The How of Us

Little Miss Mango is waking again at night. While she wants mummy and will keep her in there all night if she agrees, sorting the little miss out at this specific time of day is my area of expertise. Though I sound strict and a little unfair when I'm in with her, and have to stand listening to that wail of hers through her closed bedroom door while she puts herself to sleep - I am doing the right thing.

That's what I'm thinking when sitting there at night waiting for the noise to stop.
I know this is the right thing to do, and I start to think about "how?"
There are so many different ways I could handle this situation, so many possible outcomes.
So why do I have this sure feeling that I can see into the future and predict this course of action as the right one? Do other parents feel this sure about something they have no absolute proof will work?
I wondered how other people would handle the situation - could they do it better? Would they choose a different way? Would they have prevented this from happening altogether?

This is a distractive and irrelevant mode of thought. Because, most likely, that will never happen.
You really only get one shot at being a parent and hopefully you're doing your best at the time to get it right.
And I think that is something people need to take into consideration when judging what other people are doing as parents. Most times, you will find, people are doing their best. Because you must remember, they are human - we all are. Humans can be fantastic and intelligent and gentle, compassionate creatures. And we can be stupid, destructive and sometimes even violent. I guess the point is humankind is not perfect, we do great things and we make mistakes. There is this duality about us that a lot of people fail to recognise - we are not equations that work out mathematically. We are all variables.
But being a human being also has a particularly great feature as well, one that isn't so variable, one that dates back to... well, when we weren't people at all. I can explain this best by telling a little story:

We went across-state to a wedding a couple of months ago, where we stayed with a few other couples that have children. The morning after the wedding, when everyone was feeling a tad less than up to it, something remarkable happened (it was only very small so I hope I haven't oversold it). One of the mums came out carrying her youngest son, who was probably under two years of age. As there was a house full of children, there was also a house full of toys strewn across the floor, and this mum was about to embark on the same adventure that I would several months later whilst arguing with Little Mango 1. There was a small toy pram on the ground (it's amazing how invisible those things are) which as you've already guessed, caught her leg and she fell to the ground still holding her son. There was a loud bang as his head hit the floor, and the resulting cry in pain, and a very anxious and also hurt mum. But something incredible had actually happened - in that microsecond, instinct had kicked in. As she plummeted to the ground, she knew that in the position they were in, his head would have hit the ground and hard. She had actually spun herself around, putting herself in a less favourable position but ultimately protecting him completely. The bang we heard was not his head, but her forearm hitting the ground, carrying with it the force of the fall and her body after that. She had, without even thinking about it, saved him from being hurt whilst obviously opening herself up to greater pain. The crying was him being scared by what had happend, but the mother was the one who was hurt. She was still convinced that he was hurt when really she was and had failed to see what an amazing thing she had just done. She knew, in that moment, what had to be done and she carried it out, without thought or emotion - it was necessary.
Maybe I'm drawing a long bow here, but there is something very fundamental in that instinct, in that "knowing" that unites all parents. We all have the capacity for parenthood, and regardless of whether you believe you do or not, we all have the ability to raise our young, that has been developed and passed down through millions of years of evolution.
Humankind is not a species that is a couple of thousand years old. Though we may be told that morality, compassion, and the wisdom to do what is right are all given to us in Sunday school, the reality is we developed them ourselves for the single purpose of surviving. So all of the instinctual knowledge we have now now, we have developed for a very specific purpose and should never discount it. It has served us well in the past, it serves us well when we need it, we just have to use it a bit more (with some common sense of course)
The point is: you can read as much as you like, talk to as many doctors, self-helpers and psychics; take as much advice from your parents and other parents; there will still be those moments when you are totally alone and must handle the situation by yourself. Now you will know your children better than anybody will and in those stressful times, that knowledge will be all that is needed to know what is necessary. Like the mother who used her instincts in a moment to stop her son from being hurt, we should learn to listen to our instincts more often in real life. When those moments are upon us, there is a sensible voice inside there somewhere that is telling you what needs to be done. You just have to listen.

So regardless of unwanted advice, unfair comparisons or unhelpful expectations from others, all I really need is what I already have. We will all have different children and we will all raise our children differently. You won't always be right, sometimes you will be downright wrong, because raising a child is not black and white. It's the ability to listen, feel compassion, act sensibly and boldly and stick to your guns, and know when to bend; along with the occassional flustered desire to swear at inanimate objects.

 In the time I've contemplated this, Little Miss Mango has become suddenly and finally quiet.