I witnessed today a mom get angry because her son spilled his water all over the table…and it made me feel so good!!! Seriously, I skipped a little beat seeing the reality of ‘mom life’. You know why? I do that too!!! So not alone. Although she handled it far better than I, she did not say one thing. Just a look…of… “really”. Me, not so sure I would have been so poised and downright graceful. Reality, as a mom though, it is so annoying when your kid spills yet again an entire glass of water down the front of your pants. As a mom though, we get spilled on, coughed on, sticky fingers wiped on as though our shirt were a napkin, pounced on as though we were a body pillow, but also giggled on, snuggled on, and loved on. By far and away...worth it even though it comes with so many struggles and unfortunately judgements. The majority of us want nothing but the best for our littles and just want to love on our babies as much as possible, keep them as safe as possible, provide them with as much as possible and are just trying to do our best with as much energy we are able to muster up as possible.
After this far better mom than I gave the look of... "really?” and calmly cleaned up the table and her very wet pants…she glanced over at me to see my reaction. To see if I was judging her. I found it absolutely necessary to give her a look right back and a smile saying “yup…I have kids too…happens every time.” I made sure my look said nothing but ‘I sympathize with you sister’ and ‘been there done that’. In fact, I think I even said that.
My point is though, that It is so sad that as mom’s and as women we worry about the unnecessary judgements of our peers. Like…what the heck! We really truly are the worst for it. As women we are judged so often by our outer appearance by nearly every man we see on the street, the last thing we need is for our fellow woman judging us for such minor insignificant things.
There are so many examples of sister to sister judgement. One big one I see, the stay at home mom verses the working mom. I had a conversation the other day with two amazing women. Sisters actually. One just recently had the cutest little girl possible that is honestly the most smiley baby I have ever seen. (Gave me just a little bit of baby fever… then I realized…. Yeah that ship has sailed for this body ) This darling little one is just over three months and her mom had just returned back to work. I could literally feel her gut wrenching, pulling a piece of her heart out as she described having to go back to work and leave this little darling at home with a nanny leaving her a measly couple hours of facetime a day with her beautiful baby. I totally remember that exact feeling. Like a piece of my heart or like a whole appendage, an arm or a leg was missing when I went back to work after my first. I empathized with her so greatly.
The other sister is a stay at home mom. The conversation led in the direction of how being a stay at home mom isn’t the easiest thing either. We all agreed that is was a blessing to be able to make that choice, but that it didn’t mean in any way that it was a cake walk. After some time at home, always at home, cooking, cleaning, caring for what seems like everyone else but yourself day in and day out, gets to be just a little bit exhausting and like you can sometimes loose a bit of yourself in the process. I too sympathized here. I have been home with my littles every day, just about all day since March 16th. I remember the date because of COVID and because no matter how much I love my littles, literally more than life itself…I soooooo could use a day or two where I am by myself. Where I do not have to do anyone else’s dish but my own, just for one day.
The problem isn’t which choice you make as a mom, or what limited choices you have. The problem is the judgement you get from other women who in most cases are in the same or similar boat as you. Just trying their best to survive and be the best mom they can be. We all make mistakes. We all are drowning just a little bit. Perhaps if our friends and fellow sisters would throw a floaty our way once in a while, we wouldn’t feel like we were treading water so much. Or at least we would realize we weren’t alone in doing so.
I have seen and felt judgement from so many. We have some who judge because we don’t have our kids in every known sport and activity or that we have them in too many. We are judged because we wear yoga pants too much or not enough. We are judged because we work fulltime, or we are home. We are judged because we are too skinny or too fat. We are judged because we have too much money or not enough. We are judged because of jealousy over if we have the right bag and shoes or because we shop at target. We are judged by our choices about returning our kids to school or by keeping them home…etc... etc... etc, the list goes on.
But here is the deal, we all have different roads we take and different outcomes, yet we all have such similar experiences. Trust me, my shit stinks and so does yours.
But what if we tried just for a moment before we find ourselves shifting our gaze to a glare and reserve our judgement for the assholes who really deserve it and instead show love and sympathy for the mom next door who just like me and just like you is simply trying to stay afloat.
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