by Daphne Berryhill

First birthdays weren’t a big thing in the 70s. There’s no picture of me when I turned one. But I remember my younger brother’s big day a few years later. As his big sister, I got to pick out a Gerber baby rattle from Jewel, along with a Duncan Hines cake mix. But when I had my first baby in 2000, I found out that somewhere along the way, first birthdays became a big deal. I first learned about this from my fellow scrapbooker moms. And I later learned, there were other perspectives too.

Scrapbooking “silky moms”

As the new mom in the neighborhood, I was invited to a Creative Memories party shortly after my daughter was born. The moms (yeah, they were all moms) got together at each other's houses to work on their latest page that showcased all the wow moments in their kids’ lives.

Sprawled out on the dining room and coffee tables were themed embellishments and stickers, specialty pens in every color and shade, magic erasers, cutting tools, stamps, shape punches, and every type of paper imaginable. And special containers to keep it all organized and portable. Acid-free of course.

I watched the other moms turn their tots’ milestones into scrapbooking works of art, guaranteed to stand the test of time. Looking down at my blank pages from my barely-able-to-afford starter kit, I didn’t know where to start, feeling like whatever I did, my pages were never gonna look like theirs. And with that, my confidence gained from mastering the basics of taking care of a newborn started to fade away. This mom thing was turning out to be a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be.

At 25, I was the youngest in this group of experienced Talbots-dressed moms with swinging blowout hair. These older GenX moms were both fascinating and intimidating. They seemed to have it all and keep it all pulled together. Their power couple marriages were displayed in their 3-months salary diamond rings, on their living room walls in oversized wedding portraits, and in their china cabinets filled with gifts made of porcelain, crystal and silver, all in sets of ten.

Living in perfectly designed houses that showed their success to everyone outside and seemed to bring success to everyone inside. They had rolodexes filled with the best of the best. Need a photographer, an exterminator or grout cleaner? Ask them; they’ll give you a number. Clearly these were “silky” types of moms, even if they weren’t called that then.

They knew exactly when to start swapping meals for SlimFast to drop a few pounds just in time for spring break trips to Florida. For parties, they filled trays with ornate homemade appetizers and perfectly decorated cupcakes. But also took short-cuts without an ounce of guilt – packing Lunchable lunches, covering up bad smells with Febreeze and letting Baby Einstein babysit their babies.

But even with all the shortcuts, I couldn’t figure it out. How’d they keep up with it all? Some worked in an office all day; some were running around at home. Either way scrapbooking seemed like one more thing to do on top of too many. But as I watched the moms pour their love and pride into each scrapbook page, I became convinced that this wasn’t just busy work. I wanted to give my daughter that same forever proof that she was special and loved too. So I got to work, already a few months behind, and started filling up pages.

It wasn’t long and I started to think about the big one — the first birthday. This would be a two pager for sure, maybe more. And then the first birthday questions started. In the aughts, everything felt slightly excessive. Parties required themes, presents were plentiful and dress-up clothes were formal. And all of that took planning. The choice in cake, however, was predetermined by the following question: Were you a “silky mom” or a “crunchy mom?” Yes, those lines of division existed long before the names did.

“Crunchy” baby-wearing moms

I was still figuring out what “type” of mom I was. Sure, the scrapbooker silky moms had their influence, but so did another group — the La Leche moms. I was a latecomer here, having a baby who could already sit up. But they welcomed everyone. I quickly learned that this group was about way more than nursing a baby.

Less makeup and fancy than the scrapbooking moms. They wore messy ponytails and loose, comfortable clothes, saving all their energy for parenting by Dr. Sears’ ideals, or at least trying to. They shared birth stories that were way more real than the highly edited A Baby Story TV fairytales. And they cheered each other on, giving pep talks when someone inevitably fell short of the Sears standards.

These were the “crunchy moms.” The meetings were a place for information on topics still hard to find in the early internet days — babywearing, cloth diapering, extended nursing, and attachment parenting. Even finding a midwife was hard then because many hospitals didn’t allow them to practice. They kept an up-to-date community library with the newest natural parenting books, while still having a few out-of-print classics. And they always had the latest copy of Mothering magazine and Motherwear catalog.

So for Nora’s first birthday cake, I turned to my Feeding the Whole Family cookbook. There was even a recipe called birthday cake, so choosing it was easy. It was a millet yellow cake, which I paired with the yummy yam frosting. That sounded absolutely perfect. The birthday girl, however, thought it was absolutely disgusting … and I kinda did too.

And that got me thinking. Why didn’t I just go the full-on sugar route for a birthday cake, the one I knew she’d love? And why did I stress about her first birthday anyways? She’s not going to remember it, no matter how embellished the scrapbook pages are.

This is when I started learning that so many of the complicated parts of being a parent had nothing to do with the kids. Our “mom type” is more about our own personality, privilege and need to feel validated. And first birthdays are more about marking our own anniversaries of becoming parents. Facing these underpinnings felt freeing, but a bit scary too.

Finding my own parenting self

It was easier for me to justify spending time scrapbooking when I thought I was doing it for my daughter. It was easier to make decisions from a group perspective than from the messier mix in the middle. And it was easier to focus on the detailed planning for the first birthday than face my mixed emotions about the constant changing that comes with parenthood.

Over the years, I’ve gotten better at recognizing and owning my deeper motives in my parenting style and decisions. And as I do, I feel more confident in myself as a mom … and less judgemental too. Here’s the advice that I’ve learned to follow (or at least try to):

Own your motives

The expression that having a child is like having your own heart beat outside of your body often feels so true. So it makes sense that it’s hard to keep our own feelings separate from the stuff about our kids. But if we don’t know why we’re doing something, then we can’t really know whether we should. So check-in with yourself from time to time, no BS allowed. And sometimes, feeling really strongly about some parenting topic, is a clue that it might have more to do with us than our child.

Process complicated feelings

Parenting is complicated. Just when we feel like we’ve mastered some aspect of parenting, we have to let go of it and move onto something we know nothing about. This can lead to a near constant state of loss and overwhelm. Add to this our own unresolved feelings from childhood that can resurface when we become parents and it’s no wonder many of us have a lot of feelings to process.

Activities like journaling or scrapbooking can help with this. Spending time with other parents dealing with similar stuff can help too. And so will being a bit introspective when our kids hit milestones by getting in touch with our own feelings about what those moments mean to us. Because our feelings matter too. And it’s okay to take time to process them … and ask for help.

Embrace the middle ground

Many parents are probably like my mom was, struggling to get by with little help. But even for those with the privilege to contemplate “parenting styles,” I’ve never known any parent that completely fits into any one box, myself included. What’s more, staying grounded in the messy middle has its own advantages. It’s easier to stay intellectually humble there — more curious and less judgemental. You’ll be less likely to overlook some important piece of information. And it keeps you flexible — so when things change, you can change too.

If you’re really into labels you can adopt the hybrid “scrunchy mom” one, but letting go of the labels altogether is even more freeing.

Let them eat cake

While there are lots of things in childhood that can have lifelong impacts, there are very few single things that do. So don’t stress out about any one day or any one thing. Going forward, my kids had high-glycemic birthday cakes, usually from a store. And each birthday was a day for them — and a day for me — to continue to grow and learn.

Milestones in parenting: how first birthdays are stepping stones to embracing your own self as a parent