Posts Tagged ‘Competition’

By Shell

You never know how it feels to walk in another mom’s shoes… until you have been there.

I remember talking to two moms I had just met at the park. They were worried about their sons’ language acquisition. All of us had sons under 3, with mine the youngest at 2.5.

They were talking about counting the words that their boys knew and all they did to encourage them to talk.

I stood silently, nodding occasionally, trying to understand.

My son came running up at that point and said, “Mommy, I don’t want to play at this park with these friends. I want to play at the orange park with Christopher and Zachary. Can we go now? Please?”

The two moms looked at him, looked at me, and one of them asked, “HOW old is he again?”

After I told them, there was a silence and then one of the moms made an excuse to get away and the other quickly followed.  They did check on their kids for a minute and then sat down on a bench together, far from me.

And, I remember thinking how rude they were.  I even gossiped about it with some of my friends, telling them how awful it was, how terrible those moms were.

But, then, as my middle son grew, and struggled with numerous developmental delays, I suddenly got it. Because I became very defensive about him. He’s the sweetest little boy, but I worried that moms of children around his age would notice the differences and judge.

That maybe they would comment on it or gossip about it when we weren’t around.

And, I couldn’t stand the thought of that.

Even though, on that day at the playground, I wasn’t judging those boys whose moms carried lists of the words they could say, I now understand how it might have felt to them like I was.

No, I didn’t judge the boys….but, I did judge the moms.

And, I’m sorry for that.

I get it now.

Are you ever guilty of judging other moms…
Even when you aren’t trying to?

Shell is a former teacher turned stay-at-home mom of three boys. Sometimes, she has to bite her tongue irl. But, at Things I Can’t Say, she spills it all on her blog, giving you the straight story on motherhood, marriage, and life in general.

By Honey B.

Remember in school when you were talked about if you wore the wrong clothes? Like wearing something from the year before, or still following a fad that had totally died out.

Then there was what you had for lunch. The cool kids had Lunchables, I usually had homemade. Soo lame. (My mom always made my PB&J on what my dad and I termed floor-sweepings bread. It was homemade, with about as many grains as you could include without the bread disintegrating into a pile of, well, floor sweepings.)

I was SO glad when I finished school, and left the snobbery behind me.

Or so I thought.

Grocery shopping with Marmot this past weekend, nothing out of the ordinary. We try to eat ‘clean’ and spend the majority of our time in the Health Food section of our local grocery store- its like a mini-grocery store, complete with freezer, produce, and refrigerated sections.

This trip was just a little different; I had stocked up on various Weight Watchers items as I tried to get back into the WW thing. So yes, there was a lot of processed food in my cart. But I’m in the health food section, and I was reaching for a package of Weight Watchers cheese (although why it’s in the Health Food section is beyond me, since its 99% chemicals anyway). There was a woman next to me browsing the yogurt… that’s when I think I found the grown-up version of “lunch judgment”. She sees me reach for the Weight Watchers cheese and– I kid you not– looks at my choice and gives me a snort and a straight-up lip curl.

I may or may not have muttered something about body odor being nice ambiance for an organic dinner on my way back to Marmot and the cart. Apparently no matter how grown-up we are, the school lunchroom really isn’t as far in the past as we like to think.

Honey posts regularly at the Honey B. Blog, keeping you apprised of Baby Bucket List progress and the life of a wanna-be mommy!

 By Shell

Have you noticed how, instead of being supportive of one another, some women act like they are in constant competition to be nominated woman/mom/wife of the year?

Everything you have done, they have done bigger and better.

Their kids are better than your kids.

Their house, car, husband, diet, blah, blah, blah.

And they will never, ever admit that everything in their life isn’t completely perfect. Looking down their noses at those of us who admit to having a not perfect life. There’s a word for them. 

Come on… Say it with me.

Wait a minute…I can’t talk like that on this blog. You’ll have to come visit my blog if you are not in the know.

My boys are adorable, clever, and sweet… but not perfect. Because I did give birth to baby humans, you know. So, when I hear moms bragging about their perfect children, I admit– I roll my eyes. Not that you have to lay it all out there and confess everything to everyone you know.

But, it’s part of what makes us real: our struggles. And to pretend like they aren’t happening and to keep telling everyone that everything is completely perfect….

Well, it just doesn’t sit well with me.

Try this: admit to a struggle that you are having. Whether it’s that you have a laundry mountain big enough to hide several children in or you can’t remember the last time you had enough time to wash your hair and shave your legs on the same day or that you have no idea how to take the pacifier away from your preschool child. Just admit it.

You’ll be surprised at how many “ME, TOO” responses you will get.

Here, I’ll go first:

My name is Shell and my boys ate chocolate chip cookies for breakfast this morning while I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth. I couldn’t button my favorite jeans yesterday, so it’s probably a good thing the boys ate the cookies. Oh yes, and that laundry mountain I was talking about? It’s in my laundry room.

 YOUR TURN.

 

Shell is a former teacher turned stay-at-home mom of three boys. Sometimes, she has to bite her tongue irl. But, at Things I Can’t Say, she spills it all on her blog, giving you the straight story on motherhood, marriage, and life in general.