Doting mom, or overbearing parent?
Michelle Bruns
Sometimes I wonder what I did with my time before I became a mother. Everything now revolves around nap time, when he ate and when he used the bathroom last. The truth is, I love every minute of it. I do not mind not having hobbies that do not involve my son. Or, making him dinner that I know he will eat. Or, staying home every Saturday night from now until he is 18 years old.
But, when terms like “helicopter parents” are given to moms and dads who hover over their children, when does being involved with your tot cross the line from normal to being overbearing? It can be hard enough second-guessing parental decisions on my own without wondering what other people think of me. The pressure is enough to make me wonder if it’s possible to love your kid too much!
The challenges of sending my son off to full-time preschool because mommy was ready to go back to work full-time is way more than I expected. The adjustment from all day with mommy to all day without mommy (and vice versa), to potty training challenges and the never-ending strand of viruses and sicknesses, I was ready to throw in the towel on my career, pull him out of school and shelter him from the world until he was at least 18 years old. People looked at me like I was crazy. However, aren’t you supposed to put your children first? Does this make me overbearing – or dare I say, codependent on my son?
I’ve decided to label myself as “a loving mother who puts her child first.” After all, it’s normal for your identity to change when you become a parent, especially for mothers. According to the book The Birth of a Mother: How the Motherhood Experience Changes You Forever, author Daniel N. Stern states that, “With the birth of the baby the interest and concerns of most new mothers undergo a shift as they become more interested in women and less in men, more psychologically involved (consciously or not) with their mothers, and less with their fathers.”
Yet, I’ve heard stories where a mother would not let her child skate at the rink during a birthday party because she was afraid he would get hurt. I’ve also heard of a mother sitting in the car for three hours after arriving at an event because her son just wasn’t ready to get out and interact with anyone. Although I have never experienced those things, I would, without a moment’s hesitation, throw myself between my son and harm’s way, and I don’t think that make me an overbearing mother. I guess we’ll leave that to the experts.
It’s worth noting, though, that even though it’s normal for a mother’s emotions to be affected by her child’s highs and lows, there is still a line that needs to be acknowledged. According to Stern, “Although it is a well known fact that parents try to live vicariously through their children, it is often hard to see this tendency in ourselves, and even when we do, we often underestimate how powerful an impact it has on the child.”
So for all you mothers out there like me who always put your kids first, strap a helmet on your little man when he rides his bike, stay home as many weekends with him as you want, and let yourself laugh when he laughs and cry when he cries. It doesn’t mean we’re overbearing mothers, it just means we’ve shifted our interests for a while. And that interest is our children.
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