{"id":20582,"date":"2024-02-19T14:07:22","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T21:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?p=20582"},"modified":"2024-02-19T14:15:57","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T21:15:57","slug":"breaking-away-from-the-idea-that-there-is-one-right-way-to-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/blog\/breaking-away-from-the-idea-that-there-is-one-right-way-to-mother\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking away from the idea that there is one \u201cright\u201d way to mother"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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We live in a wild world with a wealth of information at our fingertips. This means we can read reviews, check forums, and see what other parents are saying about everything we purchase or do for our children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

But that is not always a good thing. There is such a thing as too much research.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

I distinctly remember working with a client who had very high expectations around her child\u2019s food. She was concerned with what ingredients were in the food, how it was prepared, how it was served\u2014and anything less than \u201chealthy\u201d felt wrong to her. She was a self-proclaimed perfectionist who wanted the best for her child\u2014she wasn\u2019t going to \u201clower her standards\u201d at the request of her partner or anyone else.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

As a result of her food concerns, she spent hours upon hours extensively researching topics related to food such as GMOs, toxins, ingredients, and safety. Through her research, she also read that stress could decrease her milk supply\u2014so she shut down any conversations when her family tried to approach her about this or how it had taken over her life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

This level of research was no longer about the food\u2014postpartum anxiety was in the driver\u2019s seat, pushing her to search for control.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

It\u2019s also important to break away from the idea that there is one \u201cright\u201d way to mother. Just because we have access to information doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t room for nuance. Take \u201chealthy food\u201d as an example. What constitutes a \u201chealthy\u201d diet has been a debated topic for decades and is often a wellness space filled with fads and extremes with each approach contradicting the next. There have been more rules prescribed to our food then I can count that cause people not to trust themselves and leave them seeing food as being good or bad. Food is not black or white. Our approach doesn\u2019t have to be all or nothing.<\/span><\/p>

In my client\u2019s case, research had gone <\/span>beyond <\/span><\/i>just information-seeking. Sometimes, research is just research. But other times, research is:<\/span><\/p>