Judgment is not the best form of flattery

(Here’s some salt.  Take a grain of it while you read.)

I hate the game.  You know the game.  The Mommy Game we all play where one Mommy is a Good Mommy and the other a Bad Mommy. Good Mommies have only wooden toys handmade in the mountains of Appalachia and purchased at the independent toy shop down the street.  Bad Mommies buy their mostly plastic, battery powered toys at the local Mega Store.  Good Mommies serve only organic, locally-grown, hormone-free, pesticide-free, cage-free, free-range, grass-fed foods to their whole families while Bad Mommies do their best but don’t get worked up if the local market is out of organic milk.  Good Mommies have all their preschool applications completed months before they’re due. Bad Mommies didn’t know they were a month behind. Good Mommies sign their kids up for a wide-range of classes so their kids can find their “passion”.  Bad Mommies miss the sign-up deadline and just say “we’ll try for next session”.  Good Mommies stay home and raise their children.  Bad Mommies go to work and hire someone else to take care of their kids. (Here is where you need that grain of salt.)

It’s a terrible game to play, the Mommy Game.  No one wins.  The self-declared Good Mommies sit smugly atop their gilded thrones while the Bad Mommies have no idea they’re being judged from above.  At what point does the Game end?  When do the Good Mommies and the Bad Mommies start to play nicely together?  How do we move past the judgments?  Aren’t we all just trying to do the best we can with what we have?  

Everyday as a parent, as a Mommy, is a struggle.  So why do we always make that individual struggle into a group competition with no clear winner?  I’m ready to step up and say “You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and let’s just throw the kids in the sandbox together”.  There is no need to “one up” each other when what we really need is to support one another in all of our incarnations.  We’re all Good Mommies, at least in the eyes of our children.