Eleven

To understand this post, you have to understand how I feel about women:

I don't like us. We're crazy, catty, bitchy, psychotic people who will do all kinds of things to you in the name of friendship. I find it creepy that if you spend enough time with women, our periods sync up- Because we all need to be popping out kids at the same time... So we can all be bedraggled, hormonal, exhausted crazy ass bitches together.

I know, if you're a vagina reading this, you've noticed what happens when you get a group of moms who do nothing but mother together. You have your First Time Moms, your Better Than You Because We Only Eat Organic and My House Is Meticlous Moms, your Homeschooling Moms, your 2nd (Or more) Moms Who Still Seem to Be On It Like White On Rice...

And then you have me. My type of mom. The one that forgets to bring the sunscreen. The one that feels that if we're at a park, fruit snacks and pretzels are an acceptable lunch and if you bitch, I'm taking that away. The one who tells her son that she's going to knock the smart ass out of him and does it in public. The mom who realizes that her job isn't to impress the rest of the moms because she's not going to EVER impress any of them, but still hasn't figured out how to fit in with them either- Because she's going bat shit crazy day in and day out.

So I spent the day in public (GASP) at an outing with a playgroup that I'm still kind of dipping my toes into the water (Please reread the line about figuring out how to gracefully fit in with the moms that I find hysterical). I'd had an extremely bad experience with a playgroup here in Lexington in the past, so on top of my normal reservations, I'm also concerned that someone is going to start telling people something like... I'm leaving my kids home alone at night to score percocet.

So anyway, we show up, and G and L were off. They don't care what age the kids they are playing with are, they just like to play. S and I sat with some of the other moms. S played with some other babies his age, moms talked...

And as I was sitting there listening (And mostly talking), it kind of hit me- There's really no reason to be judgmental of anyone's parenting style. Obviously, you're going to gravitate who believe in the same sort of things and raise their children the same way you do... But just because I feed S peanut butter on a regular basis and you don't doesn't make me a bad mother- It makes me a mother who's made different choices than you. Just because you coddle your child to the point that I want to smack both of you doesn't make you a dumbass (Ok, maybe a little), but you've made different parenting choices than I have. It doesn't make me white trash that I tell my kids to go play or I'm going to bury them in the back yard as much as it makes you an uppity bitch for rolling your eyes at my comments.

Because someone does something that you would NEVER do doesn't make them a bad mother. It just makes them a mother. Neither of us have to like the choices that we've made individually, but at least show a little respect for the fact that we're both doing the best we can because the manual to the ankle biters is still stuck in the uterus.