Some reading from the past

I’m a little behind on my internet reading. Oh well. It’s hard enough for me to get through the whole (and very essential) red carpet “Do’s and Don’ts” lineup on E! Online's award season recap (I've got priorities, people!) – so sometimes reading the news takes back burner.

So anyway, I came across this article from Today Moms on moms judging other moms. Felt it was worth sharing because it rang pretty true to me. We all do it to some extent and probably shouldn't unless you’re one of those moms who, you know, deserve to be judged for putting up videos of your kid smoking crack for all the world to see or something like that. I kid, I kid. Ok, not really.

Reading this article brought me back to the early days with T, when I brought him to Target on a less-than-perfect baby day because I was in desperate need of a can opener momma just needed to get out of the house. The second we stepped into the store he started crying (and man, did he have a set of pipes) and didn’t let up. Enter the helpful totally annoying old man and his wife in line behind me at the checkout who tsk’ed tsk’ed the whole time at the horrid new mother in front of them whose baby was so unhappy. “He’s hungry, you know” is what the old guy said to me. I think I just said something lame in response back like “Oh.” (always good with the comebacks under pressure, this gal!) but had all sorts of responses I wanted to shout at him. “Oh? Am I supposed to feed him? They didn’t tell me that in the hospital.” I seethed to myself, to my hubby, and to anyone that would listen to me (over T’s screams, of course) that he had no right to offer up unsolicited advice like that to me. It was a judgment on my parenting – and as a brand-spankin’ new parent, I was already judging my abilities left and right. Rest assured, rude old dude, you were wrong.

I’m a whole lot more seasoned as a parent these days but I still judge my parenting skills enough that I promise I don’t need anyone else to do it for me. (“Am I telling him “no” the right way to indicate both love and sternness?” “Have I shown him his belly button enough times today for him to learn it’s there?” “Is it OK to tinkle when holding him if he won’t let me put him down?” Ok, the last one's a little weird, but it really does cross my mind when it happens...and yea, it's happened more than once.)

So my public service announcement of the day? Lay off the judgey-ness moms! (Said sternly, non-judgmentally, and with love of course)