You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one: 

“Imagine if we could all stop believing that when our preschooler hits someone in playgroup, it is because he was born by C-section because our va-jay-jay wasn’t up to the task.

Or that if our kid skips breakfast she will weight 400 pounds and will have to wash herself with a rag on a stick.

Or that letting the baby watch a DVD while we finish the housework will cause the ADHD that will render him unable to work and he’ll have to live at home forever.”

We’ve got a rousing chorus of Parent Bloggers singing the same tune.  Join us, won’t you?

No matter where you live in the US or Canada, it seems that no area is immune to the insidious invasion of extreme parenting.

From a mother in the midwest: “We’re too hard on ourselves.  Our minds go on autopilot and it’s difficult to shut off the diatribes in our head about what a horrible mom we are.  We find ourselves caught up in the never ending cycle of I could do more. Parenting in today’s world can be a pressure cooker.”

From a mother on the east coast: “I have whole strings of days where automatic thoughts run rampant through my mind making me binge out on educational toy sprees and wanting to sign [her] up for every class in the state. These are followed by more days where I feel wracked with guilt if we haven’t done flashcards and the only reading material she’s had is me reading Newsweek aloud to her.”

From a mother in Toronto: “I didn’t try to compare myself to other moms and I tried not to have negative thoughts about my parenting skills but I heard the voices in my head and they weren’t very nice. I really thought I was going to be the perfect mom and I tried everything in my power to attain my goal. I really thought I was going to love every single minute of being a parent. But it was not to be. And this made me feel terrible.”

But as another mother (who is a trained experimental psychologist and could probably make us all run like rats through a maze if she wanted to) astutely pointed out: “If you have the power to work yourself into an unraveling mommy frenzy, then you’ve also got the goods to follow your instincts and work on standing tall in the face of the mental mommy bullies.”

Can I get an “Amen”?  Or a “Hell yeah!”  Either one will do.

Because the point is that “you don’t have to pressure your kids to be in all the after school programs. You don’t have to have the cookie cutter household. You can be you, you can allow your kids to be themselves, and best of all you will be happy doing it.”  And in Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box, Ann Dunnewold, PhD. gives you the tools you need to rise above the fray (and take likeminded mothers with you!).

One mother was struck by the section on overprotection.  She didn’t think she was overprotective, “but there was a paragraph dealing with the what if question and I was amazed to see myself in it. Things like what if I go out and the baby cries while I’m gone? What if she cries the WHOLE time I’m gone?”

Another mother had struggled for years with the guilt of being happy to go back to work after her son was born: “I never wanted to be a stay-at-home mom - it’s not me, not my style. By the end of my maternity leave, I was climbing the walls and ready to tie some bedsheets together so I could get back in the trenches again. And I felt awful. Guilty. Ashamed. What mother drops her child off at daycare on her first day back to work and happily walks out the door on her way to work? Um, me.”

But as harshly as we may judge ourselves - even subconsciously - for spending time away from our children, spending time on other activities which are important to us, we are setting a good example for them.  ”Even June Cleaver encourages mothers to give themselves permission to pursue other interests and satisfy their own needs for fulfillment, whether through work, socializing or private time. By placing her own needs last, Dr. Dunnewold explains, a mother sends the message to herself and her children that Mothers do not matter. Yikes. I don’t want to be a part of that. Note to self: Give kids plenty of opportunities to see that Mommy can be busy with other priorities.”

Taking time for ourselves is not only NOT selfish, it teaches children that parents are people too - with responsibilities and interests, not mere servants here to do the bidding of toddlers (although it often feels that way).  And the corollary to this point is that when we do bend to every whim and desire of our children (or beat ourselves up when we do not), such ”extreme parenting can only lead to kids who expect the world to coddle them constantly, and to parents whose whole lives and identities are tied up in the success or failures of our children.”  While children don’t have the capacity to understand many of the complexities of the adult world, “it’s vital that our kids learn that you can be mad and still love someone. It’s okay to be sad sometimes, because life has disappointments. And it’s okay to celebrate the little victories in life, too. Learning how to cope with these emotions are life skills that our kids need to know in order to be happy, well-functioning people.”

So it’s no wonder that Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box earned great praise from our reviewers.  They’ve been dog-earing the pages and highlighting passages, shouting “Amen!” and “Hell yeah!” as they go:

“I started folding the corners of pages that had sections that spoke to me, and I would have done better just dunking the entire work in a bucket of highlighter ink…But even battle-worn, this book has a place of honor on my bookshelf. It is another voice in the chorus of anti-competimommies shouting that you can be a great Mom without giving up your soul.”

“I became a convert: I love this book…I have dog-eared pages for future reference and marked the margins to note my epiphany-moment passages. I will be referring back to this book.”

“Much of what is between the covers of this book, I spent a $20 therapy copay every week to hear. I dog eared every page that I felt I would want to reread. One day I picked up the book and realized nearly every page was folded over - if that isn’t a ringing endorsement I don’t know what is.”

But it was this mother’s blunt honesty that resonated most strongly with me:

“The last quote I want to share is what I took away from the book:  This is the hardest work you will ever do.  If you expect it will always be natural and fun, you may feel like a failure.  What?  It’s okay to hate wiping someone’s butt every day?

BECAUSE I HATE WIPING PEOPLE’S BUTTS.  EVEN MY DAUGHTER’S.  I hate mopping my floor three times a week.  I hate watching fourteen-month-olds eat.  I hate scrubbing dirt flakes out of her hair after a hard day…while she refuses to tip her head back, thus guaranteeing soap will go in her eyes and make her howl.  I hate having to cover up my couch with an ugly slipcover because she might pee on my furniture.  I hate trying to convince her to wear the sandals that gave her blisters that one time and that she screamingly refuses to ever wear again.  I hate worrying about her coming home with lice. I hate chicken nuggets. I hate fighting over using the potty every morning.”

Now I’m shouting “Amen!” and “Hell yeah!” and jumping up and down on my chair - because I identify with every word of what she wrote.  Well, except for the part about mopping three times a week.

We adore our children.  We want them to be happy and healthy and successful enough to take care of us in our old age.  Rationally we know that extreme parenting isn’t helping us or our children, and yet we subconsciously fall prey to the inner diatribes.  So while this book may consist primarily of common sense concepts that we all know deep down, ”if you’re struggling with impossibly high expectations of yourself, June Cleaver is worth reading.”

To buy your own copy of Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box, click here!