Parents and Parenting

As my husband and I weight the options regarding our choice of home birth midwives... it's clear that this decision will be the first of many that my parents disagree with. Everyone has to deal with their parents disapproving of certain things that they do with their kids, but I have chosen to live with mine so I have to navigate those waters more often than the average new mom.

Basically, I hope to be half the parents that my parents were. They did an awesome job, and I know they will be perfect grandparents. Looking back, I can appreciate even more now the things they did then. As I read up on all the things that are going to be important to me as a parent, I realize that I already know how to teach most of it to my kids thanks to them.

There are a couple of things I would change, though. We as kids RARELY threw temper tantrums, but when we did, the response was the same from my dad:

Dad: "What does crying get you?"
Kid: "....." (crying)
Dad: "What does crying get you???"
Kid: "......nothing." (more crying)

I can't remember if my mom also did this, or if she supported it at all. But I can remember having my feelings hurt by it, and even worse, I can remember watching it happen to my younger siblings and making a mental note not to cry because it was, apparently, an unwanted way to express your feelings.

Considering that in every other way they were model attachment parents, this little bit of history confuses me. All they were trying to do was let us know that our behavior wasn't a good way to communicate, but in the process they cut off the communication. It's also possible that this rarely, rarely happened but since it was so upsetting for me, I remember it as happening every time. It's also possible that since they were so sensitive to our needs, and tantrums were so rare... when it happened they didn't know what else to do since they had honestly tried everything else.

But back to the original concern... choosing a midwife. There are only two that are legally practicing home birth in my area. One is obviously the most experienced, but the other made us feel more comfortable and our heart says "pick her". Of course, my parents would prefer the more experienced one out of their necessary concern for my well-being. But out of concern for my own well being, I have to say that it is more important to me that my midwife makes me feel relaxed and confident. A natural home birth is 99.9% your mental attitude and only .1% emergency situations (almost literally).

Here is a local house that runs on 100 watts of electricity! They reccomend this really amazing thing... a solar cooker that is small, portable, and AWESOME. I really want one. Hell of a lot easier than building an outdoor oven (though, of course, the resources to be able to build something made of metal and plastic will be gone eventually, and an outdoor oven can almost always be built). I'm not a fan of building houses of wood since that requires a whole lot of trees, and it is really high maintenance when it comes to structural integrity, water damage prevention, pest damage prevention, etc. But it sure looks pretty.