You're a Terrible Mother

Dang, this comment was posted on dooce today:

1. DeathByChildren said at 12:25PM, 02.28.2007:

   I regret not running away from home. My parents were great but they should have fled the rural south like it was on fire and raised their kids in a city where they could learn algebra, the full gamut of Archemedian solids, and possibly take advantage of a halfway decent IB program.

   I also regret having children. I mean, they're cute and really come in handy when I need the trash taken out or I make too much soup but honestly, if they had any idea where I could've been by now if it weren't for them, they'd move to an orphanage pronto.

   I was going to backpack across Europe then write a multi-million dollar script about the life of Buckminster Fuller becoming a secret Bolivian spy.

   But no. First of all, because of my rural education, I couldn't find Bolivia even though I looked on every page of my USA travel atlas. Secondly, those frikkin' kids take up all my time. First diapers, now Magnet school applications. Like all day.

Now that is an awesome mother.  Someday, your children may also regret not running away from home.

Maybe I should say first that I don't know for sure this comment is serious; it could just be a lark.  I can also add, though, that I have seen other comments like this from time to time, although most of them sounded less crazy.

Dooce has commented repeatedly about how judgmental other mothers are.  I agree.  Other mothers are the absolute worst.  I don't know that she has discussed that it's all about feeling superior.  Motherhood is a trying job in many ways.  It's tiring.  It is not always as rewarding as you would want it to be.  Almost no one, especially your children, will come up to you, shake your hand, and thank you for doing such a good job.  There are no awards and no banquets, except in your own sleep-deprived mind ("And now, the award for keeping the baby free of diaper rash goes to...GinBaby...Woo-hoo!").  The job of motherhood, always difficult, has become increasingly fucking fraught these days.  You don't put your baby in the best daycare and preschool?  You don't have "educational" video games?  You don't watch the Baby Einstein?  He doesn't drink organic juice enriched with every known nutrient?  Christ!  What kind of mother are you?

It is this feeling on the part of mothers that they can't win in this thankless job that makes them feel this need to be sooooo superior to other mothers.  I hate it.  I don't really join in this particular rat race, and I don't care a lot about what others think of me and my mothering skillz, so I pretty much just ignore it. 

But I will admit to being a judgmental mother.

Now, I am not the sort of mother who will snark at other moms for their kids still being in diapers or sleeping in a crib or sucking their thumbs or throwing tantrums or anything else.  I generally assume that a mom knows her kids best and is deciding to put off potty training (or whatever) until a date appropriate for that child.  I am willing to give a mother the benefit of the doubt if her kid is spotted in chilly weather without a hat (I know I just got a mini-lecture today because my kid wasn't wearing gloves.  It was cold out, but do you see that he can walk and talk?  Does this make you think perhaps he is old enough to pull off his own fucking gloves if I put them on when he doesn't want them on?  Am I seriously supposed to put them back on every time he rips them off?  Do you realize that we would then be unable to ever leave the house?  Do you?  Bitch.)  Generally I don't think these things matter much anyway.

What matters is that you treat your kids with some respect.  It means you don't blame your kids for your own problems, DeathByChildren.  It means you take time to listen to your kids and know them as people--not as who you want them to be, not as monuments to the person you would actually like to be yourself.  It means you put aside some of your own goals--not all of them, no, and certainly not forever--for the time being because you make room for their dreams and goals (like you ideally would for a spouse).

Someone (please tell me it wasn't Oprah--no, I'm sure someone else said this) said, "You can have it all, just not now."  This is the essence of being an adult.  There are diapers to change, but that time ends, and really, how often do you change your kids so that it takes up the whole day?  I change my kid's regularly, and it still doesn't take up the whole day (although, yes, some days it feels like it).  There are shot records to keep track of and bills to pay and school forms to fill out and send back and a whole host of other things.  That's not just parenting, though--it's responsibility and adulthood.  Sure, you could shirk it all, run off to Bolivia (if you could find, you ignorant ass), and then...well...and then what?  What would it really get you?  Anything significant?  Would whatever you did, alone, there be as significant as bringing a person into the world and helping that person become a full, happy, independent, and good person, a smart person, a person who can and does chase his or her own dreams?  It may not always be immediately rewarding, but it is significant. 

And can you not go to Bolivia later in life?--hell, take the kids and let them enjoy it, too.  I plan to.  My husband and I are planning to pull our kids out of high school for a year to go on one of those around-the-world trips you can get.  We plan to pay for this primarily by working for our room and board in all the stops.  Grape-picking in France?  No reason you can't do that when you're in your 40s and the kids are in high school.  Teaching English in Japan?  Yep.  A commune in Laos?  Sure.  We don't make a lot of money, but it's doable if you want it.  If you're too broke for even that, though, forget Bolivia and explore closer to home.  You don't actually need an exotic locale to have an adventure, if you have any imagination and moxie.

Kids don't stop your life.  You stop your life.  Show a little compassion and respect for your children; they are not the problem.

So, yes, I am a mother, and I will fucking judge you.  You are the problem.  Grow up.  Take some responsibility.  Show your kids by example what it means to have dreams and to live them and to be a fully realized person.  It ain't rocket science, as they say.