Comparative Parenting
How to do it and why not to
When my oldest son was three months old, I joined a mom and baby group. I had not wanted to join a mom and baby group because I was not enjoying being a new mom and I didn’t particularly want to be around other new moms, but my husband David made me gently insisted.
It’s possible that David could see what I couldn’t, at least not then: that I had postpartum depression. I was supposed to be writing my dissertation, but instead I took our son on long aimless stroller walks in the neighborhood and occasionally sat in front of the computer weeping. David suggested that being with other new moms who were “going through similar stuff” might cheer me up, but I was skeptical: how many of the other moms, I wanted to know, were also writing—or, sorry, trying to write—about displacement and meaning-making in the the lives and works of Henry James and Vladimir Nabokov? How many other moms were consumed by despair and rage because EVERYONE WAS SO =#$%&! ANNOYING and EVERYTHING WAS SO #$%&*! HARD a…
