J is for Judging Judgers of Judginess…

The first rule of mommy fight club is don’t talk about mommy fight club.

I mean, what mommy fight club? We’re in the sisterhood of motherhood, we’re supportive, rah rah rah!

But did you hear about the mom who put vodka in her baby’s formula, mistaking it for water?

Or did you hear about the mom who left her child in a park while she went to work?

Did you hear about the mom who dressed her son in a princess dress?

Did you hear about the mom who dressed her daughter in high heels?

Did you hear about the mom who stopped breastfeeding when she went back to work? Or who never even breastfed? Or who fed her child fast food? Or didn’t read to her child? Or let her child stay up till midnight? What about the mom who dared to let her child stand in ankle deep water surrounded by her husband and other families at a theme park?

Did you?

Yes of course you did. We all did.

No matter how supportive we want to be, it is there. It can be subtle or it can be slap you in the face overt. BUT WE ALL DO IT. WE ALL JUDGE ALL THE TIME. We are judgey. In matters of life and death as well as in matters of miniscule importance.

Here is my thing: we can’t help it completely but we can help it a little bit at a time.

We can all be a little kinder. We can all be a little more forgiving.

Just today I lied to my son about his shoes—I knew where they were, but I didn’t want him to wear that particular pair. I ran away when he cried at daycare so I could get to work on time. I fed him sugary juice. I didn’t have time to make him breakfast so I shoved a half-toasted Eggo in his little face. I accidentally left one part of his car seat unbuckled on the half mile drive to his daycare and I was horrified. When I started to unbuckle his car seat I saw that he wasn’t all the way buckled and I saw the headlines in my mind:

“Negligent mother to blame for her child’s accident”

“This all could have been prevented if this mother had just paid attention…”

“What’s the worst thing a mother could do? Click here to read about this mother’s mistake!”

Every time I read about one of those horrible domestic accidents I think—that’s so horrible, I BETTER NEVER DO THAT LIKE THAT MOM DID. BETTER NOT MAKE THAT MISTAKE. BETTER BE BETTER.

The current tally of mistakes I better not make—just as a mom—is approaching infinity (plus one). The limit does not exist. Before I can get to my more noble goal of raising my son into a good global citizen I have to conquer my very primal need to keep him alive.

At Target (let’s just get that out of the way, I’m at Target always) I saw a mom struggling. Her one kid was howling bad and her other kid was antsy and needed holding and she was trying to navigate through the narrow aisles and people were sighing around her and exasperated with the howls and her being in the way and I could see in her eyes this pleading, desperate, let me just get through this feeling. I wanted to let her know that I wasn’t judging. So I did.

And at least this one time, I really wasn’t.

#motherhood #forgiveness #selfcare