‘Good’ Kid VS ‘Difficult’ Kid
Why do people always ask if you have a ‘good’ baby?
As a new mom, I’m sure we’ve all been asked this question at one point or another.
“Is he/she a GOOD baby?”
What does that mean exactly? Like, what makes a baby inherently GOOD?
Babies have zero concepts of what society has deemed acceptable behavior. My son shit his pants at the table of a fancy steakhouse restaurant on Easter Sunday then he cried in the middle of the restaurant for a bottle. Does that make him a “bad” or “difficult” baby because he communicated his needs effectively? Should he have slept quietly in his car seat and not made a peep?
“Does your baby sleep through the night?”
Babies are hard-wired to NOT sleep through the night right away. They are supposed to wake up every few hours to eat. That is what their bodies are designed to do. If you by chance have a child that sleeps great through the night then congratulations! My son sleeps 6–7 hrs at night but is a bear that refuses to nap during the day. Is he a good baby or a difficult one?
The babies deemed ‘difficult’ by society’s standards may just be making us rockstar moms. Did you ever consider that? Our family successfully navigated the Easter shenanigans by taking the crying baby to the bathroom, changing his diaper, and then I gave him a bottle with one hand while I finished my Easter brunch with the other. I caught the lady at the table next to us in her Sunday best smiling with approving wisdom at me out of the corner of my eye.
If you’re like me and wouldn’t call your baby ‘easy’ by any means (insert LOL), then change your mindset to believe they think you’re capable of being a rockstar mom and you can navigate the treacherous waters with the tiny lifeboat that runs on little to no sleep and cold coffee.
We didn’t luck out with harder babies because we deserve some type of punishment. We got these magnificent little screechers because we’re tough enough to do life in the midst of the chaos.
You’re a f*cking ROCKSTAR and don’t forget it!
So the next time someone asks you if you have a ‘good’ baby, just smile and respond with…
“He’s making me a better mom.”
You don’t owe it to anyone to place your child in the good or bad box designed by society’s standards.
…and if anyone is wondering, I wrote this with a crying baby that’s refusing to take a nap. We got this, mamas.
