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Old Ladies Love to Tell This Lie to New Moms
And we always believe them
When my daughter was little, she was a calm, unbothered baby and toddler. She was just about as easy as a baby can be—sure, she spit up a lot, but she wasn’t a screamer, she slept relatively well, and she was generally easy to haul along to just about everywhere we wanted to go as new parents. In short, she was a brewery baby.
If you can’t tell already, she was our first.
And I can’t tell you how many older women in those first few years would look at her and remark “Oh, isn’t she lovely! You know why she’s such a good baby, don’t you? It’s because of you.”
I know, I know. I’m rolling my eyes too. But in my sleep-deprived state of new-motherhood? I believed them. I knew it was true. I had created and nurtured this mild-mannered baby because I was so calm and loving, and had already perfected the art of positive parenting. Of course, I was an expert. I had a whole 9 months of parenting under my belt. Why didn’t I have a book deal as a parenting expert yet?
So I floated through the first few years of my daughter's life, basking in the glow of perfect parentness that had created such a flawless baby. The old ladies always know what they’re talking about, right? There’s no way they could be wrong.
