Everywhere I turn, lately, women are crapping all over each other's parenting skills. There was the whole Shellie Ross incident, where people (to whom I refuse to provide a link because they are stupid and mean) chose to kick a mother while she was down, basically blaming her for not watching her child and "letting" him drown in their backyard pool "while" she was tweeting. I wasn't there, and I don't know Shellie, but I do know that you don't kick a mama while she's down. If someone's child is dead, back the fuck off. You have no idea what you're talking about and it's none of your business. Leave the woman alone.
Then there was the whole Mominatrix controversy which, though not tragic, still brought up a whole slew of ill will between moms who had c-sections and moms who had vaginal births, basically because @mublogger had the unmitigated gall to say that those who'd had c-sections were lucky bitches with tight vaginas. See, now, I thought that was funny as hell, but to each her own.
Moms are all the time (rightly) complaining that being pregnant or having a child means that strangers feel like they have an automatic license to give you their opinion of your parenting (or how much weight you;ve gained, or to touch your belly, or to say it's disgusting to have your boobs "out" in public for breastfeeding purposes, etc).
But here's the thing. WE ARE OUR OWN WORST ENEMIES. I have NEVER seen a man or a childless woman diss a mom as badly as I have seen and hear and read a mom diss another mom. And golly, there is just a smorgasbord of opportunities for scorn, no matter which side of each issue you are on:
- organic-food eaters vs women who eat sushi and lunch meat while pregnant
- women who gain a ton of weight while pregnant vs those who don't
- home birth vs hospital
- doula vs just your scared-shitless husband
- natural childbirth vs medicated, or god forbid...
- vaginal childbirth vs c-section
- breast vs bottle
- cosleeping vs crib
- wearing your baby vs using a stroller
- working in an office vs staying at home
- glass bottles vs plastic (OMG BPA)
- TV allowed vs "Mommy, what's a television?"
- spanking vs time-outs vs guilt trips vs hand's-off parenting
- juice vs water only
- organic foods vs soy vs regular ol' Gerber vs blah blah blah
It goes on and on.
The most recent one that has come to my attention was on a local-to-Chicago website for parents. It usually stays pretty civil because it's a paid-membership site, so there's no real anonymity, and admin will kick you the hell off if you get out of hand. Someone who is struggling with the decision posted a question about how to decide whether to stay at home or continue working. The responses stayed civil for about 12 minutes and then quickly went downhill from there.
Personally, I think I would have gone mad--just me personally--if I'd stayed home full time with my child. I'm too social, too nerdy and type-A, and I like my work. But for awhile there I was freaking out because my commute meant I wasn't seeing him at all during his waking hours and it was making me nuts. I eventually worked out some flexibility so I didn't have to spend so much time in the car. The hours I save sometimes go to my kid (I can stop work and be picking him up from school 10 minutes later), and sometimes they go to continuing to work long past when I would have, had I needed to leave the office to beat traffic and pick him up in time. But for those who are working 50 hour weeks and have no flexibility and/or only make enough money to cover the cost of childcare, I totally understand the impetus to take that plunge and stay home. I don't fault anyone for choosing that. In fact, if I look deep down and can admit it, I'm frequently jealous.
We should all be thankful, every day, that we have such choices.
My choice was NOT whether to keep my child or give him up for adoption because I cannot provide for him.
My choice was NOT whether or not to let DCFS put him in foster care.
My choice was NOT whether to work 3 jobs or only 2 in order to provide for my family.
My choice was whether to keep working at a job I like (and stay in the neighborhood i feel safe in, with a great school, and the ability to at least partially afford a discounted private school tuition) or to stay home with my child (and have to sell my house, move to a mediocre neighborhood, and take a chance on the public school lottery). THESE ARE GOOD CHOICES TO HAVE. We should all thank our lucky stars, or God, or whoever we believe in, EVERY DAY, that we have such "high-class" choices.
But instead, we spend our time ripping each other to shreds.
The rhetoric on both sides is so emotionally charged, because it HAS to be. As mothers we all, deep down, question our own choices, from buying organic milk vs soy vs. whatever, to breastfeeding vs. bottle, to working in an office vs being a SAHM, and on and on.
There is not one woman who ever existed who has not, DEEP DOWN, maybe even on a subconscious level, questioned whether she was doing the right thing. I am constantly questioning and reassessing. I drive myself crazy with it sometimes. I have a mini-crisis every time a woman at my office has a baby and decides she's not coming back from maternity leave (should I have done that? Am I a bad mom for continuing to work?). I'm jealous of others who had wonderful maternity leaves because mine was totally effed up because of family health issues that forced me to travel during that time and stay inside an air conditioned house (my mom's) and out of the 90 degree Atlanta heat and pollen instead of going on nice leisurely walks with my son in the beautiful, temperate Chicago springtime.
I'll admit it, I'm jealous of those who have husbands who make a crapload of money and can therefore easily decide to stay home, no questions asked, and still keep their homes (and in some cases, their cleaning ladies), and still afford to send their kids to private school and wear designer jeans and go on vacations and stuff. I wish I had had that choice. If I had stayed home, there would have been no shopping, no vacations. To make myself feel better, I have to tell myself something like, "I would not want that situation, because the high-earner husband is never home." But still, I can't help but be jealous of that choice. Jealous of mothers whose salary is disposable, who can walk away from their jobs because it makes no difference in their standard of living (note: I'm not saying that all SAHMs are in this situation; I'm saying THOSE are the ones I'm most jealous of).
I did have A choice, but moving back to the crappy neighborhood we came from to make ends meet was not what i wanted. I remember being "starving artists" and having to put back oranges in the grocery check-out line because I need the toilet paper more. Going back to fighting with my husband over money (almost the only thing we ever have fought about) because money was tight again was not what i wanted.
So I "chose" to work, and I have AGONIZED over every childcare decision I have ever made: comparing, making pros/cons charts (and ahll tell you whut, I can rock the FUCK out of a pros/cons chart), pulling him out of a program where he was being bitten repeatedly and no one would do anything to stop it, spending hundreds of dollars on application fees at various places just to have some options to choose from in a part of Chicago that has few options for the under-2 set because everyone has a nanny (something that, even with our two salaries, we still could not afford). I agonIze and make charts BECAUSE I CARE DEEPLY. I tell myself that at preschool my son learns how to share, and how to wait for his turn, how to speak in front of others even though he's nervous, along with colors and numbers and stuff. How to be a member of a community. How to be trustworthy. How to care about others.
Much of which you can learn at home with your mom, like I did. My mom stayed home with me. And that was great. But I had the dad who was never home that paid for that privilege. And that was fine. But my mom had a degree in early childhood education, and is infinitely patient. My son's childhood experience would not duplicate mine even if I stayed home, because I am not my mother.
Or so I tell myself.
There are SAHMs who spend the whole day watching TV and doing household tasks and talking to their friends on the phone while their kids veg in front of the TV, just as there are SAHMS who are AWESOME like mine was and make every experience a learning experience and every day an adventure.
There are office moms who are BARELY interested in their children and only had them to keep up with the joneses and are perfectly happy to let the nanny "raise" them, just as there are office moms who constantly struggle for flexibility and who give up their own dreams, social lives, friends, hobbies, etc so that they can be "present" when they are home because they care deeply and don't want their child to feel cheated.
Maybe if I had a husband who made $300K I would have quit my job and stayed home to write and raise my son and I would not have batted an eyelash. I'll never know.
But what I do know is, OUR CHILDREN WILL BE FINE. ALL OF THEM.
We will screw them up in other ways besides whether we chose to work, or breastfeed, or feed them soy milk out of a plastic bottle.
These conversations all go south precisely BECAUSE we all care so deeply. No one wants to be told she's a bad mother, because deep down she feels like one sometimes.
Our worst fear is that we will find out we've done the absolute wrong thing for our children (hence the self-flagellation with the whole BPA mess). Deep down we ALL subconsciously fear we've made the wrong choice about X, so when someone ELSE brings it up and so much as insinuates that we might have screwed up, we have to a) defend it fiercely and b) put down whatever the other choice is, in order to make ourselves feel better.
We all love our children.
None of you loves your kid more than I love mine, I promise you.
And none of you loves your kid less than I love mine.
We all love our children. We all CARE DEEPLY that we are doing the right thing by our kids.
I have made some bad choices in the past (sometimes the not-so-distant past) with not cutting people slack, and I'm trying to change that. I'm trying to be more understanding.
So let's try to look at other moms, no matter what their choices are, and say to ourselves, "she's doing the best she can. I don't know her situation."
The first place we should focus our understanding and compassion is on other moms.
Attacking each other for our choices doesn't accomplish anything other than create bad blood and reinforce negative stereotypes that we are all catty bitches who do nothing but judge each other.
So let's all take a deep breath, shall we?
Let's do some lovingkindness meditation. Let's stop bragging about our choices and admit none of us know what the hell we're doing or what the ramifications will be later. Let's support each other and not judge. If we try to put ourselves in another woman's shoes and we still think she's making the wrong choice about something, anything, unless it's something that is truly endangering the child, let's just keep that to ourselves, shall we?
Not that I have always followed this advice. And I'm sure I'll fuck it up again at some point. But I'm trying. Seriously.
I'm-a stay off your case.
Mostly.
Namaste, mamas.
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