~J.D. Salinger
Raising a child, whether you are a mother or a father, is
exhausting work. It takes everything you
have got, on a regular basis, to get through the day with your brood of
children. And there is no preparing for
it; no amount of talks from veteran parents, no amount of reading and research,
could prepare me for the moment where I realized, I was responsible for this
little life, and I had to do anything and everything to raise my child.
Knowing how hard it is, standing smack in the middle of the
trenches of child rearing, I do not understand why we pick on each other, talk
bad about each other, and judge each other.
And mothers seem to be so much worse than fathers are at this. We pick apart our parenting styles, what we
do on certain days; how we do it, with ferocity that rivals a pride of lions
over a fresh kill. We revel in the
moments when our children are perfect, when they seem to radiate the good
parenting we are doing, and take pleasure in the downfalls of mothers doing
something different.
It’s become a battlefield.
We go into battle suited up with the righteous knowledge that we are
doing everything exactly right, and no other mother is right, we carry the
weapons of Best Mother. And many of us
find any and every excuse to trumpet our rightness to the world. I dread going to play groups and getting out
with other mothers, I don’t have the patience to explain why I do what I do
with my child. Or why I did what I did a
year ago with her. And on the internet,
women rip each other to shreds, eviscerate each other over parenting choices,
condemning mothers who do it differently as bad parents, pitying children who
are growing up differently.
The Mommy Wars have got to stop. We women have got to put down our weapons, take
off our armor, and be at peace.
You, the mother who stays at home, cloth diapers her baby,
breastfeeds, you are not any better than the mother who works, uses disposable
diapers, and gives her baby formula.
You, the mother who makes baby food from scratch, are no
better than the mother who buys it in jars.
You, the stay at home mother, are absolutely not better than
the mother who works.
You, the mother who co-sleeps, are not any better than the mother
who sleep trains.
You, the mother who goes to every play group, are not any
better than the mother who puts her child in day care.
You, the mother who refuses to let her child watch tv, are
no better than the mother who indulges with cartoons.
Broadcasting your methods, as a way of “helping and guiding”
showcasing how well your methods worked with your children, is not helping by
the way. It is a passive aggressive way
of telling everyone that you have a better way of doing things; that you are a
better parent than the rest of it. And
that has to stop too. Parent however you
see fit, but do not attempt to force your way of doing it down the throats of
everyone else.
Not a one of us is going to parent the same way another
parent does. And no one way is better
than the other. We are simply all doing
our level best, in our ways, with what we have, and what we can do. That is all any parent can be expected to do,
the best they could.
If you, as a parent, are doing the level best you can, in
your own circumstances, than you are a good parent.
And for the rest of you, hell bent on telling everyone that
you are a better parent because you do it a specific way… bless your heart.
~Jennifer
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