The good mother: between sleep and reality
Lately and not recently, I have read articles and posts that condemn and deny the methods proposed to mothers to "regulate" their children's sleep.
I feel I have to have my say on this issue, it will be that I suffered so much from sleep that I got to have hallucinations, even if it didn't last long, fortunately, compared to so many women who stoically lose it for years.
It seems to me that the focus is on debunking the myths concerning the validity of these methods, their effectiveness, their consequences on the psychophysical health of the child.
I would have so much to tell and share about it and, without any presumption, I think I can talk about it with full knowledge of the facts.
I think the only real myth to dispel is that the mother doesn't know how painful it is for her child to be away from her when she needs it.
Maybe not everyone will wonder what repercussions this could have on their relationship, rather than on their child's approach to the request for help in his life. Instead, what will be very clear to them is the grip in their stomach that they will feel every time they hear their baby cry, scream for hours or even just for a few minutes.
The truth is that they don't really need someone to explain to them that the best answer to that call, that imploring is an embrace, contact. They don't need it because it's written in nature, it's an instinctive reaction, even when it's tiring. The voice of one's child is a call calibrated to each individual dyad, its tonality is tuned to that of the mother, not just any mother but her own! Crying and shouting have always been excellent tools for keeping dangers away and inviting us to rush quickly, instantly: it has been written in our genes for millennia, it would be absurd to think that a woman could inhibit all this legacy just because she has read a more or less convincing book by a stranger. As always, the problem concerns the question that arises.
What could ever push a mother to challenge her own nature?
What will really have the strength to convince her to go beyond the irresistible call of her son who asks her to help him ward off the dangers of her that she feels so threatening to her survival? The absence of care for the little one is certainly an omen of death.
Let's try to ask women, any woman, informed or uninformed, educated or completely unaware, if they are aware of what their child is asking when he screams alone in his bedroom, we have the courage to ask her to put herself in her shoes and to tell us what emotion he perceives, if we really need to tell us that he doesn't know how to answer, that he hasn't asked, that he doesn't feel it clearly, that he needs our enlightened explanations!
The texts submitted to the Inquisition are successful in proportion to the failure of taking charge of the woman who becomes a mother.
They are all the more successful the less time dedicated to them, the less listening, care and understanding that we are willing to offer them.
So we take them off Estivill (just to name one) and put Winnicott (for example) in their hands or, even worse, our good knowledge, the result of years of study or seminars on the needs of the baby and mom. In practice, with a skillful three-card game, we tell her to take care of herself.
Those words, that knowledge, that information have no value whatsoever if in the evening, in that house, there are only two of them, if in the morning the sun rises but day and night no longer exist , they trade easily without ever benefiting from it.
We continue to ask mothers to think, to find adequate solutions, to evaluate risks and benefits when the dimension they experience is that of their own survival and that of their child.
I know, it's shocking, but sometimes they find themselves guaranteeing it just like that, with a tug, with a denial, with immense pain from one and the other, simply out of love, for that love that so little they receive but who still know how to give, saving what can be saved. No, it's not a simple choice, it's not a comfortable choice and much less an ignorant choice! Sometimes the only one that is possible in the conditions in which we are and none of us has the right to evaluate how proportionate it is to the degree of deprivation that drives us to do it, especially if the evaluation wants to be carried out from the top of our own silent house , in pajamas and after having eaten a nice meal, sitting at the table, a chat with the family and the day is over. And we don't have the right either from noisy houses full of requests, neither do we who have resorted to the last cents of energy of the day to get them to eat and go to bed, which if we made it is all grace received, from whom and for what merit sometimes we don't know, sometimes we do and it's worth thanking.
We who are capable of feeling the pain of a mother who takes the life of her child, who are close to her in thought and heart but who behind the veil of disclosure judge those who find strategies to continue to survive, sometimes in the truest sense of the word!
The problem of the culture in which we are immersed.
What I find greatest and most unacceptable is not having distanced ourselves from nature, because it would be less painful for many if we had succeeded, but to think that this is the result of superficiality and ignorance. The real tragedy is the inability to see beyond, to immerse oneself, not with the mind, but with the body, with the hands, in the mother-child relationship in this society today, looking around but also at home and wondering who is loving more and what can be used to increase and participate in that love.
It is never just a question of costs/benefits. Real love doesn't work like that. "it makes immense turns and then returns".
Diletta Vecchiarelli
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Website Doula world
On Diletta
My name is Diletta, I have 3 children, I am a Doula, a menstrual educator and a breastfeeding peer supporter. Over time, thanks to my maternity experience and personal growth paths, I have developed the need and desire to focus my work on supporting women. Experiencing the thirst for support and closeness on my skin, I decided that I would commit myself to being for mothers what I would have wanted for me, so that they would not feel alone having to face the great challenges of motherhood. I have chosen to continue my journey by exploring the magic and power of the feminine to enhance, help recognize and give back to each woman her infinite gifts. Even before a profession, mine is a mission!
