Thoughts on Motherhood

Along with many other “mommy bloggers,” a group in which I can BARELY place myself given the amount of updating I do, I really wish the bickering, snarky comments, and thinly-veiled apologies to the opposing sides would just stop.  We have breast-feeders, extended-breast-feeders, attachment parents, babywise moms, working, stay-at-home, babywearing, adoptive, foster, birth parents who have given up their babies for adoption, those who have aborted, stillbirths, miscarriages, cultural moms who give snacks to the neighborhood kids, and other moms of many other sizes, shapes, religions, sexual orientations, and parenting philosophies.

Me?  I’m a married, working (although I stayed at home for two years), Christian, babywise, in-shape mom of one four year old boy.  {Side note:  A sure sign we are NOT over the “mommy wars” is the fact that I always feel I have to qualify my statement that I’m a working mom by following up with “but I stayed home for 2 years,” as if that makes my working okay} I’m sure I judge other moms {don’t lie, you do it too}–I’m human, and therefore have a tendency toward self-preservation, meaning that I want to come out on top, the winner, victorious, every time.  So yeah, my first instinct is to feel/think, “I’m right, she’s wrong.”  I’m really trying to catch myself and bring a little bit more understanding into my heart when I see something that makes me feel superior.

I don’t want us all to be perfect, declaring to every mom who spanks her kid in the big-box discount store, “You’re doing just fine, mom!  I may disagree with you but I understand you just do things differently than me!”  Because the blogosphere would be BO-ring without a little bit of lively debate sprinkled with plenty of snark.  But just as I don’t want us to go around declaring that we’re all OKAY, I DO want us to stop saying such stupid things to each other.

*  When you’re talking to a mom who pulls out her container of formula, shakes it up like an expert bartender and gives it to her little bundle of joy, don’t talk about how amazing your bonding experience was while you breastfed your child until kindergarten.  She’s bonding with her child in her own way, and her baby is getting EVERYTHING he or she needs.

*On the other side of that situation, if you see someone breastfeeding their kindergartener, hold your facial expressions and snide comments until you’ve passed them.  Just leave them be.  They’re doing what’s best for them, for whatever reason.

*  When a mom talks about her 3 children, one of which passed away at any stage of gestation or birth, don’t say “Oh so you only have two.”  No, she has three.  Additionally, if a woman tells you she had a miscarriage at 8 weeks, don’t say “well at least you didn’t go any farther than that.”  It was painful enough, she doesn’t need to hear that her grief is invalid.

*  If you see a mom with many children, some, or all, of whom are of a different race, don’t say “WOW.  I could never adopt like you did.”  The truth is, you could.  And maybe you should.  And if you can’t adopt a child, you can help out many organizations who need financial support to care for the children they are trying to place.  Also, comments like “That must have been expensive” are usually not welcome.

*  If a mom is talking to you about her only child and you say “well you only have one.  If you had two (or 3 or 4 or 18) like me, you’d understand what I’m going through” it’s universally not cool.  Comments like “you have it easy with only one” are also not welcome, along with “when are you going to have more?” and “he/she is going to be spoiled, you know.  You need to have more so he/she can develop socially.”

*  Stay at Home Moms, give the working moms a break.  Yeah, maybe we could make sacrifices in order to stay home with our children.  Or maybe we can’t.  But we are doing the best we can in the few hours between when we pick up our kids from day care and when they go to bed.  A lot of us are really struggling, financially and emotionally, to keep it all together.  Also, comments like “I could never pay someone else to raise my child” are not welcome.  We are raising our children, thank you.

*Working moms, give the Stay at Home Moms a break.  They’re tired, too.  Having done both jobs I know that I felt no more joy doing laundry as a SAHM than I do now as a working mom.  It’s okay, working moms, to admit that you are a little bit envious of the SAHM’s.  Don’t try to tell them that they don’t know what it’s like to be busy.  It’s just a different busy.

Denying that we judge each other doesn’t do us any good.  Simply saying “we shouldn’t judge, all moms are AWESOME” does us less good because it goes even further in covering up our true feelings.  Let’s just get it all out in the open.  We judge each other.  And we shouldn’t.  But we do.  The bottom line is, we are all in this together.  We’re ALL trying to do the best we can with what we have.  The amazing thing about how God made us as moms is that he all made us different, with our own free will and our own intelligent and resourceful brains.  So let’s use our intelligence and resources to help each other, and our children, and stop using them to come up with sarcastic comments, condescending platitudes, and nasty looks aimed at one another.

Happy Mother’s Day to ALL mothers.