February 19, 2016

Dear Baby,

I get it, we all think that our little humans are the best little humans on the entire planet. I almost crapped myself in excitement when you put a toe in your mouth so I can only imagine (and hope) that other moms are just as excited about a plethora of random stuff that their precious baby does. 

I am so fortunate to have a group of mamas that seem to really support each other. We socialize in a space where there is no comparing what our babies do, where there doesn’t seem to be any outward judgement of choices made and where I for one, truly and wholeheartedly celebrate the achievements of the other mamas and babes around me. 

The unfortunate part of this great situation is that it is not the case 100% of the time. I have also had the displeasure of hanging out with mamas who are comparative and competitive and who voice their judgements loud and clear without provocation. 

To those mamas and to all mamas out there, here is my message. IT IS TIME TO UNITE. 

For reals. 

Do we not all get enough judgement and shit from strangers, from our well meaning relatives, from our partners and from society in general? 

Do we really need to bring it into the sisterhood of motherhood?

Here’s the thing, I don’t give any fucks at all what your kid does in comparison to mine. Is little X crawling at the exact same age as my baby? Don’t care. Does your baby do complex math while my baby is just learning how to grab objects with her WHOLE HAND? Good for you. 

Hey, did you let your kid cry it out and you think it’s fucking crazy that someone else wakes up 5 times a night to pander to their baby? Keep that shit to yourself. Do you secretly think the mama next to you who is formula feeding her little one is doing it all wrong? Shut the fuck up about it. 

Honestly, I can say for sure that we are all just trying the very best we can. The battle stories I hear from friends are often horrific and I’ll tell you this; if my baby bit off a chunk of my nipple (true story) you’d bet your bottom dollar that I  would give up breast feeding forever. I promise that her kid will be just the same as all kids no matter what kind of milk they drink. 

But it’s hard, mamas. It’s hard not to fall into the trap of competition. More recently someone was commenting on how when their baby was 5 months they were sitting up and how fucking amazing THEIR baby was at basically everything. I actually cringed when I heard myself say “my baby is sitting up now too.”

Ew. 

What weird primal instinct made me engage in such gross behaviour???

There is not one single element of life where we so willingly attack and compare such extremely personal things as this journey in parenting. 

And really, are any of us so fucking perfect?? 

So Baby and baby mamas, ENOUGH.

Let’s get to a place where the response to “my baby is sitting” is a genuine “that’s amazing,” where we applaud a mama who is formula OR breast feeding her baby for just feeding her baby. 

Where we keep those snarky comments to ourselves and don’t pass judgement on our fellow moms. We are all a part of the joy and struggle here and no one is doing it better than anyone else. 

And if after all that you still think you are holier than thou, you don’t deserve any mamas to unite with. 

To the rest of us, keep up the great work!

(Ps. Baby, don’t be a crazy judgemental and competitive biatch. Seriously. Be confident and complimentary and celebrate the success of others just as genuinely as you celebrate your own. You don’t have to be a united mama to be a really nice and good person- k??)

xo

Mom