Don’t Judge Me

Let me be very clear: I am not a Pinterest mom. My house is never clean. My laundry is never done. My kids sometimes wear the same clothes for two days in a row. Sometimes I find success when I can actually tuck my children in their beds without having to navigate a labyrinth of legos first. I am nowhere near a perfect mom. I like to blame this on the fact that I work
several jobs. I also like to blame this on the fact that I have entirely too many hobbies that often distract me from actually spending time on “important” things like washing the baseboards that have yellowed after neglect.

But honestly, it’s mostly because I don’t want to be that perfect mom..

But honestly, it’s mostly because I don’t want to be that perfect mom who shows up at every bbq with a homemade masterpiece from the Pioneer Woman’s cookbook. I show up to those bbqs with dollar store pretzels and call it good. I don’t want to be that mom who sends handmade personalized thank you gifts to their child’s teacher. I want to buy a gift card and stuff it in an envelope. I don’t want to be the mom who doesn’t raise her voice to her children. I want my children to fully comprehend that mom can quickly, with little warning, turn into She-Hulk so they’d better think twice before pushing my buttons too much. Even though I am not a perfect mother, who hardly ever does and says most things correctly and carefully, does not mean that I deserve to be judged by other moms.

In a recent survey, two-thirds of moms have felt shamed by other moms. I, myself, have had eyebrows raised at many of my parenting choices in the last 11 years that I’ve been a mom. It started even before my firstborn, with pregnancy foods (“Are you really going to eat THAT?”), appropriate weight gains (“I actually LOST weight in my first trimester; you’ve gained HOW much?”), hospital and doctor choices (“Oh, I would NEVER deliver at THAT hospital.”) , natural birth plans (“Your birth plan can’t be less than 10 typed pages.”), etc. When people first knew I was pregnant, I would get a barrage of questions which instantly blindsided me to that fact of how ill-prepared I actually was. Needless to say, I had begun motherhood already feeling insecure and positively inferior to those “perfect” moms who already knew it all, had already read every book, had already purchased every perfect item for their adorably decorated nurseries. I had actually devoted myself to having an all natural birth with a midwife from Nigeria mostly because of a dare to myself that if my sister could do it, I could do it too. Never in my wildest dreams could I even fathom the pain of a 31 hour long back labor that included hours of continuous vomiting, writhing, and screaming. If anyone ever wonders how competitive I am, let them reflect back to this. However, after seeing a friend during labor with an epidural months later, who was sitting up in her hospital bed, laughing, telling jokes, and playing cards, I am not actually sure I was the winner of that dare. I’m not sure there are ever any winners of natural labors. I’m still waiting for my trophy.

Over the years, it progressed with breastfeeding, pediatricians, diapers, sleeping, eating, daycares, preschools, toys… the list goes on and on. While now my boys are older, pretty self-sufficient, and as far as I can tell, will not grow up to become serial killers, judgments are still thrown at me. These new judgments are now based on how picky eaters my children are, how many vegetables they like, how many cavities they have, how much screen time they are limited to.

Does this ever stop? Can this ever stop?

Even though my husband is probably right in the fact that I am my harshest critic, I know that I wouldn’t judge myself if I wasn’t being judged by so many others, too. So let’s toast the perfect moms who send their children to bed on time every night. But let’s also toast the moms, like me, who sometimes look at the clock and think, yikes, I should’ve put them to bed hours ago. Let’s celebrate the moms who food prep once a week to help their family stay healthy. But let’s also celebrate the moms who are on a first name basis with the pizza delivery guy. Because we’re all trying the best we can. So the next time you see a kid show up to a play date in their pajamas, instead of a carefully color coordinated and accessorized outfit, salute that mom for showing up at all. We need to empower each other instead of tearing each other down. Parenting is hard. But it gets easier when we stop criticizing each other.

~Amanda Byrd, Contributor