Note: I am not a religious nut job and this isn't a post about Revelation or the fifth coming of Flying Spaghetti Monster. Now that we've cleared that up, that awful Time cover has brought the issue of judgement to the front of my mind. I'm not surprised that a judgemental piece about moms and/or women was printed in a major magazine, because that's unfortunately par for the course. Unfortunately, the judgment doesn't stay in the media, where it can be laughed at, but migrates into people's daily lives. Admittedly, I can be a pretty harsh critic of what I consider to be stupid and/or irresponsable behavior. I try to keep that out of people's parenting decisions as long as they don't harm the child in question or my child. By "harm" I don't mean Junior not getting into Harvard or a similar first world problem. I mean harm as in causing irreparible damage. It's the difference between someone letting their baby "cry it out" versus never vaccinating their child. The former isn't a decision that we made, but is perfectly reasonable. The latter, however, is criminally stupid and endangers other children.
Oftentimes, these relatively benign choices are judged by other moms, who are the very people that probably shouldn't be doing so. When people are in what they assume are a group of like-minded individuals, there are often things said about those "other people" that are pretty nasty. Sometimes I'm one of those "other people" and it's not a comfortable place to be. Sometimes I'm not, but still find it a warning sign when another mom, who seems really nice, starts going off on people that do X. If X is putting them in a sensory deprivation tank, then ok, but it's often something like playing with water pistols (which are awesome). It's almost like we're all back in high school and are using cattiness as a way of mitigating some of the fear and insecurity. The sad thing about this behavior is that it plays into the stereotype of women who are too busy hating on each other to behave like real adults. My feelings is that motherhood is hard enough, so why make it worse by adding another minefield to navigate. I've found myself getting less, not more judgemental as my daughter grows because I realize that most people love their children and try to make the best decisions for them given the kid's temperment and the individual family's situation. This doesn't mean that I'm a saint and that I won't silently flip off the person who gives me the death-stare because I let my kid play around off-leash dogs or crack up when she makes mouth farts. It means that I'll try to not give THEM the death stare and then run to tell all my friends about it.
