Motherhood Trends

I had a really thought-provoking conversation with my mom a few days ago about the changes in parenting trends.  She mentioned that mothers of her generation seemed to lean away from the more natural parenting practices of breastfeeding, cloth diapering, making baby food, staying home with the children.  Even though my mom did nurse both my brother and I for at least a few months, she found very little support in that, causing her to stop when it got difficult.  It was at that time that women were starting to become incredibly career-focused, leaving the children to daycare or private babysitters (though my mom did stay home with us until we were in school).  Buying both jarred baby food and disposable diapers was very much the norm.

Times are certainly changing.  While some of these parenting decisions are still more common than not, there seems to be a trend toward the more natural trends of nursing (for at least 12 months if possible), cloth diapering (until the child is potty trained), making baby food, and stay at home moms.  I happen to fall into all of these categories, and several of my mom friends do as well.  But in some ways, there's much more support for providing these things for one's children.  We visited an incredibly helpful lactation consultant when nursing was difficult with Thomas; some friends of mine raved about cloth diapering, and cloth diapers are now so much more than a prefold with pins.  No diaper service necessary (we wash ours right in our own washer and dryer)...I'll write a separate post about this sometime.  Making baby food just ended up being a less expensive option for our family, and we have the freezer space to do it.  Drake and I felt strongly about my staying home with our children, and we're attempting to make the sacrifices necessary for that to happen.  Another more natural approach to parenting is the use of non-artificial contraception (aka Natural Family Planning).

I think being a SAHM is perhaps one of the more counter-cultural points of this more conservative list, but I would argue that using Natural Family Planning (NFP) is by far the most rare of the bunch.  As practicing Catholics, this is the child spacing method that Drake and I use.  Not only do we save a great deal of money since we do not purchase contraceptives (nor would either of us undergo a surgery to render one of us infertile), but we also strengthen our marriage through improved communication about when and when not to attempt to achieve pregnancy.  (This is sounding like the makings of yet another blog post...I'll add it to the list).  Our trust in our Lord, needed knowledge of the female human body and its fertility signs, and living advocacy for the pro-life movement have all increased because of this parenting decision.  More to come on this topic...