Attention Moms: We Need to Get Over Ourselves

Right after this picture was taken this mom blogged about her very difficult life.

I want to talk about the types of stuff I see us  out there sharing.  By "us" I mean moms. The things on social media that we post gleefully without a second thought.  

Articles Like This

And This 

And Maybe Even This

I want you to know that I love you, and I value you, and...I'm here to stage an intervention.  

But Mrs. Drug, you say, you WRITE ON A BLOG WITH THE WORD MOM IN IT.  Yes, you’re right.  However, if you look closely, you will see that what I am really doing is being facetious. Because this blog implies that most people reading it are the type of people who are expecting advice on how to be a great mom.  I’m not going to provide that advice because clearly you are all better moms than me.  That’s great!

However, and that’s a BIG HOWEVER.  I am sick to death of reading about how honorable and selfless it is to be a stay at home mom, or conversely, how horribly difficult it is.  This is not to say that we can’t commiserate with each other…but let’s not do it so passive aggressively.  There’s a big difference between saying, “Has anyone else dealt with a kid who wiped their own bleep on the walls” and saying, “I’m here to tell you that I have chosen to walk the path of waging the battle of being a stay at home where, every day,  I am forced to deal with Bleep on the walls.  I hope you realize how much of a sacrifice I’m making by subjecting myself to this challenging season of life.”

I don’t really care that you decided to have kids, and then made the decision to stay home with them.  Yay for you.  I think it’s great.  But you aren’t a superhero.  We all make decisions.  Wiping bleep off the walls is part of making the decision to have kids to begin with.  I don’t need to make all my working mom friends feel like utter failures just because I decided to stay home and wipe bleep off the walls and they didn’t.  Further, I realize that me choosing to stay home with my kids has less to do with my high morality and world view than it does with the fact that Mr. Drug is my sugar daddy and lets me.  Hey guess what?  A lot of moms don’t have sugar daddies.  So bleepin bleep it up your bleep if you are trying to make the sugar daddyless moms feel like crap. 

"Being a stay at home mom is sooooo exhausting...last week I only had time to make one Pinterest project. Now I need some validation that I made the superior parenting choice."

And really, don’t tell me that’s not what you are doing…because you are.  It’s easy to see the reason why.  For a lot of years stay at home moms were made to feel less relevant or intelligent because that was their only option.  Now, it’s like a badge of honor that upper-middle class moms wear because they have sugar daddies.  Now I realize that there are stay at home moms who really scrape and sacrifice to be there.  That’s great too.  But it’s still not any greater than the choice any other mom makes.  And to take it one step further…I rarely see those moms blogging in a way that is meant to improve their social standing by making it seem like they are enduring the seventh circle of hell.

This (public domain image..I think) doctor just blogged about how hard it was to be a doctor, and that he had no idea it would be like this.  Then his nurse told him to stop whining, grow up and bleep slapped him.

We all have bad days…in whatever line of ‘work’ we have chosen to pursue.  Some days I think about the path I’ve chosen and wonder what it would be like if I’d chosen something else.  Other days I feel like I am really lucky because wow, I have an AWESOME life and boy do I feel bad for people who don’t.  I’m sure that once in a while everyone feels like having a pity party.  But one thing that I cannot stand is martyrs, followed closely by whiners.  You chose to go to school for 45 years to become a neurosurgeon who is one of three in the world who can operate a robot arm that transplants brains but you wish you were an artist who could paint all day and drink coffee in Paris?  Oh I’m sorry.  Now go oil that robotic arm. 

-Or-

Maybe you got .0005 hours of sleep last night because your 5 month old decided to have a wild frat party with your boobs from midnight to 6 am, and now you feel like blogging about how stay at home moms are so ignored and their plights deserve recognition by the United Nations?....um seriously darling, go take a nap when the baby finally decides to pass out…because you can do that.

We need validation sometimes.  Yes, we all do.  Maybe that means your boss pats you on the back after a big presentation, or, maybe that means your toddler counts to 25 with a pile of green beans, and you share that with your mom friends on facebook…complete with the video to prove it.  Yes!  Validation is good.  Maybe you need to vent…because we all need to do that.  Maybe that means going out to lunch with co-workers who can commiserate with you. Or maybe that means going out to lunch with other moms who have wiped bleep off the walls who will reassure you that you are not, in fact, raising a deviant who is headed to a career as a serial killer.  Yes!  Venting is good and healthy.

Here you go ladies.  Be sure to apply rosin liberally.

But, my darlings, you do not need to, nor are you doing the institution of motherhood any favors, by singing your own praises loudly, or conversely, throwing yourself a pity party of epic proportions by showing every working mother in the world that you have it soooo much worse and deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for rearing up the next, greatest generation. If you are an overworked, over laundried, over tired middle class mom who feels like she needs to make a point to every other mom out there....don't do it.  Put down the laptop, or the smart phone, or the tablet. There are moms in this world who legitimately have a tough time because of depression, post partem or otherwise, or medical conditions, or family issues, or what have you....don't mock them by throwing yourself a the world's biggest pity party.  Just be a mom.  Do it to the best of your ability. Love the good parts, and get through the tough parts.  Embrace the path you chose.   Laugh about the bleep that is too bleeped up to cry about.  Cry about the bleep that is too overwhelming to laugh about, and realize that we all choose our own paths, and we need to own them.  But more than anything else, be real.  Being real means admitting, sometimes, that you need to get over yourself.  It’s a good trait.  One that, most better moms than me, will model for their children as well.

I can hear the critics out there right now…MRS. DRUG YOU ARE BEING HYPOCRITICAL.  Am I?  If so, I’m sorry.  I never intend to make any mom feel like they are less relevant than me.  If anything, I try to show them that no matter what they think of themselves, they are probably a better mom than I am.   Because we all know that I don’t have it together.  And it’s not because it’s so hard being a stay at home mom…it’s because I’m just not that organized.  Yeah, it’s tiring getting up with babies or toddlers in the night..or fixing three meals, or doing laundry.  But you know what?  LIFE IS TIRING. And you know what else?  I got to go out to lunch today where I was able to commiserate with a couple of my mom friends about kids, husbands, and life…and then I got to go home, where I could have taken a nap.  Because, dang, I’m a stay at home mom.  And it’s pretty awesome.

Let me say it again.  LIFE IS TIRING.  The fact that we gave birth doesn’t make our tiring any more relevant than anyone else’s.  SO WE NEED TO GET OVER OURSELVES.  We need to (sometimes) just be quiet and take our kids to Ballet or Violin or whatever activity they have next.  If you really want to make other moms feel better about their choices you can just tell them this.  You are a better mom than me.