Mothers, Unite!

O, irony!

I read most "Even June Cleaver Would Forget The Juice Box" on the floor next to The Poo's crib, by the dim illumination of her night light.

The sleep issues we've endured lately served to make me feel like a failure. Reduced to giving in to her whims in order for any of us to get any rest awakened what Ann Dunnewold calls "irrational thoughts."

"This is the end," I said to myself, mournfully. "The Poo is ruined. I'll have to go to Harvard with her and lay on the floor by her bed so she'll go to sleep. Her roommate is going to hate us."

But after a few chapters of this sensible book, I realized that doing what The Poo needs for a little while isn't going to taint her entire adult life. And that the problems she has sleeping right now are not my fault.

Dunnewold (who has the fancy letters "Ph.D" behind her name, by the way) urges all moms to reframe these irrational thoughts and think about themselves in terms of being "perfectly good" instead of perfect.

This concept resonates with me for so many reasons: 1) Mr. Chicken has a tendency to push for perfection and I need to balance that for The Poo; 2) The best shrink I ever had (hi, Dr. Clark!) introduced me to this concept when I was wandering the thicket of PPD; and 3) it takes the edge off my crazy.

This "mommy thinking trap" leads so many of us to self-doubt and self-hatred. We think the mom next door is doing it better:

I bet her kid sleeps by herself.

I bet she doesn't buy slice-and-bake cookies.

I bet the babysitter doesn't eye her dirty floors with thinly veiled disgust.

I bet she doesn't need a babysitter.

"June Cleaver" isn't rocket science, and the writing is pretty simple and straightforward. However, the idea that we moms think ourselves into a pit by swallowing whole the myth that there is a perfect mother somewhere out there putting us to shame - well. Spelling that out so bluntly, so sensibly ... this may cause a revolution.

Imagine if we could all stop believing that when our preschooler hits someone in playgroup, it is because he was born by C-section because our va-jay-jay wasn't up to the task.

Or that if our kid skips breakfast she will weight 400 pounds and will have to wash herself with a rag on a stick.

Or that letting the baby watch a DVD while we finish the housework will cause the ADHD that will render him unable to work and he'll have to live at home forever.

Dunnewold proposes that we stop the self-hating inner voice by reminding ourselves that no one ever died from eating a Happy Meal every so often.

This "extreme parenting" can only lead to kids who expect the world to coddle them constantly, and to parents whose whole lives and identities are tied up in the success or failures of our children.

I was born in 1971, when kids were allowed to play outside by themselves. I was one of the over-protected ones, required to wear seatbelts long before it was mandatory. Nonetheless, my memories are of kickball past dark on summer nights, satisfying novels on the living room couch, and Barbies in my bedroom.

My mother does not figure in any of these recollections.

So the next time The Poo screams because I won't blow bubbles with her for the umpteenth hour so I can wash the floor or even polish my toenails, I'll remind myself that I am a perfectly good mother.

Hey, Dr. Dunnewold said so.

See what other perfectly good mommies are saying about "Even June Cleaver Would Forget The Juice Box" at The Parent Bloggers Network.