All over the world, new mothers are wringing their hands anxiously over what is apparently the hardest part of being a parent: leaving one's baby for the first time.
Honesty moment:
I don't care about leaving my baby.
...Okay, uh, let me clarify: when I leave her with a trusted family member for a few hours, I am perfectly comfortable. I don't worry. I don't think about her constantly. I don't call the babysitter every half hour and then start calling hospitals if she doesn't pick up on the first ring.
But every other mother keeps telling me how hard it is to leave the baby for the first time. Apparently, there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth involved. "Isn't it just so tough to leave her? You just can't stop thinking about her, right?" they probe me when I mention that I left her with her dad for two hours.
"Nope, I don't love my baby enough for that," I say.
...Not.
Instead, I nod and smile with all my pearly whites like I'm Miss America.
But it's a lie.
If I'm being perfectly honest, a few baby-free hours are kind of the best gift a person could give me.
I mean, I love hanging out with my best little pal all day, but I spend a lot of time with her. A. Lot. Of. Time.
Am I such a criminal to want to spend, like, two percent of my time away from her? Two little measly percents?
(Yeah, I know, "percents" is not a real word. Whatever.)
But apparently, that is unacceptable. All moms have to be worry warts, or we're bad mothers. Gone are the days when mothers could chuck their kids outside on a sunny afternoon so they could have an hour or two to themselves. Now even leaving the baby in the watchful care of her grandmother is supposed to have me biting my nails. I mean, really?
(For the record, I don't think fathers get asked very often if they freak out about leaving their babies. Apparently people assume that men don't get as emotional and weepy as we women. But that's a whole different discussion...)
Now, don't get me wrong. I do worry about my daughter, in general. I probably worry about her a lot more than I should. She's adorable and perfect and I love her to death, of course--but having an evening away from her feels like my opportunity to not worry and think about something else for once.
What about you--if you're a parent, do you worry about leaving your child(ren) with a babysitter? If you don't, do you admit it?
The identity of the babysitter makes a huge difference in my level of worry! I'm extremely comfortable leaving Summer with Ken. When Summer was just a few months old, I was less comfortable with it, but mainly because Summer was really picky about taking a bottle, so by the time I got home she was usually desperate to nurse even though Ken had tried to feed her. Once Summer started on solid food, I was perfectly happy to get out of the house and let her spend some time with Ken, although I do think of her and miss her sometimes when I'm away. She's just so adorable!
ReplyDeleteLeaving Summer with a 12-year-old babysitter does make me nervous, though. I always carry a cell phone and keep it on even in a theater. I'm also kind of nervous leaving Summer with Stephanie, because Stephanie just doesn't have a lot of experience with little kids and I'm afraid Summer will throw up or something and it'll be really hard for Stephanie to handle (although I do think Stephanie has good judgement). I worry more when I feel like Stephanie is nervous. I'm very comfortable leaving Summer with Mom, and pretty comfortable leaving her with Dad. (Dad has done some funny things like giving her an animal cracker when she was barely starting on solid food. I guess that doesn't seem like a big deal to most people, but as an overprotective new mom I was kind of shocked that he would do a thing like that! Summer hadn't been introduced to wheat yet! And I certainly wasn't giving her sugar! But now it seems extremely minor.)
When I think about the first time I "left my baby," I think about when we went to the temple in San Diego. Summer was 4 months old, and I left her with someone I didn't know (although Mom vouched for the babysitter) for a long enough time that Summer was guaranteed to get hungry and I didn't know if she'd take a bottle. I worried that Summer would scream the whole time (she had a tendency to scream a lot even when she was with me) and that I'd return to a completely frazzled babysitter and a miserable baby. And in the temple, I didn't have a cell phone. So I was anxious, and I wouldn't have left Summer like this for something minor like an evening out. (Even though she did take the bottle and it all worked out just fine.)
Now that I've thought about this for a little while, I want to amend my first paragraph where I talked about being "comfortable" leaving Summer with Ken. That probably isn't the right word. I'm very comfortable with it now that Summer is two, but when she was a newborn I had a sense that we just HAD to be together all the time, that that was the way it was supposed to be, and when I was away from her I felt wrong and I thought about her constantly. But Summer was a very intense baby and she nursed constantly, which I think put my hormones into overdrive to make me bond with her (and made me physically uncomfortable when I couldn't nurse her for a while). You have a more easygoing baby who doesn't need to nurse all the time, and that gives you more flexibility. As Summer outgrew her constant need for me, I moved past feeling like I had to be with her and think about her constantly, even though of course I still absolutely adore her. But when she was really small, I was hormonally driven to be with her even when I needed a break and even when I wasn't particularly worried about her and I knew she was well cared for. I think both your experience and mine are normal. We're both in sync with our children's needs, and that we both love our little girls with all our hearts.
Very true! When I was pregnant, I thought that I would feel the way that you did--that I had to be with my baby all the time. And I just don't. I guess that's what people mean when they say that it's hard to leave her--they probably had babies more similar to Summer. The funny thing is, when Doug and I are out, I do often say things like, "I wonder how the baby is doing?" But it's because I'm more worried about the babysitter than I am about the baby! (The first time we left her with Doug's sister, she cried almost the whole time, and I felt really bad. So now I'm all paranoid about that happening again.)
DeleteI do think I would probably worry more if we left her with someone we didn't know very well. But that hasn't happened yet. And I'm not planning to leave her with a 12-year-old until she's a lot older.
I think Doug would actually worry more about leaving her with someone we didn't know very well. After they warned us about shaken baby syndrome at the hospital, he was nervous that someone would shake her if she cried too much. I think it'll be a while before he feels comfortable leaving her with anyone other than a family member.
I felt very anxious about leaving Samuel, but I think that's more because he was a difficult baby, like Carrie and Summer. I knew he would cry for whoever I left him with. I only left him with grandparents for the longest time. I didn't worry about Nellie nearly as much, and we left the kids with a really responsible 14-year-old lots of times in Logan. Now that they're older, I try to forget about them when we're on our date nights, because I know I need the break! The hardest time for me is the first night of our backpacking trips, because missing bedtime combined with not having a phone to hear if something has gone wrong is really hard for me.
ReplyDeleteI left James for the first time when he was 2 weeks old, it was with my husband and he was taking a bottle so I wasn't worried about that, I did miss him a lot and I was very anxious to get home. But I have left him with lots of family members for up to 4 hours and he is only 3 months. I don't really worry, I just more miss him than anything. I spend so much time with him, it's hard not to be with him. But when I do get the breaks they are wonderful. I think a lot depends on the baby, in general James is very good, but right now he cries if he doesn't see me right way after waking up, so I worry how he will be with others. I would be fine with my 13 year old sister watching him because she is family, but my mom isn't okay with that because she is too young. I started my first nannying job at 12. In my opinion it just depends.
ReplyDeleteI left James for the first time when he was 2 weeks old, it was with my husband and he was taking a bottle so I wasn't worried about that, I did miss him a lot and I was very anxious to get home. But I have left him with lots of family members for up to 4 hours and he is only 3 months. I don't really worry, I just more miss him than anything. I spend so much time with him, it's hard not to be with him. But when I do get the breaks they are wonderful. I think a lot depends on the baby, in general James is very good, but right now he cries if he doesn't see me right way after waking up, so I worry how he will be with others. I would be fine with my 13 year old sister watching him because she is family, but my mom isn't okay with that because she is too young. I started my first nannying job at 12. In my opinion it just depends.
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