Mommy Wars.  I get chills whenever I hear or read that phrase.  It’s an ugly and sometimes unfair thing that seems to be going on in the world and on the internet these days.  Mothers are fighting each other over parenting styles and parenting decisions.  People are taking it upon themselves the be shamelessly judgemental of parenting decisions and then making light of it on a very public platform. 

The arguments blanket pretty much the whole experience of parenting.  From the moment a woman discovers she is pregnant, she can be judged for making certain decisions.  I’m not talking about the blaringly obvious decisions like smoking crack and binge drinking every day, I’m talking about what she chooses to eat, how she chooses to spend her days, the environment in which she lives, and a number of other teeny tiny details.  While a great number of people choose to simply keep their noses in their own business, others feel it is their duty to let those pregnant women know (and sometimes in a very NOT NICE way) that their decisions are bad and are possibly harmful to her child. 

Now, when the child is born we get into the particularly nasty battles of these wars.  To breast feed or not?  Should the child sleep in your bed or in their own bed?  Should their bed be in your room or their own room?  If you have a son, do you circumsise him or not?  Should you “wear” your child or encourage more independence?  Do you put your child in daycare or do you stay home with them?  Do you dare feed your children something other than organic food?  Do you stick with an only child or do you have more than one? 

I’ve been touched a little bit by a few of these topics.  I’ll break it down:

-I chose to NOT breastfeed my son.  This was after much research online and a lot of thinking on my part.  It was not a decision I just came to for the hell of it.  I researched the hell out of it.  I made sure he got the colostrum ( I pumped it), but my son was raised on formula.  Not only that, but a generic brand of formula!  Now while some of you are not getting why I am building up like this, let me explain to you that there are some out there who would be foaming at the mouth at the thought of my making the rational decision to NOT breastfeed my son.  These people would literally be furious and question my parenting as a whole for that one decision.  These are people who would get in my face an scream at me for my decision.  These are people who would attack my character for my decision.  Never once on this blog or in life have I EVER questioned a woman’s decision to breastfeed or to bottle feed.  It’s a personal matter in my eyes and is nobody’s business.  As long as the decision you made for your child was an informed decision and your child thrives under that decision, then it was the RIGHT decision.

-I let Lukas sleep in my bed with me until he was two weeks shy of being two months old.  Then I unceremoniously put him in his crib in his own bedroom and have never looked back.  Again, there are people who would form a bad opinion of me as a woman and parent because of that decision.  Again, this is a deeply personal matter that I find to be nobody’s business.  Unless your child is 13 and still sleeping in your bed, God bless and enjoy your pillow fights.  Really.  If that’s what is best for your family, the parents know best.

-My son IS circumsised.  It wasn’t a decision made for religious purposes, but it also wasn’t something that we chose to do just because we thought that’s what should happen.  Again, I read up on it and found information that made me, his mother, feel that circumsision was the right choice for my son.  I admit, this was once a topic that was touchy to me before I had to make the decision myself.  However, I now understand why someone might not want to do that to their new baby boy.  I get it.  But my decision to circumsise my son was nothing like me condoning genital mutilation on my child.

-I couldn’t “wear” Lukas because he was too big.  Honestly, I fail to see the issue with this one.  If you choose to have your baby close to you go for it.  If you choose not to, that’s equally cool.  I don’t get it.

-I am a stay-at-home parent.  My son has never been a day without me, not even to stay over at someone’s house.  I’m proud of that.  But I didn’t have a serious career before my son was born and I was in the serendipitous situation where I didn’t NEED to work.  I am nothing but supportive of women who choose to have careers and family.  I am not at all judgemental of a woman who has a child and that child is in daycare during the day.  I don’t feel that the child will grow up disconnected from it’s parents because of the daycare.  If anything, that child will be very socialized.  But there are people who take issue with this.  Some people feel that I am wasting my choices given to me by the feminst movement by staying at home while others feel that by letting a daycare “raise children” parents are doing an injustice to their children.  It’s messy and ugly, but I don’t see any problem.

-Organic food only?  I give him SOME organic things.  But seriously, my budget doesn’t allow for ALL organic.  I don’t feel bad about it.  He eats fruits and vegetables and fresh fruit.  He has a great diet for a short-fused toddler.

-The debate about only children is perhaps the one that bothers me the most.  That one is certainly NOT the business of society.  If I choose to have only one child then goddammit I have every right to make that decision.  If I choose to have another, again, goddammit, that’s MY decision to make.  After that last pregancy from hell, I am pretty much 85% sure Lukas will be an only child. I have had people try to tell me that he will grow up to be weird and spoiled and unsocialized.  I have had people tell me that I will be denying him precious memories and life experiences by not providing him with a sibling.  I guess it bothers me because I am so close to my brother.  I can’t imagine not having my brother and I wouldn’t want to.  These people make me question myself.  They make me rethink a perfectly well thought out decision.  They make me try to bully myself into getting over that first experience and just do it.  Just have another and get it over with. 

Really, for me, the worst part about the “Mommy Wars” is what it really means to be a woman in this day and age.  When it’s another woman….another MOTHER attacking you so venomously over a parenting decision, is it fair to say that it’s men who are holding us back?  Women should know by now the unity is key.  Mothers especially need so much support from other mothers.  As a blogger, I shouldn’t be afraid to announce that I DID NOT BREASTFEED MY CHILD for fear that someone (a woman) will belittle me for that decision.  In this age of knowledge and the encouragement for education, why is it that sympathy and understanding are still not universal?

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