This is Why All American Mothers Are Crazy

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From Simcha Fisher at Aleteia:
Teigen dealt with the criticism with humor and grace. I didn’t do as well when I had just given birth and decided to get back to work after a short time, because I could do it sitting down, and because we needed the money. As soon as I said something people didn’t like, I got a rousing chorus of “YOU’RE A BAD MOTHER TO BE WORKING.” Not that they wanted to help pay my mortgage, or anything. Not that they had anything good to say about WIC, or mandatory maternity leave laws. It was enough that I was a woman who had publicly admitted to giving birth. Suddenly, any misstep I made could be magnified by a thousand because [fill in the blank] isn’t supposed to be how mothers act.
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How about we let the lady eat? Or at least stop using motherhood as another stick to beat women over the head with. And yes, I’m speaking to women at least as much as I am to men.
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:clapping:
 
Good article. My only complaint is that it was so good I was disappointed when I finished reading it. I do love a good Mommy Wars rant.

Our society is skitzophrenic. On the one hand, it demands the right of a woman to end the life of her own child at any point up until birth. One the other hand, women who undertake pregnancy and maternity are continually castigated for doing motherhood wrong. People are celebrating abortions and beating mothers with ever-changing standards which are impossible to fulfill.

And that model-wife of John Legend has the most beautiful pictures with her baby. 🙂
 
jmjZelie said:
Good article. My only complaint is that it was so good I was disappointed when I finished reading it. I do love a good Mommy Wars rant.

Our society is skitzophrenic. On the one hand, it demands the right of a woman to end the life of her own child at any point up until birth. One the other hand, women who undertake pregnancy and maternity are continually castigated for doing motherhood wrong. People are celebrating abortions and beating mothers with ever-changing standards which are impossible to fulfill.

And that model-wife of John Legend has the most beautiful pictures with her baby. 🙂
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Quite correct.

I have developed a theory that women are only permitted to have autonomy below the navel. You have a right to have as much sex as you want with womever you want, use any contraception you want and if that fails go ahead and have an abortion because that’s your “right”.

But if you don’t want to breastfeed, choose to go back to work early or at all, don’t baby wear, don’t use or do use cloth diapers, feed your kids goldfish crackers, eat certain foods while pregnant, or any other number of things done or determined by a body part above the navel- YOU ARE A BAD MOTHER!
 
PhiloMed said:
Quite correct.

I have developed a theory that women are only permitted to have autonomy below the navel. You have a right to have as much sex as you want with womever you want, use any contraception you want and if that fails go ahead and have an abortion because that’s your “right”.

But if you don’t want to breastfeed, choose to go back to work early or at all, don’t baby wear, don’t use or do use cloth diapers, feed your kids goldfish crackers, eat certain foods while pregnant, or any other number of things done or determined by a body part above the navel- YOU ARE A BAD MOTHER!
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Oh dear, don’t get me started on our sanctimonious pediatricians and breastfeeding - and I’m just a guy! 😛
 
PhiloMed said:
Quite correct.

I have developed a theory that women are only permitted to have autonomy below the navel. You have a right to have as much sex as you want with womever you want, use any contraception you want and if that fails go ahead and have an abortion because that’s your “right”.

But if you don’t want to breastfeed, choose to go back to work early or at all, don’t baby wear, don’t use or do use cloth diapers, feed your kids goldfish crackers, eat certain foods while pregnant, or any other number of things done or determined by a body part above the navel- YOU ARE A BAD MOTHER!
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And if you breastfeed, it has to be under incredibly specific conditions or you are a dirty perv who is ruining your child for life. :rolleyes:

(That’s what really gets me. Not only do you have to do these things, you have to do them a specific way, and any variation is bad bad bad. I had someone clutch their pearls at me once because I mentioned that I - horror - bleached the diapers. I guess I was supposed to let my baby get ammonia burns [or was that my fault for eating something other than wildflower seeds so my kid had too many toxins in his kidneys? I don’t remember. ;)])
 
pensmama87 said:
And if you breastfeed, it has to be under incredibly specific conditions or you are a dirty perv who is ruining your child for life. :rolleyes:

(That’s what really gets me. Not only do you have to do these things, you have to do them a specific way, and any variation is bad bad bad. I had someone clutch their pearls at me once because I mentioned that I - horror - bleached the diapers. I guess I was supposed to let my baby get ammonia burns [or was that my fault for eating something other than wildflower seeds so my kid had too many toxins in his kidneys? I don’t remember. ;)])
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You should’ve said that instead you’ll just use bleach in the wipe spray. 😝
 
I don’t have children, it was not part of God’s plan for me, but this conversation just adds one more reason to why I prefer male friends over female ones-

WOMEN ARE CRAZY!!! :bigyikes:

If you want a career and children- you’re selfish.

If you breast feed in public- you’re a bad mommy.

If you use formula- you’re a bad mommy.

If you don’t do exactly what I would do with my children- you’re a bad mommy.

Etc, etc, etc, ad nauseam…

Why do we do this to ourselves? Ladies, we have become our own worst enemies and it is terrible! :mad:
 
Oneofthewomen said:
I don’t have children, it was not part of God’s plan for me, but this conversation just adds one more reason to why I prefer male friends over female ones-

WOMEN ARE CRAZY!!! :bigyikes:

If you want a career and children- you’re selfish.

If you breast feed in public- you’re a bad mommy.

If you use formula- you’re a bad mommy.

If you don’t do exactly what I would do with my children- you’re a bad mommy.

Etc, etc, etc, ad nauseam…

Why do we do this to ourselves? Ladies, we have become our own worst enemies and it is terrible! :mad:
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True. And I’ve often felt it comes from a place of insecurity.

You need to do everything exactly the way I did because it validates my choices which I am very insecure about.
 
Does anyone who commiserates about the Mommy Wars actually engage in them though?

To be more specific, how many of us who loathe the Mommy Wars would actually have the gall to say those kinds of things about other mothers, or worse, TO other mothers?

(Waits for a show of hands…no one? That is what I thought.)

There are some crazy women out there, but I don’t think we should let them ruin our willingness to form female friendships and engage in conversations with other women face to face or online.

I have known a few crazy ideologues in my day, but once they show their true colors, I realize they are not friendship material and I keep my distance. But I have had more positive interactions with other women than negative ones. With all the pressure on women today to conform to outrageous and contradicting ideologies, I don’t want to add to our misery by just throwing in the towel on female friendships and associations.

I think it is a situation where a few rotten apples can spoil the barrel. BUT, if you can identify the bad apples and throw them out, you have a whole barrel full of goodness. 🙂

Real life example: I am a SAHM homeschooler, but most of my friends and acquaintances are working in at least some capacity. I breastfeed my babies, but I am the only woman in my family to do so and I enjoy giving a bottle to my nieces or nephews when the occasion arises. 🤷
 
jmjZelie said:
Does anyone who commiserates about the Mommy Wars actually engage in them though?

To be more specific, how many of us who loathe the Mommy Wars would actually have the gall to say those kinds of things about other mothers, or worse, TO other mothers?

(Waits for a show of hands…no one? That is what I thought.)

There are some crazy women out there, but I don’t think we should let them ruin our willingness to form female friendships and engage in conversations with other women face to face or online.

I have known a few crazy ideologues in my day, but once they show their true colors, I realize they are not friendship material and I keep my distance. But I have had more positive interactions with other women than negative ones. With all the pressure on women today to conform to outrageous and contradicting ideologies, I don’t want to add to our misery by just throwing in the towel on female friendships and associations.

I think it is a situation where a few rotten apples can spoil the barrel. BUT, if you can identify the bad apples and throw them out, you have a whole barrel full of goodness. 🙂

Real life example: I am a SAHM homeschooler, but most of my friends and acquaintances are working in at least some capacity. I breastfeed my babies, but I am the only woman in my family to do so and I enjoy giving a bottle to my nieces or nephews when the occasion arises. 🤷
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I think part of the problem is that there’s an especially big push to recruit new mothers to Team Crazy. As you go on in your maternal career, you’re less and less likely to fall for that, but early on, it’s easy to be persuaded by people who seem to know everything.
 
Xantippe said:
I think part of the problem is that there’s an especially big push to recruit new mothers to Team Crazy. As you go on in your maternal career, you’re less and less likely to fall for that, but early on, it’s easy to be persuaded by people who seem to know everything.
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As usual, Xantippe, a very wise observation.
 
I follow Simcha on FB and she’s hilarious. Saw that this morning. Made my day/ 😃
 
Xantippe said:
I think part of the problem is that there’s an especially big push to recruit new mothers to Team Crazy. As you go on in your maternal career, you’re less and less likely to fall for that, but early on, it’s easy to be persuaded by people who seem to know everything.
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Yes, especially if a style seems to work for you, it’s easy to think, “This is The Way to Properly Raise Children.” Then you have a kid it doesn’t work for, or one part doesn’t work for Kid 1 or 2, or you meet other parents in real life.

I still like “attachment parenting,” but I don’t put myself in that “camp” anymore. I find it as a general approach to be good for me and my kids, but I adjust as necessary. There was some use to the label as a new mom who literally knew nobody else with kids, but it was outgrown pretty quickly.

I think for some people, a parenting philosophy or political party or something else gets substituted in for religion. It can be really odd when it happens to people who are already religious - to say that certain practices are morally superior when they’re neutral, for instance. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t discuss pros or cons or how some decisions could fit into a moral framework, but, “X contemporary issue is the way God intended us to parent” is pretty silly. The big moral imperative is “Love your kids and raise them in the faith.”
 
pensmama87 said:
Yes, especially if a style seems to work for you, it’s easy to think, “This is The Way to Properly Raise Children.” Then you have a kid it doesn’t work for, or one part doesn’t work for Kid 1 or 2, or you meet other parents in real life.

I still like “attachment parenting,” but I don’t put myself in that “camp” anymore. I find it as a general approach to be good for me and my kids, but I adjust as necessary. There was some use to the label as a new mom who literally knew nobody else with kids, but it was outgrown pretty quickly.

I think for some people, a parenting philosophy or political party or something else gets substituted in for religion.** It can be really odd when it happens to people who are already religious - to say that certain practices are morally superior when they’re neutral, for instance. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t discuss pros or cons or how some decisions could fit into a moral framework, but, “X contemporary issue is the way God intended us to parent” is pretty silly. The big moral imperative is “Love your kids and raise them in the faith.” **
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And if you’re really “into” a particular religion and a parenting style or activity that doesn’t work for you gets portrayed as being mandatory by proponents of that religion, it can really, really mess mom up mentally and spiritually, especially if she’s a new mom. “Worldly” pressures, if you will, but with the additional eternal framework of “God wants you to do X (not actually required) thing, and if you don’t, it’ll be the reason you and your kids suffer for eternity.” Seriously not good stuff to feed to a tired, hormonal new mommy, believe me.
 
UbiCaritas said:
And if you’re really “into” a particular religion and a parenting style or activity that doesn’t work for you gets portrayed as being mandatory by proponents of that religion, it can really, really mess mom up mentally and spiritually, especially if she’s a new mom. “Worldly” pressures, if you will, but with the additional eternal framework of “God wants you to do X (not actually required) thing, and if you don’t, it’ll be the reason you and your kids suffer for eternity.” Seriously not good stuff to feed to a tired, hormonal new mommy, believe me.
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Absolutely. :hug1:

I did not have PPD after DS3 (the first time I didn’t), and I am pretty sure a big part of it was because I was able to look at the situation and go, “Yeah, I’m just not going to be able to do that,” and that was it. Oh, and being willing to ask DH to take over stuff. Some corners of the Internet would also say that it was horribly wrong for DH to do “woman’s work,” but whatever. It made our adjustment to a family of five go much more smoothly and made him seem a lot sexier to me. 😉

(Speaking of which, another good Simcha piece: In which I feel sorry for Donald Trump, bad father
 
My youngest is 7. I’m not sure how that happened but he’s seven. I really don’t remember much about the first few weeks of my children’s lives clearly. I do remember getting a haircut when my daughter was a newborn, and I left her with my mom. I think I went to Mass most Sunday’s without her until she was 6-7 weeks old.

I read about Christie Tiegen going out to dinner I believe yesterday.

Years ago when you wanted to know about your favorite star, you needed to wait until People or Tiger Beat (If you were a teen) came out with an issue.

Now celebrities are covered 24/7 and any thing they do is newsworthy. So she went to dinner?

I don’t really envy any celebrities.

On a side note, I do think there are I Love Lucy episodes where she is smoking during pregnancy, or everyone is smoking around her.

And Lucy went to Europe for a whole season leaving Little Ricky with her scatter brained mother, who didn’t even know Big Ricky’s name.
 
pensmama87 said:
Absolutely. :hug1:

I did not have PPD after DS3 (the first time I didn’t), and I am pretty sure a big part of it was because I was able to look at the situation and go, “Yeah, I’m just not going to be able to do that,” and that was it. Oh, and being willing to ask DH to take over stuff. Some corners of the Internet would also say that it was horribly wrong for DH to do “woman’s work,” but whatever. It made our adjustment to a family of five go much more smoothly and made him seem a lot sexier to me. 😉
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Awwwww!
 
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