Once again the media is more than happy to drive moms into a frenzy that helps continue the moms wars. Thanks TIME, add a little guilt right before Mother’s day! I don’t find the imagine offensive, I find the headline offensive. Sure, I’m mom enough, but it took me a long time to get here. Just this past week as I was planning this post a fellow mom spoke with me about a blog post I wrote earlier in the week about a bully mom I met on the playground. She was outraged that another woman would put another woman down. She kind of summed up my thoughts on the mommy wars. Why aren’t we supporting each other? I’ve learned so much from other moms, both things I would do and somethings I wouldn’t. The fact is that we all have the same job and that’s raising our children. It doesn’t matter whether you work at an office or at home. It doesn’t matter if you choose to breastfeed or bottle feed. It doesn’t matter, it all doesn’t matter unless it works for you and your family. The media has created barriers between moms that shouldn’t be there and we can stop this ourselves by not buying into it.
So, here is my original post for this Friday. Here are ten things that moms love to judge other moms about and I’m mom enough to let you know I do them and I’m okay with it.
I’m a bad mom because:
10. I let my kids pick out their own clothes and dress themselves. ( Yes, those are my sons wearing those wrinkled clothes that kinda match sometimes.)
9. I let my kids order soda when we go out to eat. ( Only at a real restaurant, they never get out of their seats and are so well behaved because they get this treat!)
8. I don’t sign my kids up for every single sport or activity. ( Sorry, I’d like to not spend all my time in the car or on the sidelines.)
7. my kids don’t have every new gadget on the market. ( What the hell is a Wii U?)
6. I take time for myself and teach my children to respect alone time. ( We all need it. )
5. I let my kids hug and kiss me in public and I do it back. ( I actually had a 5 year old tell my son that we don’t do things like hug and kiss moms in public, oops I didn’t know.)
4. I let my dishes sit in the sink and don’t clean up after dinner sometimes because someone wants to be held or snuggled. ( A slob I am.)
3. My little guy still crawls into bed with us at night and I’ll never ask him to leave. ( I secretly love it, but have a hard time owning up to people about it.)
2. I bribe my picky eater with treats to get him to try more veggies. ( It actually worked and now he eats them without me bribing- imagine that!)
1. I quit breastfeeding my youngest at 3 months old. ( I saved this one for last. I wasn’t able to feed my oldest and it was a sore spot for me for a long time. Then when my youngest was born a month early and developed a feeding problem, I had to do both breast and bottle feed him because he was too weak to breastfeed alone. I was so excited that I could breast feed, but it soon wore off. Guess what? We all lived and are smart and healthy! )
So, what I’m saying moms is that part of being your best mom, part of being mom enough, is to stand behind your choices and not judge others for theirs. I love all my mommy friends!
Happy Mother’s Day!!!!!!!
Thank you so much for this Milena, especially 10, 8, 7, 5, and 1:
10: I am in love with your guy’s pink socks. They have this effect on his demeanor– they energize and calm him. It’s amazing, and he is so proud of them!
8: If I had your boys, I’d want to spend all of that time with them too!
7: Hmm ‘depriving’ your children of gadgetry to promote their outdoor play and develop a sense of responsibility– working for what you get– YUP! baddy mommy!
5: I LOVE this about your guys.
1: So, so, so upset about the headline. Had trouble myself with Molly, and drove myself into postpartum depression trying to nurse, bottle (formula) feed, and pump for the first few weeks. Molly had pumped breastmilk for 1/3 of her milk; 2/3 formula for the first 2 months, and formula after that, and I think she turned out great so far!
Great post! I do most of those too. 🙂
It’s sad how Time didn’t care at all about doing a good article, only about how much money they could make…
you are not alone!!!! I do most of those things too, and don’t care!!! my youngest didn’t get any breastmilk!!! and he’s fine!!!!
I wrote this because I’m so sick of mom’s judging other moms. We all have the same job, but with different kids and sometimes you just have to do what works for you. It wasn’t until my second son that I could just say screw it to the chatter!
::sigh:: I had to learn it with my first, (screw it! to the chatter) (even though my 2nd may have already been on the scene?) He has a Sensory Processing Disorder & a speech delay which means he used to scream ALL THE TIME…. We didn’t know why, but we’d always get “the look” you know, like, “why-can’t-you-control-your-kid” look… One of his day care providers even said to me, “Why is he allowed to do that? None of these other children (that went to her program) are.” She is no longer in business, and now that we understand why Josiah screams, we know how to deal with it, but I spent alot of time crying about it…Finally I decided to google “My son screams and I don’t know why” b/c his Dr. didn’t seemed too concerned (granted, he wasn’t w/us 24/7 & seeing all the judgement coming our way) & i discovered an SPD website… THEN I had to deal w/ppl not believing me (including his former preschool teachers-I ended up pulling him out of there) b/c I “self-diagnosed him”. He’s been officially diagnosed now, but it wasn’t for “them”-it was for his IEP plan @ school….