I'm sitting here wondering if anyone out there is as very very sad as I am about the world right now. If so, pull up a pew for a minute. I have an idea.
I am not a particularly political person, but recent events have made me feel like finding myself a little spare crate and nudging myself up alongside some of the more polished soapbox dwellers putting their views across to have my say. I'm scared of what this world is becoming, and I feel powerless to change it.
This year I have mostly been raising a small brand new human. I have been overwhelmed by the oceans of choices and decisions for each and every milestone my baby went through. I was kind of prepared for that though. What I was not prepared for was the level of external judgement around the decisions I made for my child and my family. Week after week there is a new stage, a new decision, and the opinions are everywhere you turn: further afield and surprisingly close to home. I took these 'shoulds' on board and I went round in circles, beating myself up, until I wasn't sure what I'd decided or why.
We struggled with feeding: continue breastfeeding or move to bottle-feeding?
B wouldn't sleep: controlled crying or co-sleeping? or wait it out?
B needed solids: baby-led or purées?
My latest dilemma: Do we get the hippo backpack or the penguin one?
Enough already. It doesn't actually matter. Now we have bigger fish to fry.
Because three weeks ago 49 people were killed in a US nightclub, just for expressing who they are. Because two weeks ago, one amazing woman was killed in a UK street in broad daylight for just doing her job speaking up for her people. Because a week ago, the dubious result of a UK referendum to leave the EU has opened the floodgates of casual racism into our workplaces, our media and on to our streets. Have I suddenly woken up in the 1950s, for goodness sake? We are better than this. We have come too far.
Lovely mothers reading this: Are you breastfeeding your baby? Bottle-feeding? All of you absolutely incredible because you are feeding your babies and helping them grow.
Are you co-sleeping? Or burying your head in your pillow for a week as you count the minutes to help your baby learn to sleep alone? Do whatever works for you. You've got this.
Whichever path you have taken, no doubt you have all scanned the internet for advice, you have internalised all the unsolicited opinions and you have agonised over your choice regardless. (Most likely you will continue to do so until your child is at least 40.) And you have done all this because you care. Because you care that your baby grows up to be an adult who is strong, confident and responsible. Because you care that your baby grows up to be an adult who knows that they are loved and what it is to love, whatever form that love may take. An adult who knows how to be caring in turn, to be compassionate and open-minded.
So now let's forget the minutiae of precisely how you are achieving that, because, in the larger context of the bleak reality of the past month, it really is minutiae.
If we really want to worry about 'shoulds' and 'shouldn'ts', let's unite in a shared sense of responsibility for a set of common shoulds:
1. Our children should be able to grow up in a safe, tolerant world, free of racism and prejudice.
2. Our children shouldn't be afraid to stand up for their beliefs for fear of being killed in the street, a street which should be filled with every race and culture, of multiple generations.
3. Our children shouldn't have to live in fear that someone will walk into the public place they are in and open fire, because that individual should not have the weapon in the first place.
4. That individual should not think to do these things, because compassion and tolerance for our individual differences is taken for granted.
This isn't about politics. This isn't about opinions. As humans, we all have a joint responsibility to make these 'shoulds' a reality for our children. Let's stop beating ourselves and each other up over the fact that we essentially all want the very best for our children. Instead , let's focus all that energy on a wider mission to raise a generation of compassionate, responsible humans with the capacity to shape a brighter world.
*steps down from aforementioned crate with a quiet but determined "ahem - thank you" and hopes someone somewhere heard*