mommy wars

Warning...Extremely Long Rant...Apologies In Advance! 

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To this day I am still baffled why mommies must sling mud at each other…what is the point of all this bickering. What works for me is probably very different than what works for you and even more its different than what works for someone else. Knock it off already – we are all strong…regardless of our decisions, regardless of what we spend 8-10 hours a day doing, regardless of the issue or struggle…we all find a way to come through it…We need to support each other in our daily struggles, not hold each other down…that is the true message behind the mommy movement! Make the choice that is best for your child, your family and ultimately you!! We are our hardest critics…our biggest naysayers…our loudest adversaries – which only makes it easier for others to swoop in and get a few proverbial kicks in while we are down…if we as mommies don’t stand together – regardless of how different our choices – then how are we ever going to stand up to those around us.

I personally went back to work after four weeks…not because it was easy, but because I was ready and it was what I wanted. And I worked for much of my maternity leave…because that is just who I am…not because I didn’t care about my daughter (for those of you that know me…you know that she is the most important thing in my world) or because I was not trying to build a bond with her or because she didn’t keep me busy…but because a big part of me is my career and my success…so the sacrifices that I made were paid in sleep or a clean house or folded laundry. When my four weeks of Mat Leave were done…I was clawing down the door to get back to work…to have adult interaction in which I was able to feel whole, stimulated, motivated and appreciated. I love my daughter more than life itself, but I simply can’t look in the mirror every morning and feel 100% myself if I am not putting my degree and skill to good use.

I have so much respect for women that are able to do that though…I have a friend that is an amazing mother. She has two little girls, one is almost 4 and the other is almost 1. I know the sacrifices that she has made to stay home with her girls…and I commend her for her willingness to put her girls above all else. At times I am a little envious of her – of the fact that there is no one who experiences milestones with her daughters but her…and that she will never have a sitter tell her things her daughter accomplished that day that she missed out on. She knows exactly what her daughters do every minute of every day…and she doesn’t deal with the daily guilt that comes with the outstretched arms as you walk out the door to go to work…

But as in life…there is no such thing as having it all…what is that saying – you can’t have your cake and eat it too…

I work because it fulfills a part of me that I can’t find any other (legal) way to fill. I work because I spent four years in college and have substantial student loans to show for it…that bill is slightly easier to swallow and pay every month when I know that at least I am bringing home the “bacon” and putting my degree to good use. I work because I want my daughter to have nice things…I want her to be the girl that goes on the exciting family vacations every year, and lives in a big house and has too many clothes and drives a new car (although this is a matter of contention between me and my husband…but because I see their daily interactions as he gets wrapped tighter and tighter around her tiny little finger, I am not sure how much of a fight he will put up when she bats her eyes and looks up at him as she explains just how much she NEEDS a new car, daddy!)And ultimately I work because I am bound and determined to show my daughter that you don’t need a man to take care of you…that as a strong, successful, confident woman you get to choose love and companionship…but you don’t need it to survive. That I choose to be with my husband, her father, because I love him and he is my best friend and better half…not because I need him to support me.

I have to put a disclaimer in this paragraph that I am the product of a single mother…who fought, clawed and sacrificed so that I could have the nice clothes, the car, the parties, the good schools and the college education…so I may be slightly jaded in why I don’t want to be dependent on my husband for anything other than love and support. So put your claws away and smooth down your cackles my fellow mommies…this is part of my screwed up, over compensating, never say never, don’t need a man, do it on my own, personal justification that helps make walking out of the house and away from those outstretched arms ever morning just a little easier.

At the end of the day…I trust that my mommy friends…and those mommies I don’t know or haven’t had the pleasure to meet make the choices they have made…because they had to…bases on what is best for their children, their families and themselves. Work or stay at home, breastfed or formula, co-sleeping or cry it out…whatever works for you – do it…and own it…and know that we as mommies support you because we understand, we have been there and we feel for you! Life is full of tough decisions – but the last thing we should have to deal with is the backlash of those choices from our fellow moms. Enough Already! In the end…aren’t we all trying to accomplish the same thing…raise healthy, well adjusted, wonderful children that are ready and willing to take on everything the world throws at them? Stop making it harder on each other and start finding ways to lend a hand where you can!