I will never preach hope and bunnies, I am, and always will be, a weird mix of sarcasm, cynicism, love, hope and acceptance. I will try to tell it how it is and I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry, if this is offensive. Rule #1 you can't make everyone happy ESPECIALLY on the internet.
I won't start with saying how everyone should be a parent because I don't believe that. It is pretty cool though. For the past (almost) 6 months I have been a mom and it's been weird. Everett was born and this alien was on my belly and it was... odd. Someone had just handled me an angry and squirmy thing, "here love this now" and I just felt.... tired. It took three days to go from "what is this?" to "this human is really cool" to "THIS IS LITERALLY THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER MADE"
He's healthy, funny, neat, adorable, happy. I love him. What I don't love is Mom Culture. I didn't know it was a thing until I fell face first into it. Suddenly I was hurled into this world where I felt like every decision I made in regards to my child would be judged. Every minute detail (will you sleep train, when to start solids, do you vaccinate, who will cut his hair ETC) would be judged. Harshly and without mercy.
Six months and I have come to the conclusion: none of that shit matters.
NONE. OF. IT.
Secondly I may be staying home with my son but I do not have time for it. I mean, I have time, time for wine, good friends and laughing but... no I do not have time to sit and stew over every decision I make with my kid. I do what I think is right, moving on.
The thing about FEELING like you're being judged is that it isn't exactly unfounded. I joined a Facebook group looking for support of moms who had babies the same age... it was nonsense. I still am part of it for the pure "I'm just here for the comments" factor but... those bitches be cray. Name calling, rude comments, I'm surprised I haven't seen death threats... seriously... they got mean. Whether it's moms who can't take the heat for not vaccinating, moms who are indignant over how if you start solids too soon you will somehow make your baby a fat beast who is allergic to everything it touches. Then there's the mom who "knows" everything when really she just sits on Google and picks and chooses based on her personal belief system (which is mainly based in the clouds) to come to conclusions where not only does correlation mean causation every time but only on the stipulation that it backs up her point. If the actual facts contradict her flawed reasoning and improper use of statistics then the source, the government, is actually out to get them for the sake of population control.
---->While I'm on the subject when two things SEEM related (correlation) does not mean they are actually having an effect on each other (causation). For example a graph showing increased rates of autism over time overlapped with a graph showing increased rates of vaccinations would appear to show that these two separate events are actually related to one another in that vaccinations are causing autism OR, more creatively, autism is causing vaccinations.<-----
I don't care what you think on this subject, that was my Hot Topic Example of the day. Learning is fun. Moving on.
The second conclusion that I have come to is that the worst crime you can commit as a mother is
not maintaining your own self identity.
You do yourself a huge disservice when you completely lose yourself in your family. A happy mom creates happy kids. Vaccinate, don't vaccinate, sleep train, cry it out, start your baby on solids whenever, breastfeed/don't breastfeed but be happy. Know who you are and if you don't; find her. It's that simple.
Moms that get bored aren't happy and they struggle to find ways to cope with that unhappiness by being nasty and competitive with every mom they meet and it leads to further isolation. Drama for dramas sake, the Queen Bee moms*** who thrive on this atmosphere, are the most bored, the most lost and the hardest to get along with.
I am not an expert. I am just feeling this out as I go. We all are. So feel it out yo' own damn self and trust your instincts. You got this.
***there will most likely be a Queen Bee Mom blog pending stories from other women I can add in
