Wrong. After a blissful few years navigating office politics and marrying a great man, I got pregnant. And from the moment we breathed a word of the baby-to-be’s existence when she was still just a tiny dot inside of me, I was being branded — and apparently my choices would define my group of friends.
Would I be a breastfeeding, “natural mama?” (If so, it seemed, I’d be cool enough to hang out with my neighbors). Would we be co-sleeping or putting her in a crib? (People on either side of this one felt so strongly about their beliefs, I was shocked they could even stand in the same room together). It went on and on and on. I knew that everyone was mostly just excited that we were expecting, but I couldn’t ignore the feeling that everything I did was being watched.
Of course, as any modern mama knows, it only gets worse once they’re out. I’ve sadly lost friendships over the most irritating disagreements — like the woman who thinks I shouldn’t post photos of my daughter on social media. And after one heated debate with a former friend who is against vaccines, I cried when reading her post script the next morning about the poison I’m willing to have injected in my child. I stand firm in my own convictions, but I couldn’t believe these women I thought were my friends could be so mean and judgmental when it came to my own decisions as a mom.
It’s taken me a while to form new friendships with moms who get me, but the coolest part about every single one of them is how different we are from each other. I breastfed my daughter until she was 18-months-old though it was never really my plan to do so. One of my closest friends is all bottle, all the way, and proud of it. Some of them work and some don’t. Some of us are highly organized and others let the chaos swell around them while they make memories in the backyard. Whatever! Attachment, free range? I don’t care what you call yourself. You’re a mom and you’re nice? That’s pretty much all I need to know.
And yet, I see them lining up, grouping up, shutting others out. It happens at the baby yoga classes I had to stop going to because the stress of the cliques wasn’t worth the high fee to be there. It happens at birthday parties when two moms roll their eyes in a corner as a third mom is letting her child have more sugar than they think he should have. It happens at the playground when any one of these stupid mom-rules is ignored by another parent, or when one isn’t.
But you know what? All of these “camps” of motherhood are just so ridiculous. I’m over it. Can‘t we all just get along? Stop rolling our eyes, judging? I have news for the moms who think everyone can only be friends with their own “kind.” My mom friends and I don’t necessarily agree on everything and some of us don’t do anything similarly at all. But this doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends, hang out together, and listen to each other. At the end of the day, that’s all any of us really need anyway. I say put your parenting style aside and just say hello. Believe me, it would do us all some good.
More Mom Confessions:
- I Won’t Judge You for Yelling at Your Kids, Because I Do it, Too
- I Refuse to Apologize for Being ‘Attached’ to My Daughter
- A Letter to the Mom Who Cut Me Off in Traffic
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