Godless Mom in the Bible Belt

I'm an information junkie and it isn't always healthy.

When I develop an interest, whether it be oatmeal cookie recipes or the latest maneuvering of our government, I tend to devour as much information on the subject as I can possibly find. Scott has gotten very good at identifying and predicting my behavior when I'm in obsessive mode. I know it can be annoying when I go for days or weeks at a time and only seem capable of discussing my pet subject du jour but he loves me and tolerates this particular foible with kindness and good humor.

When I was pregnant with Liz, I went into one of these obsessive phases. I can only blame it on the hormones, but this particular obsessive phase was the most extreme case I have ever gone through. I read everything I could find on pregnancy, childbirth, breast-feeding, parenting, early childhood development, you name it. If it had anything at all to do with the adventure I was undertaking I read it. When I had read everything I could find I started renting videos, talking to other parents, picking the brains of the nurses in the education department of the hospital where I was to deliver. I was a machine, the more I found out the more uninformed I felt. It was pitiful and depressing.

After the delivery of my baby girl I tried very hard to put some of this knowledge to good use but the "experts" I had consulted had all given me conflicting information. Pick the baby up when it cries/let the baby "cry it out", give the baby formula/breastmilk is all she needs, feed her on a schedule/feed her when she acts like she wants to eat......The amount of conflicting information was incredible and I was stressing myself out trying to put it all to good use.

Scott and I had some serious fights about me being too controlling and trying to dictate the way we should raise the baby. These accusations didn't sit well with me, he was right of course, but I was a stressed out first time mom, functioning on zero sleep, going through the postpartum body redux and I was completely clueless about how to deal with the problems I was facing.

One night when Liz was a few weeks old I sat in the rocking chair and stared out at the moon as my daughter and husband slept quietly. I knew I should climb back into bed and try to sleep, but getting up from the chair required more energy than I was able to summon and so I sat with the moon for company and thought about what kind of mother I was turning into. I realized I was putting way too much stock in how other people thought I should live my life. I was acting completely out of character, I was allowing these "experts" to tell me what to think and how to behave. I thought that they had more answers than I did simply because they had published a book or written an article on some web site.

Now, I'm really a very easy going gal. I don't get stressed about very many things and I NEVER let people tell me how to do things, especially if it goes against the grain of my character. I have no idea what caused this pregnancy related brain fart, I can only blame it on the hormones, but after that night spent alone with the moon I got my shit together.

I decided to go back to basics, look at myself as the human animal. I decided to trust my instincts and allow myself to mother according to what my heart told me was correct. I asked myself what I would do if I were a human being in a less industrialized nation living without baby monitors and car seats, without disposable diapers and Desitin. How would I feed my baby? Where would my baby sleep? How would I react to the baby if it were crying?

I became a better mother and a better wife by trusting myself and by throwing out the brain garbage. It is one particular idiosyncrasy of the human mind, we are so incredibly intelligent that sometimes our brains can backfire on us. The trick is to realize when it is backfiring so you can do a mental inventory and take out the trash. We get into trouble when we don't take the time to do the mental inventory, our thinking can become distorted when we build new ideas on the shaky foundation of faulty old ones.