A friend of mine once said, “Learn the rules, so you know how to break them.”

It is one of those quotes that has always stayed with me, because I love how it contains the elements of awareness and choice.

We all have rules in our lives. Some of these are set by society, some of them were set by our family situations as we were growing up and some of them are set by us. Many, if not most, of these rules are unspoken and it might be hard to notice them, until you are surprised by someone breaking them. Commonly this can be when we move in with a partner and find out that they do things differently to us. I remember moving in with a friend and arguing about whether you paint the woodwork or the walls first!

When we become parents, ALL of these rules collide. Society gives us rules about what makes a good mum: for example ‘To be a good mum you should give birth vaginally, breastfeed and never lose your temper’ (interestingly, if you live in Brazil. the rule might be ‘To be a good mum you should have a C-Section’). Our families give us rules about what makes a good mum: for instance ‘To be a good mum, your child must never make a nuisance of themselves’. And we might give ourselves rules about how we should be as a mother: maybe something like ‘To be a good mum, I should love every minute’.

All these different rules come from different perspectives of what is important in life. However, there are lots of different perspectives! And you might find that you’re stuck between a group of people who believe in ‘sparing the rod and spoiling the child’ and another group who fetishise the idea of the ‘martyr mother’. So many women I work with tell me how they always feel as though they might be doing the ‘wrong thing’ - often because they are struggling to find their way between these two polarities.

This might not be so hard, if early motherhood wasn’t such a vulnerable time. But, just like adolescence is a time where our identity as an adult is being asserted, it’s a time where our identity as a mother is being forged. We look to authority and to others for advice and reassurance. Which is fine if you’re able to fit in with the unspoken rules of the people around you, but can be really hard if everyone around you seems to be doing something different.

Breastfeeding can be one of these rules, and the lack of support for other perspectives can make it very hard if you need to stop breastfeeding for any reason. I have met so many women who have been wracked with guilt at not breastfeeding their baby, because either their baby’s or their own physical or mental wellbeing was suffering as a result of trying so hard to make it work. There is the idea that if they were just ‘committed’ enough, they would have carried on trying, regardless of the cost to themselves and ultimately their relationship with their baby.

‘Don’t give in to your baby’s demands for cuddles or you will create a rod for your own back,’ is another one of these rules that can be huge worry to new mothers. The innate desire to comfort a crying baby being pitted against a rule that the baby should be taught not to have inconvenient needs or the mother will never again be ‘free’. It ignores the idea that maybe if your baby is listened to, they might be more able to express their needs in a more easily understood way in the future. The idea that supporting your baby’s needs might be mutually beneficial rather than a battle.

I find it really helpful to take a more longitudinal and anthropological look at parenting trends, as it can help us realise that these rules can change according to when and where you live. A useful book to look at changes in parenting advice over time is Dream Babies by Christina Hardyment. And the film Babies (not to be confused with the recent Netflix series) is a really interesting look at how babies develop in similar time frames, regardless of the differences in parenting styles.

Starting to unpick what the rules are that you might be following without being aware of can make it easier to start to choose whether to follow them or not. If there has always been a rule in your family that plates should be clean at the end of the meal, then it might be hard for you to start weaning without applying that rule to your own child and causing you both a great deal of distress. However, if you can notice that rule, you can then look at what is going on for both you AND your child and decide whether it is going to work for you, just now.

Becoming more aware of the rules we unconsciously follow and then deciding whether they are useful guidelines for our situation or not can be really liberating. And finding others who share similar rules can be helpful to boost our confidence, as long as we don’t expect them to share ALL the same rules, because our family dynamics and needs will always be slightly different.

If you feel as though you could do with a bit of help unpacking what rules you might subconsciously be following, that are getting in the way of you enjoying being a parent as much as you could, then counselling can be really helpful. I’ve also attached a link to a useful piece on breastfeeding by Julianne Boutaleb at Parenthood in Mind.

As ever, if you have any questions, or would like to tell me your thoughts on this - please get in touch.

If you would like to think more about the idea of a family as an interconnected unit, rather than as individuals, you might be interested in this thought piece. And here are some thoughts about why parenthood is all about getting good at failure…