Thursday, January 20, 2011

Mom rivals

Theodor and I were at an open baby meet up today and one of my favorite mommy pet peeves happened...
"MOM RIVALS"

Basically this involves moms sizing each other up, treating their child like some sort of product and comparing them to show how their skillzz are in fact the best. It goes without saying that I find it ridiculous and try not to play but I will admit it is sometimes hard not to get sucked in.

I imagine some of the moms come from corporate jobs and have a strong urge to feel like they are succeeding and doing this parenting thing "the right way", whereas others were probably incredibly obnoxious before they had children and nothing much has changed. Either way it gets so tiring constantly hearing the same crap.

Oh so how is your child sleeping? Oh really? My child is sleeping through the night. Or if your child is also sleeping through the night then their child sleeps till 9 in the morning AND takes 2 two hour naps- there is always a way to be better.

Ooh are you giving your child that? My doctor said/I heard you should actually do such and such, which is of course what we are doing.

Must be said in horrified tone- oh my gosh is it OK for your child to do that/play with something plastic/stick random crap off the floor in their mouth/insert other normal child behavior here? Hmm well we are holding off on that until XYZ because we heard that is best but that is neat that you are just putting caution to the wind and letting your child do it- insert condescending smile here- 

Today one mom looked at Teddy and said, "Oh gosh what happened to you little man? Look at those bruises, did you fall down? Or how did you get hurt? That looks so painful. What happened? ... (this went on for like a minute and a half and I didn't say anything he is 9 1/2 months and can't talk if she was really wondering she could address me) All said in a fake sing song voice to him as he tried to crawl away. Now of course someone could ask what happened because they were genuinely interested (which has happened and doesn't bother me in the least) but that clearly wasn't the case today. This is what I was thinking in my head but didn't say.
First off, clearly he fell, I didn't punch him in the forehead with one finger if that is what you are implying. Second off, I can't help it that your almost one year old is a lump that just learned how to sit up, and doesn't move at all. Mine does, and since we let him explore he sometimes falls down and gets bumps but doesn't seem to be bothered in the least. This does not make me a bad mother or a good one since I cannot change the person who my son is. Speaking of which your child is cute and I would never really think they were a lump but you my friend are very annoying.

Thankfully there is normally at least one other mom who seems to be on a similar wavelength but for every 1 normal, relaxed mom I feel like there are 3 uptight, condescending, annoying ones who always show up at these things.

I know this post is sort of negative and to be honest it doesn't really bother me that much but the hubby hates hearing me vent about this type of stuff since he has heard it all before so I thought I would let it out here. Don't get me wrong I know how blessed I am to stay at home and for one of my biggest pet peeves to be annoying moms at baby meet ups and not something that is serious and an actual problem!

7 comments:

  1. I hate that crap! Have you seen these?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikvcS3Oe-oA

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  2. No matter how often I hear about these people, I will never get it! Hope you don't have to deal with it too much.

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  3. oh god, i HATE those parents!! Everyone asks me how Eirik sleeps and when i say he doesn't they go "oh, well, so and so started at 3 months, you should do this!"

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  4. Ohhh I know what you mean! Those women drive me crazy too. It's ridiculous - why aren't we rallying for each other as mommies?? We're all going through similar things... why do some people have to be so competitive?

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  5. Yes. Ten thousand times. That is all. Haha!

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  6. It sounds hilarious to me!

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  7. This post makes me think you'll love the FreeRangeKids blog! (And Joelle, that YouTube video was hilarious -- thanks for sharing the link :-)

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