MOM WITHOUT MAKEUP by Andrea Goto

Ava and Anna: The Parenting Council

I’m not maternal by nature. I wasn’t raised around small children. I babysat, but not well. The first week Ava was home, I frantically called the pediatrician about that terrifying soft spot on the front of her skull. He was kind enough not to laugh—my neighbors weren’t.

What I didn’t learn from hands-on experience came from a book—the book as far as I’m concerned: The Baby Whisperer. It didn’t tell me I should recreate the womb in order to soothe my crying baby (seriously, we have to leave the womb sooner or later people!) nor did it recommend letting my child  “cry it out.”  Cry what out? A stomach full of formula that she just urped after working herself in to a total frenzy? In the book, she (Tracy Hogg, may she rest in womb-like peace) speaks my language; she believes that “every child is a snowflake” and must be respected as an individual. But once you figure out the kid you’ve been dealt, she suggests putting the child on a strict schedule. Since nothing was instinctual for me, I was happy for the guidance. As my daughter survived and thrived in spite of a few clipper-nicks to her fingertips and one minor head trauma involving a light hanging from the ceiling, I grew confident. I stopped consulting The Baby Whisperer and went rogue. I became “Mommy.”

Once you really become “Mommy,” you no longer take anyone’s crap. Passive-aggressive comments from judgy women roll off your pack like spit up.

“Oh. She’s not crawling yet?”

No. We carry her everywhere in hopes that she will never gain the ability.

“Oh. She doesn’t eat mashed potatoes? Every child likes mashed potatoes.”

No. She prefers the flesh of judgy women.

Once I started tuning out the haters, I was left with my own commonsense, which wasn’t getting me too far. So I began to take parenting tips from Ava and her friends. Because here’s the thing: they’re brutally honest but without all the judgy.

For instance, I didn’t know it was time to move Ava out of her crib because she never bothered to climb out (probably an effect of carrying her so much). She’d wake, yelling my name—and by that point it was more like: “Hey, Mom, can you come here please?” I’d struggle to lift her 35 lb. body from a prone position.

“Ava, it would help if you would at least stand up.”

“But I’m stuck.”

Looking down, I noticed that her feet were jammed against the foot of the crib, her head smooshed into the opposite end.

“Whoa, you need a bigger bed, Ava.”

“You think?”

OK, she didn’t actually say, “You think.” My sister would’ve said that, mocking my stupidity, but not my sweet Ava. She simply agreed, without passive-aggressively questioning the fitness of my parenting even when the situation seemed to call for it.

Last week Ava’s friend Anna came over to play. Anna is a precocious little girl who is one year older than Ava but shares her affinity for impersonating princesses and ballerinas. Anna has taught me a lot. Granted, her approach is a bit more assertive than Ava’s, but I appreciate her guidance nonetheless.

When Anna asked for some water, I brought it to her in one of Ava’s sippy cups.

“Uh, I don’t use sippy cups,” she said, pronouncing “sippy” as if spurned her just to utter the word.

“Huh? What do you mean?” Was there some recall I didn’t know about?

“I drink out of regular cups.”

“Oh, right. I mean, yeah, so do we. Where did that cup come from anyway?” I bought a set of “regular cups” the next day.

When I was coloring with the girls, I asked to borrow Anna’s pink crayon.

“It’s not pink,” she said.

“Yes it is.” I’m pretty sure I got this one, kid.

“No, it’s magenta.”

Touché, Anna. Touché.

Here I’ve been sticking to the Crayola 8-pack, forcing my child to live in a vanilla-bean-flavored world. Who knew kids could see in shades and nuances?

Anna did, of course.

I now invite Anna over on a regular basis and listen carefully for her to dole out parenting advice she doesn’t even intend to share.

For now, this works. Eventually I may need to confer with adult professionals—but for now I go straight to the source.

At least until “the sources” catch on.