down and in this section the author discusses different groups that have formed in an attempt to bring about social change. Back in January, after I was going through all the guilt after my dog died, you may recall I had a change of attitude about my own lifestyle and parenting choices and about how I felt I needed to look after my family more before anything else I was doing. So, many of the suggestions are ones I have already undertaken and I can say from experience that they have worked for me. Websites like Putting Family First and Take Back Your Time are discussed in the book and are ones I have visited in the course of my change of heart over my parenting style. I fear I’m beginning to sound a bit evangelical here so I will round this up and say that this book is a must for anyone who feels they are struggling with motherhood, with the thought that they don’t ‘measure up’ as a mom, anyone who feels they have fallen into extreme parenting habits and lost sight of what’s important for them and their children. Because, in the end, what we all need is less of the ‘perfect’ mothers and more of the ‘perfectly good’ mothers.
You can buy the book here (US readers) and here (UK readers).
(I received a free copy of this book in order to review it. I was free to say whether I loved or hated it.)
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Please talk amongst yourselves in the comments about your own extreme parenting moments. While you’re doing that, I’ll be having several extreme parenting moments at 35,000 feet with three small children. Be grateful you’re not there to witness them.
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