Undercare?? Overcare?? Smothering....?!

I just read an article on letting your child "cry it out" - lucky for us we got 2 [that's right not 1 but 2] awesome sleepers! Did I just jinx myself?!

But anywho... research done on rats shows low nurturing rat-mommas cause their rat-babies to be anxious towards new situations for the rest of their life. There are also issues that high nurturing rat-mommas cause, which they don't talk about in this article. So what is the right balance?!? Hopefully I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing as a baby-momma. God, the last thing I want is to have any blame in ruining any part of my children's lives.

But that was not what caught my attention most. What was most interesting to me is that a sign of undercare is poor memory. Apparently cortisol released during distress harms hippocampus development. This is earth shattering for me....I don't have early onset Alzheimer's that keeps me from recalling most past memories; just undercare - phewwww!

The article went on about lack of nurturing and the prevalence of parents who put their own needs in front of their kids....So relate-able! Seriously I could go on and on about my F'ed up childhood that just continues to follow me into my adulthood because like I've said in my previous posts you can't pick your family, just your friends. But who wants to re-live that?! As it is I'm reminded constantly how I was the un-wanted child.

And that is why my kids are going to grow up with different issues from this over nurturing baby-momma!

The incredibly weird thing is that these days [post-baby] when my friends complain about how annoying their moms are being I can relate to the "moms" and I try to explain to my friends that when they have children of their own they will have the same exact "ah-ha" moments. WHAT have I become?! A mom I suppose....and I wouldn't give up a single minute of it! (Well maybe just one every now and again -- even the most angelic babies have a streak of the devil in them!)