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Post by Guest Blogger: Jennifer B.

Surrendering Control

With the birth of my first, and so far only child, came a whole big world full of decisions. Some of which I never knew existed until I needed to make them. The first of these was in the delivery room, seconds after he was born. Should we put the antibiotic goop in his eyes? Should we give him the Vitamin K shot? Should we put the blue dye on his umbilical cord? Will I bottle or breast feed? Will he sleep in my room or in the nursery? Should I wake him so he can eat? Should we circumcise him? Should we hold him all the time or put him down when he is calm? The decisions kept on coming long after we left the delivery room, and the hospital, for that matter. Being in control of my son's health and well being is an amazingly wonderful and empowering situation in which I find myself. It also is incredibly stressful especially when I am faced with people who I feel do not support these very important decisions that my husband and I have made. We have poured over the information we have used to make these decisions and we have based these same decisions on the kind of life we want our son to have. The question here is always, "Should we simply surrender control or should we fight for our beliefs and ultimately our son and his well-being?"

After much research we have decided to raise our son in a very traditional way. When I say traditional I mean like indigenous people. Ok, so not totally like indigenous people but we are trying to not let the negative influence of modern conveniences warp his little developing brain. We do not want him exposed to TV, processed foods, crazy flashing battery-operated toys, foods heated or cooked in the microwave, non stick cookware, or aluminum pans. I know what you're thinking, "But you can not keep him from those things forever." Sadly, we realize this is true. However, if we can keep him from it as long as possible and as much as possible, especially during the rapid development of these all important first few years, then I feel we will have done the best we can do.

The problem we are experiencing is not our son's reluctance to go along with our plan or our pediatrician not supporting our values or our moms telling us that we are being silly and that "we turned out alright." The problem we have is coming from an outsider who feels it is appropriate to roll her eyes and ridicule every decision and request we make. Unfortunately, this person is also a huge part of our son's life and typically cares for him, without us present, an average of 24 hours each week. She is married to my dad and where he goes, she goes. She questions everything we ask of her regarding the care of our son because it is not familiar to her. She has no children and has not conducted any research on how to raise or care for a child. Yet, somehow she thinks she knows better than we do. When she and my dad started caring for our son without us I had two requests that I always repeated. They were, "No TV and don't let him cry without responding to him." Every single time I left him with them I would send them the same reminder via text, "No TV. Don't let him cry." I would receive a text in return, "Ok, Jen. We know. No TV. And we will not let him cry." As time went on I stopped sending the texts thinking that I had gotten my point across.

Last week I decided to make a sarcastic comment to my dad about my son watching TV while in his care simply to see what his response was. It was not good. His reply did not deny that they had the TV on while my son was in the room with them and in fact, confirmed it. I immediately sent a text to his wife asking how much the TV was on while they had my son and she proudly informed me that they limit the amount of time the TV is on. My heart sank. I felt so sad and betrayed and angry. This is the little person who I grew inside me for nine months and no one has the right to make decisions contrary to what I request in regard to his care. I did not sleep that night knowing that they purposely did something I specifically and repeatedly asked them to not do. So, what's the big deal? So what? So he was exposed to a little TV. Get over it.

It is a big deal to his dad and I. We feel very strongly about the TV thing. However, that is not the only problem. The bigger issue here is, what else have they done or not done that I would be upset about? Who knows what is going on over there when we are not around. They could be giving him bowls of sugar while he watches TV and sits in a pool of unapproved bath soap. That may not be the worst thing that could happen to him but it certainly does not conform to the high standards we hold for our son and ultimately what we believe is best for his physical and emotional health.

This is not about the TV or whether you agree or disagree that he should be exposed to the boob tube. If my request was that he should never wear pants of any kind, ever, then that should be respected and they should not put pants on him. Ever. I should not need to justify my reasons for keeping him pantsless, they should not put pants on him. Or should they? Should it even matter what happens when he is with them as long as we keep our house consistent with what we want and our values and our preferences? Is it really going to harm him to have our rules broken one day out of the week? I sure think so, but I would like to know how other families deal with this situation when their children are not in their care. Do they leave a list of demands and make sure they are being respected or do they simply surrender control?