Does happy mum REALLY equal happy baby?

[paradise lost]

I typed a big response yesterday but the PC ate it because i'd been logged off (time-out).

Basically i said that no, being a SAHM in the pure sense (as in what DD NEEDS me to do) isn't intellectually challenging, but i am not un-stimulated because i write wiki, i am learning to use Joomla! online and i have a variety of people i can nut out tough intellectual topics with online, IRL, or over the phone.

Fulfillment isn't handed to anyone, we have to find it. Yes, i could find it by going back to work, but i'd rather be where i believe i'm needed most and find ways to meet my needs round the edges. Intellectual stimulation is actually one of the easiest things to find and fit around a kid to me. I have to get up at 6am to fit running in before DD wakes up. I have to wait weeks to get childcare to go out drinking and dancing. But i can think my own thoughts, plan articles and research all day long if i want. There are opportunities to learn everywhere, you just have to look for them.

When i worked my intellectual challenges were handed to me from on high by the boss, now i have to find them myself. Why WOULD having a child meet all your needs? Did being at work meet our needs to be mothers? No, or we wouldn't have had kids. And just as it's possible to be a parent who works, it's possible to be a SAHP who is intellectually stimulated. My DP doesn't know a lot about pregnancy or childbirth, but i'm not having an affair with an Ob, i come and talk to you lot about it! I don't EXPECT DP to meet all my needs, nor do i expect DD to. *I* have to meet my needs. And it can be done without sacrificing DD's needs.

But then, don't we all have different ideas of what our babies "need"? Those of us who have or do SAH believe that's what's best for our babies, but i've heard lots of women say they need to put 6 months olds into nursery full-time to "get them some proper stimulation". I would be devastated if i had to use FF again, but many women use formula from the start without issue, regret or problems. We all have different boundaries. To me HM=HB is only sad when it is used about a clearly miserable mum, who is not at ALL convinced her parenting is enough to keep her baby happy.

Bx

[Smoke Jaguar]

To me HM=HB is only sad when it is used about a clearly miserable mum, who is not at ALL convinced her parenting is enough to keep her baby happy.

This is how I feel about the saying, and like Liz says, is what she thinks she wants to hear, but leaves her neither here nor there, in reality. It IS better to provide more in depth acknowledgment of her predicament. It IS better to say, "I hear that you don't feel stimulated enough, how do you think you would be better stimulated and how would that fit in with your bond with your child?", than to give that overused and tired line of HM=HB. Like someone else said, this means anything you want it to at the time!
I find stimulation in caring for DS, probably because I'm studying psychology and I love the tie-in with attachment parenting and how that is validated every day for us. I come here and flesh out my own theories, or use the uni database for articles and like Bec, find my own stimulation and fulfilment.