I'm so grateful I've been having the opportunity to be with my son and daughter-in-law to help out with the baby. Instead of information speech or "catching up", we can have natural, unforced talking about whatever suits us at the moment. We watch an episode of "Call the Midwife" at night, and that triggers discussion of poverty and sexism and their effects on people, both back at the time of the series, the nineteen fifties, and now. We may talk about the election, or differences in how babies are raised now versus when I had little ones. I'm able to learn new science and medicine about what pediatricians think now.
I'm amazed with all the "rules" now pressuring parents. I was relatively free from that except from my mother. And naturally I thought I knew better than her. So I bopped along with trial and error and as my experience accummulated, I had my own strong opinions about what worked, or was kindest, and listened to my pediatrician with a skeptical ear. I'm more curious now than back then, probably because I have the time and luxury of reading more and listening more. By 29, with three kids, I hadn't a minute to spare. By my later thirties, I had four kids, and I was pretty set in my ideas. But I want to relate to my grandson in the way his parents prefer, and so I'm taking classes, in the most subtle way. It's fascinating.
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