Parenting – who really knows best?

My opinion on the issue with society and when it comes down to parenting is this –

We have been told over and over that we don’t know best. That we can’t trust our own voices and bodies. That other people know better.

That’s why there are parents who run to the ER with every temp, scratch, cut, bruise, cough instead of knowing that they can actually heal it at home.

That’s why there are parents who as soon as they get pregnant they hand the reigns over to the medical system and do as they are told and never question anything.

If I had trusted my GP over my instinct when my son had ear infections he could potentially have been facially paralyzed or even worse because the cholesteatoma growing in his ear would have gone unchecked.

If I had trusted my GP when I had rashes, jaundice and water retention and couldn’t walk and just accepted a steroid shot my liver and the fact it was almost failing would have gone unnoticed and we know what that can lead to.

If I had listened to the midwives at the hospital I would have taken pethidine and gone up to the ward instead of birthing my oldest son only 3 hours later because I told the midwife no I know he is going to come soon.

When my son burnt his leg on the exhaust of his motorbike we looked at it and knew we could fix that ourselves, so we did. 3 days later we thought let’s get it checked by the doc just to make sure it is healing as good as we think it is and the doctor confirmed that yep we had done everything perfectly.

I have no desire to hand over the care of myself or my children to a system that is broken.

Yes there are some parts that are amazing. My pancreatic cancer treatment and my sons surgeon proved that.

But recently I watched a woman who said she was training to be a nurse project her insecurities and unsafe nervous system onto a 15 yr old boy who said he was fine.

“I am training to be a nurse and I’m shaking so you must be in shock too if I am”

And I got to witness myself in those moments.

Desiring to say how about you go work on your nervous system before you put yourself in a high stress situation where you can make it worse for someone else because you haven’t learnt how to manage yourself yet.

Watching this kid shy away from the attention as not one, but 3 women projected their fears onto him telling him he needs to go to hospital when clearly he didn’t.

Maybe because I’ve grown up around motorbike accidents and have a hubby who rides and have kids who have crashed and broken bones I could relax more.

But in those moments I had my judgement mask on. And my angry mask that these are the people being put in a place that are there to help people feel safe when they have had an accident.

And it reminded me of my suicide attempt and how the nurse looked down on me and said don’t you have kids and treated me like shit.

Seriously though, where have our instincts gone?

We used to be able to hunt and gather food and trust in our bodies to get us through it.

Now humans run to ask opinions on every little sniffle.

Did anyone ever stop to consider this is the problem with the hospital system? The fact that people run to ER for the smallest things when it’s meant to be for people who have had major traumas happen?

And further – why is it not a pre-requisite for health staff members to deal with their own shit first? And I mean actually deal with their traumas. Not just do a one day course on mental health but actually invest as much time and money as many people, including myself, have done, so that when someone presents with an actual trauma you’re not standing there saying oh my gosh I’m shaking? Or asking someone who’s tried to commit suicide how they could do that to their kids? Or saying to someone who is miscarrying their baby that’s not your waters that’s blood and acting like they don’t matter? Or telling someone their baby has jaundice and won’t be able to go home with them instead of saying it’s possible but we can do some things to help first before we resort to that?

I mean I could go on with things I’ve personally heard nursing staff say.

So I pray that the woman I saw today saying she is training to be a nurse has only just started training and that she has a whole lot more to go before she actually starts working with patients.

And I also pray that we, as humans, and parents, go back to trusting our intuition, knowing that we have everything we need, and that all parents have a tribe of support with them.

And that if a 15 yr old kid is saying he’s fine he just has a grazed knee and elbow that maybe, just maybe, his requests go heard instead of ignored.

We do not need anyone to tell us how to raise a child, and what needs to be given to them, somehow we have forgotten that.

There are apps to tell you what stage your child is in these days.

Another form of numbing the brain and body to what we can tell by feeling in my opinion.

I’ve said it many times before – yes reading books and educating yourself can be great. But don’t let some book that says your baby is 4 months so it’s going to start doing this, tell you what to do instead of trusting yourself.

And children tend to do what they want, when they want, and if you trust yourself enough, you will be able to flow with that easily and gracefully.

Before you put your faith in a medical system that isn’t built for you to trust yourself – trust yourself, know that you know what you are doing, and even if you don’t know, learn to ask a friend or someone who is going to help you find your own inner guidance and not tell you to trust someone outside of yourself.

Trust me – if there is something serious enough to go to the ER, you will feel it in your body.

Xo S