Please

Dear Moms of the World,

I have a plea for all of you. Can we please stop with the "mommy wars"? Can we please stop judging each other for our differences? It's our differences in parenting that make all of our children so unique and wonderful.

Sincerely,

A Fed Up Mama

I've been pondering on this post for a long time. I've been trying to figure out how to write this without offending somebody, or everybody. And then I realized that doesn't matter. Someone will always be offended, somebody will always judge, and somebody will always be upset by my opinion. But the good news is that this is my blog. And I can say what I want. And if you don't like it, stop reading. Anyway, back to my post.

My first item of business is the whole breastfeeding thing. I know I've talked about this many times, but it's still nagging a bit. I've done a lot of reading about breastfeeding issues, what research says is best for babies, etc. One theme that is constant through all of this is that everyone thinks their way is the right way. I'm here to tell you that the "right" way is whatever works for you and produces a healthy, happy baby. I recently read a blog post from a woman who discussed her struggles with breastfeeding. Instead of uplifting comments, a lot of what I saw were things like, "Thanks so much for perpetuating the myth that breastfeeding is hard." A) If it actually is hard for someone, that means it's not a myth. B) Whatever happened to the lesson we learned as children, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Secondly is the whole working mom thing. I know I've talked about this before, too, but it really strikes a nerve with me. I have nothing against stay at home moms. In fact, I admire them for their ability to do this incredibly challenging thing. However, Curious George and I have made the choice for me to work to keep us out of debt. And really, I'm a better mom because I go to work. I don't have the patience or the serenity to stay at home with the Sharkbaby all the time. I would be grumpy, short-tempered, and it would probably make my boys not want to be around me at all.

The third thing I'd like to discuss is the flat out judgement. Why do we insist on comparing our children to each other? Why would we try and bring another mom down just because our baby hit a milestone before her's? Raising children is hard enough without worrying about how they compare to everyone else's child. Does it really affect our lives if a family chooses to co-sleep, cry-it-out, swaddle, breastfeed, bottle feed, discipline, let their children watch tv, or whatever? Not really.

So, I vote that we put a cease and desist order on the Mommy Wars. Let us come together in this crazy, difficult, trying, wonderful, heartbreaking, heartwarming experience called Motherhood. Let's not worry so much about comparing and contrasting our children as we do about raising a generation of kind, tolerant, and non-judgmental children.

As the primary song says, "Jesus said love everyone." Our job as mothers is the nurturing and righteous education of our children. How can we expect our children to learn tolerance and meaningful relationships unless we first put it these things into practice in our own lives?