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papaya

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Sep 05, 2010 19:35

I think I just found a blog post that explains why some people are so freaking awful in the parenting communities I read. It's worth a read, but this is what really jumped out at me:

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 ( Read more... )

Comments 8

chimaerandi September 6 2010, 00:34:18 UTC

This is 100% brilliant. You should post this in booj. Thanks so much for sharing!

papaya September 6 2010, 01:28:46 UTC

I thought about posting it to Booj but then realized that the majority of members probably won't see themselves in the post.

chimaerandi September 6 2010, 01:40:03 UTC

That's the unfortunate truth. :/ But I appreciated you posting it, a lot.

defaultcrush September 6 2010, 00:54:49 UTC

Stuff like that is why I'm kind of terrified of ever setting foot in P101 or any other LJ community when I get pregnant. They are like a pack of wolves in there ( ... )

papaya September 6 2010, 01:28:18 UTC

I really do wonder how much this belief will change when I have kids of my own, but I struggle with the idea that one event is going to scar your kids for life,

I think that this is one of the ways in which being the youngest among my siblings (and so far apart in age) has really worked to my advantage. Most of my nieces and nephews are grown so I can see that formula didn't kill them. It didn't make them stupid (and if it did, well, I apologize to everybody who gets botched results from my nephew doing stem cell research). One of my sisters who has said she doesn't "do that attachment shit" (her words, as she watched our other sister walk around all day babywearing) has two of the most thoughtful boys young men I've ever met. Her oldest is the one who told me on my last visit, "I'm going to have dinner with my dad. Oh! Did you eat, auntie? Do you want me to bring back something for you?"

Gods, I'm so proud of those kids.

theafaye September 6 2010, 00:55:53 UTC

There's nothing I hate more than competitive mothering. Fortunately, very, very few of my friends indulge in it, but I do think a lot less of the one person I discovered leaving a smugly superior comment in a breastfeeding community about how she felt sorry for all those poor babies who were being deprived of the best thing there is because their mothers were too worried about keeping their boobs perky. We weren't close, fortunately, but she's definitely been relegated to the back burner of my friends hierarchy because no matter how much I think my decisions for my children are the best they can possibly be, I'm in no position to judge someone else for the decisions they make that are best for their family ( ... )

papaya September 6 2010, 01:24:34 UTC

I imagine that you weren't thinking of your brother-in-law or his kids when you made that remark, though. It was probably more like those, "We've all co-slept and none of my kids are dead yet...oh, shit" moments.

but I do think a lot less of the one person I discovered leaving a smugly superior comment in a breastfeeding community about how she felt sorry for all those poor babies who were being deprived of the best thing there is because their mothers were too worried about keeping their boobs perky.

Oh, I left that community way behind on the day I saw a bunch of mothers patting themselves on the back for, oh, I don't know, actually loving their kids or whatever. One woman commented about her friend going to a wedding without her baby and how sad that was since she obviously didn't care enough to be tethered to the kid. Cue a bunch of other people jumping in about how selfish she was, and how could a few hours of fun be worth the trauma and neglect of not breastfeeding blah blah blah ( ... )

theafaye September 6 2010, 04:42:38 UTC

I think I remember reading that discussion, or at least hearing about it. I just think that who is anyone to judge what someone else does? I mean, I remember reading about a friend of mine who went for a weekend away from the baby when he was three months old and raising an eyebrow at that because at that stage there's no way I could have been away from my child for a whole weekend (especially since my breasts would have protested loudly), but how do I know what living with her child is like? Maybe he cries all night and day. Maybe he has chronic colic. Maybe he needs to be held all the time and her arms are tired. Just because *I* don't want a weekend away from my baby doesn't mean that she's automatically a bad mother or doesn't have darned good reason to need it ( ... )