I’m Sick of Being Told What I “Should” Be Doing as a Mom

I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my pregnant belly. It had been a long day of nursing school and it would be a long night of catching up on work, so I reached over for my guilty pleasure that was sitting on the desk next to me: A tiny sip of my favorite wine.

Of course, when this was going down, it was perfectly fine for my pregnant self to indulge in the smallest sip of wine. Studies said it was probably OK and c’mon, the French did it all the time and their kids are great!

But as is true with all good things, my pregnancy sipping soon came to a swift end. Because for every study that said maybe a tiny sip of alcohol while you were gestating would not, in fact, cause your kid permanent brain damage, another, like the most recent advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics, said it was safer to just give up alcohol completely.

Honestly, who can really enjoy a sip of wine with so much conflicting advice hanging over our heads? That one sip during my first pregnancy had to be enough to get me through the next eight years of growing human beings, because any time I even thought about alcohol, I pictured 10,000 researchers in white coats shaking their heads at me. Alcohol, much like caffeine, soft cheese, and deli meat, just wasn’t worth it during pregnancy.

And I’m sorry, but isn’t enough enough? Women spend their entire lives getting told what to do. Look this way, dress this way, walk this way. Be more, be less. And it only intensifies during pregnancy when we are placed on a life-sized microscope and scrutinized for each and every choice we make. We have so many studies about pregnant women drinking or gaining too much weight or even exercising too much, that let’s face it — the book should have really been named What Not To Do When You’re Expecting.

Our bodies, even with the mere mention of our periods, visually interpreted as a piece of a fruit or a runny egg yolk, are deemed policeable by others. We are judged through others’ perceptions of our bodies and what we do with those bodies, from sipping wine to getting enough sleep, starting at the very beginnings of life. A “good” mother, it would seem, is someone who makes herself crazy by following the thousands of studies done, specifically to tell her what to do. A “good” mother, it would seem, listens to what everyone else is saying she should do with her body during pregnancy.

So may I just speak for all mothers when I say — holy crap, it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting to try to wonder what touching receipts, breathing air, or being too stressed will do to our babies. Heck, even our grandmother’s stress affects our future children.

I’m not saying that studies and research for health, especially during pregnancy, are bad things. Give me all the scientific advancements in the world, please. But can we maybe just give women — even, heaven forbid, pregnant women, who actually have brains, too — just a teensy bit of credit? I promise the vast majority of us are not out there getting pregnant and chugging down bottles of wine in celebration.

How many studies about drinking during pregnancy have been done anyways? Why do we need so many? We get it, it’s not a good idea. So now can we focus on something helpful perhaps, like I don’t know … getting pregnant women around the world access to clean water, instead of focusing on a privileged few who have the luxury to consider a glass of wine with their dinner? There are literally women in the world who not only walk to find help during labor, but have to haul their own water with them because that’s the only clean water they will find.

The truth is, pregnancy doesn’t always occur under perfect conditions.

Are you shocked? Appalled? Wringing your hands, wondering how on earth any woman could manage to produce life unless she is the perfect weight, has had a full year of folic acid, gets eight hours of sleep every night, does cardio and yoga mixed with strength training, is never stressed, makes time for date nights with her husband, has a husband, has a plan to get her body back, has baby-proofed her life, only eats organic, has never touched plastic in her life, and always has hair that is freshly blown-out like Kate Middleton’s?

Life is hard sometimes, and when you’re a mom, the pressure to be perfect can, frankly, just be too much. No one should expect perfection from us, because it’s just not possible.

So by all means, yes, keep up with the studies, do your best, use common sense, and follow your gut when it comes to taking care of yourself and your children, but also keep in mind — women have brains and we know how to use them.

Even pregnant women.

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