Entitlement

When did being a mom become the end-all-be-all of life?

I've talked to my mom and my grandmother at length about this. I have trouble understanding why motherhood has been put waaaaaaaaaaay up on a pedestal. The more and more moms I meet the more and more I don't like the majority of them. Not because they're moms, but I don't like them personally. I think they're elitists, constantly trying to one up each other on who is fulfilling the ideal role of mom the best.

According to my mom and grandmother, mom-dom used to be, you have a child, you raise it and that's that. Both of them blame the media and TV for the over-hyped notion of being a mother. As moms, they didn't compete with other moms, and they didn't try to outdo one another in every single category. They were just women who happened to also be raising kids. They would share advice here and there but ultimately, everyone just did their job and that's that.

Where did it come from? I blame Gerber, Johnson & Johnson, Babies R Us and Le Leche League. Gerber and Johnson & Johnson have made it a marketing goal for women to "do only what's best" for their babies. "Because I only want the BEST for my baby. Other women do X but I do what's BEST."

Babies R Us can send mothers into a frenzy thinking that if they do not buy this one specific item, their baby might die. If you don't buy a microwave steam sterilizer, you might as well throw the baby off a cliff.

Le Leche League has turned thousands of women into lactating martyrs. My mom said that back in the day, if breast feeding wasn't working out so well, you just gave your baby formula and didn't feel the slight bit guilty about it. No one looked down on you, no one critisized you, it was just the choice you made.

I breast fed my twins for three and a half weeks. Had it not been for Le Leche League, I would have only breast fed them 1 week. Instead, I endured two and a half weeks of shear agony and pain from mastitis and thrush, coupled with endless nights and screaming babies. Each feeding session I broke down into tears and prayed for it all to just end. But on my side table, there sat the damn Le Leche League nursing guide. Where it told me I was an inferior mother if I didn't stick with it. Nurse through the pain, pump to make a ridiculous supply for the both of them, and damn it, don't be a quitter.

For those of you without kids you may thing "Blessed Wife and Mommy L" is simply one crazy mom. Nope. There are many of them like that out there. Martyrs.

She talked about how she had NEVER left her children with a daycare or a babysitter. Seems like a strange thing to be proud of to me. Yet I've met more and more women who brag about this fact. "Well, I've never spent a night away from my kids and they're almost in high school." That's fine if that's their choice, but it's a strange thing to be proud of. Because by inference they are saying that women who take a night off, go on a date with their husband or even a vacation are less of a mother than them.

If women do not feel comfortable leaving their children, that is all well and fine. No one's going to put you down. However, when these women put mom's who want more in life down, it really irks my hide, because it further perpetuates the notion that leaving your baby=evil.

The women's liberation movement was a glorious thing, but it also has its negative effects. Women feel empowered and want due credit for anything they do. Rightfully so, but when it comes at the expense of tearing each other apart, what's the point?

I'm the world's greatest mom to my kids but the world's shittest mom to some outsiders. My kids eat peanut butter, we don't buy all organic, I send them to Mother's Day Out so I can have some alone time, I let them run around at the park while I sit on a bench and on occasion I leave their cute little butts at home while I go out with my hubby or have some fun myself.

I suppose it's all about perspective, but from my perspective, the martyrs seem to be pretty damn miserable.