Living up to the pressure

On my way into work this afternoon, I was listening to NPR (as I often do) and caught the last few minutes of the Diane Rehm Show. The guest on show was Alissa Quart discussing her book, "Hothouse Kids", which is about her experiences as a gifted child and research she did on parents and how they raise gifted kids. (and regular, but thought to be gifted kids) I caught the part of the discussion on how parents feel tremendous pressure to make sure they buy the Baby Einstein DVD's or CD's, sign their 2 year old up for math tutoring, teach them sign language and get them on that preschool waiting list even before they know how to walk. And she was not just talking about gifted kids.

I too feel that kind of pressure. I haven't given into it that much, mostly because I just don't have the time (and money) to spend on hours of Baby Einstein DVD's. And frankly, Sofia's attention span for most things, especially television, is about 5 minutes. If that. Oh and yeah, I know, kids under 2 aren't supposed to watch ANY television. Yep. Well, a few glimpes of Elmo or the Teletubbies on the weekend isn't going to rot her brain. Though, we do have a rule for G. that if Sofia is playing with her toys (in the living room), she can only tune the TV to the local PBS station or Sprout. So we do have some standards.

The pressure isn't limited to teaching kids these days either. I feel like the worst mom on earth if I suddenly don't have the budget to buy everything organic. Like all the ills that my daughter will have in the future will be caused by my not shopping at Foods For Living and putting us into even more debt. I try to cover all the food groups each day, doesn't that count for something any more? I have to try to cover the food groups AND make sure nary a pesticide has touched our food?

When we were in our Bradley Birthing class, the instructor did her very best to scare the shit out of us about everything in this world that I had been used to and how it would deform my baby if I continued to eat/do/use it. After I had Sofia most of my granola pursuits went out the window, except for breastfeeding. But now as she is getting older and I keep reading more and more about other moms doing this and that, I'm feeling really guilty for not following suit. Even though a lot of it isn't financially possible. So I will weigh the options and will probably buy organic something here and there, but mostly I'll keep doing what I'm doing and hope that it's the right thing to do.