Why are mothers so judgmental, are you one?
Unfortunately, just about everyone passes judgment on mums. The elderly criticize that mothers are not tough enough these days. People without kids say they will never allow what that mother is allowing. Even men comment on mothers. With mums knowing they are constantly judged no matter what they do, it would seem they would band together and support one another. Ironically, this is not the case. Mums are the worst critics of each other. They are harder on one another than anyone else. Why can’t moms just support each other?
Identity
Many women feel that their identity is equal to their mothering abilities. Of course, women are wives, employees, friends, daughters, etc., but the most important role for many women is the role of mother. This means that the mother role is taken very seriously, maybe too seriously. Of course everyone should take their role as mother seriously, but not the point of a holier than thou attitude. The holier than thou attitude is exactly what happens though.
Women take their role so seriously that they think they are doing the best job possible. Anyone who does something different than them is not taking their role seriously enough, or so some think. “You aren’t breastfeeding? Well you must not care enough about your baby if you don’t feed them nature’s best!” Forget the fact that babies turn out perfectly fine on formula. Ask a breastfeeding mum about formula and you would think it was poison. What about the formula mums? They aren’t innocent either. “Look at her breastfeeding in public! What a disgrace!” The only thing that is a disgrace is that women can’t agree to disagree and instead judge.
Lack of confidence
Some women just do not have very much confidence in their mothering decisions. Their judgment comes through to defend their decisions because of this lack of confidence. A woman might decide to stay home with her kids but sometimes wonders if maybe she should have went back to work.
Instead of just admitting that she might like to work too, she has to put down working mothers to feel better about her decision. The same is true of working mothers. Instead of admitting that a part of them wants to stay at home, they just judge those that do not work. It’s every mum’s way of making themselves feel better; by putting others down. This is unfortunate because if mums would just come clean that they are not completely confident, all mums could bond and build each other up.
Click here on how to build up confidence in your kid.
They know best
Everyone knows that mother knows best. This is fine except that every mother feels that they know best, which means that others do not. A woman, who feels that she does mothering the best, automatically takes the stand that if anyone does anything different, it is not the best. This means that when a woman decides a certain method such as the “cry it out” method, anyone who disagrees does not know best. For whatever reason, mothers cannot seem to agree to disagree.
Click here for an article on what NEVER to force your kids to do.
Competition
Lastly, there is the issue of competition. Any logical person can see that there is no reason to try and compete. After all, there is no real mother of the year award…not one that anyone takes seriously anyway. For whatever reason, women feel the need to compete to be the best mom. Never mind the fact that there is no right way to parent. Instead there are multiple “right” ways to do things.
When kids are grown, no one is probably going to be able to tell from looking at them if they were breastfed, raised by a working mom or raised by the cry-it-out method. No one will be able to tell any of these things. If you asked a mom about co-sleeping, she would tell you that her way is the only way it should be done. The truth is that it doesn’t matter.
Again, there is no mother of the year award. Our kids will all turn out just fine whether we bottle feed, choose to extend breastfeeding, feed vegetables or fruits first, or co-sleep with our babies. They will all be fine. The competition and judging are just energy wasted. There is no need for putting other mothers down or comparing. We need to support each other. At the end of the day, if we still can’t see each other’s views, we just need to agree to disagree! We are judged enough by everyone else. Let’s not judge each other.
Click here to read an entertaining article about 10 mothers you are likely to find on Facebook
