Lindsay Powers - You Cant F*ck Up Your Kids: A Judgment-Free Guide to Stress-Free Parenting

A timely and reassuring look at contemporary parenting. Are you a good parent who feels bad? You need this book! Amy Tuteur, MD, Harvard-trained ob-gyn and author of Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting

A Judgment-Free Guide to Stress-Free Parenting

You Can't F*ck Up Your Kids

Lindsay Powers

Creator of the #NoShameParenting Movement

This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subjects addressed in the publication. It is sold with the understanding that the author and publisher are not engaged in rendering medical, health, or any other kind of personal professional services in the book. The reader should consult his or her medical, health, or other competent professional before adopting any of the suggestions in this book or drawing inferences from it.

The author and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

Names with asterisks have been changed, for privacy.

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Copyright 2020 by Lindsay Powers

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First Atria Paperback edition March 2020

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Interior design by Jill Putorti

Cover design by James Iacobelli

Cover photography by TS Photography/Getty Images; iStock/Getty Images Plus

Author photograph Marc Goldberg Photography

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-9821-1013-0

ISBN 978-1-9821-1015-4 (ebook)

For Brad, I am the luckiest

And Everett and Otto, who made me a mom

Ill never forget the time a woman marched over to me in a crowded restaurant, took one look at me openly breastfeeding Everett, who was then ten months old, and whipped out her phone. She snapped a photo of me and then murmured disgusting under her breath before storming out. I was stunned. I wasnt exposing myself. My son wasnt crying. I was just eating a cheese and pepperoni pizza with my family.

But that wasnt the first time Id felt judged as a parent. Before Id even given birth to my son, my doctor, a thirty-six-year-old woman with dark hair and a condescending voice, nitpicked at my pregnancy weight. A stranger sat next to me on the subway and asked if I was planning on staying home to raise my kids because that is best. My grandmother told her hairdresser, a virtual stranger to me, that she never thought Id be a mom because she loves her career too much.

When Everett was born, the shame and blame only got louder. Within my New York neighborhood, I witnessed moms one-up each other with humblebrags about their private tutors and fancy strollers. I was excluded from certain playgroups because I had a job (No nannies allowed, only real moms), lectured about childcare by strangers at Target (Why are you out of the house with such a small baby?), shamed for breastfeeding in public (You shouldnt breastfeed here), and couldnt go online without finding viral blog post after blog post that started out with Well, I know I shouldnt cast judgment, but...

After enduring endless criticism during the first year of Everetts life, I decided to do something about it. I gathered my small but mighty team around a big square table at Yahoo!, where I worked at the time, and rallied them around a simple concept: Lets use our massive platform to lead people to think twice before making snide comments about other parents. We need to shine a light on the fact that were all doing our best. Instead of nitpicking one another about pointless things, we should instead funnel that energy into supporting one another. The movement started with a simple tweet: Ever felt judged as a parent? No more shaming! #NoShameParenting. I was fed up with how parents were criticizing one another, the way we all made ourselves feel terrible for not living up to unreasonable ideals of perfect parenthood that didnt match the reality I knew. Parenting was hard; parenting was messy. I wasnt perfect, but I was doing okay. I wrote a blog post decrying the judgment Id faced (and how I was okay, for example, with my son occasionally eating crackers for dinner), and the idea caught like wildfire. The hashtag began to trend on Twitter. It turns out that I wasnt alone.

If youre a parent today, youre damned if you do and damned if you dont. But as a longtime journalist, I know only part of the story is being told. As the founding editor in chief of Yahoo! Parenting and the creator of the #NoShameParenting movement (which to date has reached more than 170 million people on social media), I am determined to set the record straight.

Ive examined the research. Ive spoken to doctors, psychologists, sleep gurus, pediatricians, and more than fifty families around the country from big cities to small towns. Ive read a bunch of the books (so you will never have to).

And heres what I learned: There are a couple of general guidelines parents should follow. A trusted doctor is a great partner. Dont send your kids into obviously dangerous situations involving weaponry. Not all experts suck. Your kids obviously need love, food, a place to sleep, and healthy boundaries. But overall: We as parents are stressing ourselves out way too much. You cant fuck up your kids by getting them the wrong stroller. You cant fuck up your kids by feeding them formula rather than breast milk. You cant fuck up your kids by putting them in a reputable daycare rather than leaving your job and staying home with them. And you certainly cant fuck up your kids if they cry for a couple of nights during sleep training.

But the studies! The studies! frazzled, exhausted parents would fret to me as I explained these realities over coffee while they juggled an inconsolable newborn and a giant stroller full of wooden toys. Didnt you hear that sleep training ruins babies lives? What if they never form a secure attachment?

Youre being way too hard on yourself. The research that everyone cites ad nauseam as proof that sleep training ruins lives involves rats licking each other and Romanian orphans who were chained to a crib for twenty-four hours a day for the first three years of their lives. Surely even the most sleep-deprived parent can see these extreme conditions are hardly relatable to their childs experience.