Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today and I’m talking about the Mom Wars. You know what they are, where Moms become competitive with each other over mothering. Whenever I see it I groan. It drives me absolutely nuts.
Photo credit: hans s via VisualHunt / CC BY-ND
I remember talking to one parent in particular. My kids weren’t friends with her kids, but we’d end up running into each other at the park and we’d compare notes. For example, what movie my kids liked and what one they didn’t. She’d tell me what play areas were good and which ones weren’t and so on. However, each time we parted, I felt frustrated and I wasn’t sure why. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. So the next time we talked, I paid attention to what was going on, and I noticed that every time I shared an experience that I enjoyed, she had one that was better. It was like we were competing over how many play dates we’d taken our kids on that week or who took their kids to the best zoo. I tested this hypothesis out a number of times and came up with the same conclusion. It got so bad I had to take my kids to a different park just to avoid her. I was afraid, afraid she’d run me off the path with her stroller, or push me down when I was occupied with the merry-go-round. You just don’t know about people these days.😉
Photo credit: donnierayjones via Visual hunt / CC BY
I began to see it everywhere, this underlying competitiveness. Where did we get the idea that there was only one way to parent and that our way was the only way to do it? I mean every mom is the best mom they can be to their kids, right? Instead of being competitive we should be supportive.
What Mom wouldn’t give twenty minutes of alone time during the day? We should become collaborative instead of competitive. I mean if we banded together, think about how less stressed we’d be. It really does take a village to raise kids these days.
Photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg via Visual Hunt / CC BY
I see this nasty competition among women over everything. I see it in the young girls and older generations. It’s as if we believe that there’s only this one man, this one job, or this one friend that’s available. And to be fair sometimes that’s the way it is, but not all the time.
To achieve this mutual support, we need to first accept and love ourselves just as we are. I believe this is the key right here. Because if we can accept and love ourselves just as we are, then we give permission for the other moms to do the same thing. We are all individuals and there is more than one way to achieve our goal of raising healthy, well-adjusted kids.
We should start by organizing mom clubs, where we take turns watching each other’s kids or band together and organize awesome play dates. We’d have one rule. We couldn’t compare ourselves to the others. We could offer suggestions to solve problems, but that’s it.
Photo credit: amanda.venner via Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-SA
I’ve heard whisperings that there are clubs like this already in existence, but I don’t know where they are or how they’re organized. Do you belong to one of these clubs? How is it working for you? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!
