Thursday, November 8, 2007

proud of our unorthodox way of parenting!

if there’s one thing that irks me the most as a mother is when i get unsolicited comments and advices on how we should raise our son according to their standards as our parenting practices is unacceptable. but what the heck! i didn’t ask for their opinion anyway. am happy with how jude and i fare as parents and i see that iñigo is pretty happy as well.

 

call me proud or stubborn but i will have it my way as long as i know that it’s the best for my son and it doesn’t inflict him any harm, at the least. parenting is not an easy job, that’s why i ready myself as early as i could as i never wanted to enter motherhood unprepared. i researched, i read, i asked. i can’t take the reason “sabi ng mga matatanda” to justify why i should or should not do such a thing to my son. my brain isn’t trained to think that way.

 

and i don’t think some people would pay me the same respect that am getting from them now, including my ate, a mother of three kids. she even thought that i did better than her in some facets. she’s impressed of my achievement of having successfully breastfeed her nephew even until this day. i told her it wasn’t that easy for me at the start. i was on the verge of giving up. but i never lost hope that one day there’s a fountain of milk that will flow down from my breasts. if it wasn’t for my stubbornness it would be too soon for my son to feed milk other than the one coming from me. some people were telling me that i should stop with breastfeeding because i wasn’t producing enough. one look at the milk i expressed made me feel more guilty. hahaha. but i shut my eyes and turned deaf ears to people around me. now, they are wowed on far i’ve come.

 

and we co-sleep with our child since his fourth day, which again is being frowned upon by some people. “you are spoiling him”, as they say. it’s also the same thing you’ll hear when you carry your child in your arms always. but spoiling for me means giving something to your kid that he will make him rot. i don’t think constant showing of affection is one. i even wished that i would wear iñigo, put him in a sling and carry him all the time. but i wasn’t that keen, with the next baby perhaps.

 

there are lot more things that we do and we don’t do that’s beyond bounds of conventional parenting. we bring iñigo along in our travels as we think that that the pros outweigh the cons of bringing him along; i didn’t massage his legs as i was told as i learned that babies are bowlegged in nature; i let him out even at night as i don’t believe in hamog; i give him another bath at night as he already stinks; and i give him more nutritious food other than those in jars or boxes.

 

but more than that, we give to iñigo what he needed most from us--our time--and we make sure that we spend it more with him. we sing songs and read books for him; we play balls or any other game he enjoys doing; we take him along to any place as long as it’s permitted; we cuddle and tickle him until he gets tired of laughing; we make most of our time together because we know that’s what really matter.

 

all of those we do to our son. you may find us incapable but that’s the most that we can do as parents.

 

at this point i would like to commend jude for being a wonderful father. parenting is never easy as i shared but i never heard him complain even if it means waking up at the middle of the night to give medicines to iñigo as it’s his schedule… while mine is in the morning. madaya ba? hehehe.

 

we are really lucky to have him as not all fathers are that doting to their kids… and are agreeing to their wives’ unorthodox style of parenting.

 

but he is.

 

6 comments:

  1. I salute you both! True that its really hard to be a parent but only parents know best what's good and not for their own child/children. I also disagree to others who say that showing too much love, affection, spending quality time with your kid is a way of spoiling him/her. To a kid, i think these are the only things that are essential to them because they're PRICELESS, unlike material things like toys na pagsasawaan lang ng bata in time.
    Keep it up sis Marie!

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  2. hi marie. kudos to both of you and jude for giving inigo the best. i can empathize with you upon reading this entry especially with the breasfeeding stuff. My mum too kept on nagging me to stop breastfeeding tristan and instead give him formula. She said maybe the reason why he's been constantly crying was because he's not being fed enough. I was a bit hurt hearing those things being said. but hey, you have to be adamant with your decisions right? lol. looking back, i'm proud of myself having breastfed tristan. It's one thing i know my mom wasn't able to do. hopefully, people around us will begin to understand our decisions in life instead of criticizing us. siguro, in the end naman, when we're able to show them that we stood by what we believe is right for our baby, they'll see 'that' other side of things.

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  3. yes, jen. i'm also into attachment parenting. i may be complaining sometimes that iñigo is so clingy pero sa totoo lang, i love the fact he always needs me. that's trust in the real sense. i find it absurd why some parents are so worried that their babies will be too dependent on them. babies nga eh... naku, wait lang nila kapag magdeclare na ng independence day mga anak nila! hehe. basta ako... am enjoying my son as much as i could dahil kapag may playmates na yan deadma na si mommy. =(

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  4. hi, ann! oo nga eh, hope they'll just let us be with our parenting styles. they can comment but not in the way that you'd feel you're a bad mom because iba perspective mo sa kanila. to each his own 'di ba?

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  5. Cheers to you 'mindful momma'! Attachment parenting is the way to go! We just might change the world by raising our children with love, love, love :)

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  6. yeah, indigomanila! i hope all parents would foster attachment parenting and am sure a better world awaits us in the future. =)

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