Mother Connections

A couple of years ago, I registered myself with a market research company, Fieldwork (http://www.fieldwork.com/). Because I am out of the advertising field, this is one small way for me to feel connected with my career of the past. And the cash in your pocket at the end of each session doesn't hurt either. It is a company that works on behalf of thousands of brands, asking questions to "test subjects" in order to determine product preference, thoughts about products, the feasibility of a new product launch, etc. Before this last week, I had done two focus groups, one on cottage cheese and one on environmentally safe cleaning products.

This past week I was called in to talk about baby nutrition. I talked with 7 other new moms about breastfeeding, bottlefeeding, solid foods, etc. This sounds, especially to non parents, dreadfully dull. And if that was all that we really talked about, it probably would have been. But it was an incredibly insightful 2 1/2 hours.

A lot of bigger picture discussions were brought into play after we had "warmed up" to each other. How our lives are SO much different than our mothers' lives. In good ways and bad. We loved that we all really felt like we had a choice whether to work or stay at home. We liked that products are being designed with baby's safety in mind (i.e. carseats, etc.) But of course, this is a double edged sword as sometimes it seems as if everything is a danger and that we are constantly worried about everything - if I don't provide organic baby food to my child, will that harm him or her in the long run? If I don't have the most expensive scientifically designed carseat, will my child be worse off in a car crash? We are definitely in a society that uses fear to motivate. Working in advertising for 11 years, I know that MANY very effective ad campaigns are fear driven. And mothers, especially first time mothers, are ripe for the picken' in terms of being manipulated by this kind of advertising.

Another thing that was heavily discussed was the fact that we have SO many more choices and so many more ways to get information than our mothers. A great example in my life was the first night Landon came home with us from the hospital. Greg and I were set on my breastfeeding exclusively, so other than sterilizing some bottles, we hadn't really educated ourselves on bottle feeding that much. Since Landon was losing a little more weight than he should have, we had to supplement with formula for a few days. And I was having to pump to get my milk supply up so that we could hopefully exclusively breastfeed in the future. Well, we had no idea what we were doing. How do we warm bottles up? If I pump two separate times, can I combine the bottles? How long can breastmilk be stored? Greg and I were on the computer round the clock looking questions up. This definitely was a good thing, as we were so stressed (and sleep deprived) that having these questions answered seems to us victories, however small. But on the flip side, every question we asked, no matter how black and white it originally seemed, was met with so many different answers depending on what source we looked at. The internet is a beautiful thing, especially during those winter months when Landon was a newborn and swine flu was in full "go" mode and I was more or less confined to the house and I wanted to feel connected to the outside world. But in many ways, the internet causes confusion with the dizzying amount of different answers and different choices out there. As one very eloquent mother put it, "There are so many things (internet included) that are telling mothers how to parent which can be good but at the same time can atrophy a mother's intuition." I have been getting much better at trying to use my intuition when I can - I want to be able to infer what Landon needs because I know him so well. The internet can be a great tool, but it shouldn't be the end all be all.

So, at the end of all this discussion, 8 former strangers talked about staying in touch as a support group. It was great to hear about other mothers' struggles and successes. I learned that I have it EASY when it comes to Landon's feeding after I heard about all the colic, allergy issues and illnesses that have plagued other mothers and their babies. I also felt pretty on track with where we are as a family in terms of Landon's nutrition (i.e. how we are feeding, what we are feeding, how often we are feeding, etc.). I learned (or really just reaffirmed) that I have a rock star husband (I was one of only 2 women whose husband not only goes halvsies on feeding Landon solid foods but also does a lot of the making of the food... OK, who am I kidding, he makes about 90% of it). And I learned that as vital as the internet is, I can do this parenting thing with a little less reliance on it and a little more reliance on myself, my husband, my child and other mothers who have so much knowledge to tap into.