Alice's Mommy Blog

Lately I’ve read a lot of blogs, pintrest boards and facebook posts about “real” moms being the ones who can’t bake cookies for the bake sale so they buy them, can’t attend the field trips, feel guilty for going back to work, don’t nurse until 1 year, don’t have a clean house, etc… and frankly I’m getting sick and tired of all the bashing of ‘super’ moms. I am not a perfect mother by any means, but I would fall into this super mom category. My kids have never eaten at McDonalds (and won’t because of me – though yes for a party). They were nursed until 11 and 12 months when they showed me they were ready to stop. I cook their meals (and yes that includes organic baby food that I made when they were little). I exercised during pregnancy. I took all the vitamins and tracked my diet. I make sure they eat a healthy varied diet every week including all the food groups. Both were solely in cloth diapers. We limit their TV and rarely during meals is it allowed. I bake cookies, and bread, and make our ice cream from scratch. I even go so far as to sew them clothes, and have made them doll clothes and room decore from scratch. I am not a stay at home mom. I work a full work week, and am the only parent who does the daycare drop off and pick up because my husband buses across town. I also do all the shopping and pack lunches for him and I every day. I don’t sleep an average of 8 hours a night, but I still find time for myself (which is obvious since I ran my first marathon this year). I am a super mom and I wouldn’t have it any other way. THIS is MY choice, and THIS is what matters to ME!

But what I don’t do is judge the other moms who don’t chose to do this. You couldn’t nurse because your baby wouldn’t take? I hear you! I lost a chunk of my nipple from one of them and it didn’t really heal until they stopped nursing. Lovely eh? You don’t bake because you get home really late and it’s just not in the cards to make 100 cookies at 9pm? That makes TOTAL sense to me! You get take out because your kids are in 12 activities and you never have time? Well as long as you are giving them a varied diet that’s where they get the vitamins from (it’s just not McDonald’s everyday right?). In defense of super moms EVERYWHERE we are not all the crazy, judgy, bitches we are made out to be! And frankly, what kind of a message are you sending to your children when you judge other moms so harshly, especially if you have daughters.

There are lots of things I don’t do that I’m sure would make other types of moms freak. I didn’t baby wear my oldest (because she was having none of it). I never let my kids sleep in my bed (seriously 1 night in 3 years and 2 months of life for them is all the oldest has gotten, and only because she fell out of her bed and dad was away on business). I didn’t take them to all the fancy baby classes or teach them to sign. We only tried Lillian with gymnastics and she cried the whole class every week so they haven’t ever had another class, though we are thinking maybe trying swimming in 2013.

The point is, STOP JUDING US, especially because a lot of us don’t care that you didn’t chose to be the way we are! I get that other moms are busy and life gets in the way. Guess what? So does mine! But I set my priorities that way I do because that’s how I choose to. Do you know that I choose to bake my own bread because my maternal grandfather was a professional baker his whole life (and still is in his 80’s)? I remember the bread he made and being in the kitchen with him. I want my girls to have these memories. I sew because my late-maternal grandmother was a seamstress and I have her sewing supplies now passed on to me. When I use them I feel close to her. I even have a few skirts she made herself, and since vintage is in style and I’m her size I wear them with happy memories of her. Not to mention the environmental aspect of it. I use up bits of fabric that I have piling up on my basement table to make plays clothes or doll clothes for my kid rather than throwing them out.

Pintrest is a fabulous resource for super moms and if it intimidates you then don’t use it. I’ve heard people complain that it sets and unrealistic expectation. Well it’s not like facebook where you can’t avoid it. Get off pintrest if you feel it puts too much pressure on you. I don’t want to come off as being a bit full of myself, because I feel most moms want what’s best for their kids, but I do feel in some cases it’s a matter of priority. I put a craft for or with my kids above other things that may matter more to other moms. I lost sleep to be up and running before 6am to train for my marathon, but I can live on 6 hours of sleep and I know a lot of people who can not. I choose to do things at home with and for my kids, rather than enrolling them into a million activities outside of the house. This is my call and for our family that’s how it works.

And I know I am NOT alone! I read several super mom blogs about moms who do as much as I do and so much more! Some of these brave women even homeschool their kids. I have an English degree and I wouldn’t dare do that! That’s Carrie at This Mama Makes Stuff, Christine at One Large Plant Based Eating Family and Ashley at Under the Sycamore.

I think women put so much pressure on themselves to be perfect and masters of everything that we need to drop the high school clic attitude and just be accepting of who we are as people and as moms. I have friends who parent VERY different from me but I see in their kids that they are loved, happy and healthy and THAT is the ultimate judge of being a good mom. If your kids turn out fine, you did your job right, whether you worked, fed them packaged food and shipped them off to daycare, or whether you cooked all oragnic, made all their clothes, and home-schooled them until they hit university.

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