Betsy's Blog

This week has been tough for me. Told not to nurse in front of the children by a teacher at Aidan's school, received a distainful, rude look from a patient in my eye doctors office as Aidan threw a tantrum, and a comment from a friend who told me that I am not as strict with Aidan as I think I am. (or perhaps as I should be?)

I am shocked, saddened and bewildered at the judgement I feel of me and my mothering. I know that this is common and one of the perils of being a mother in our society. It is reminicent of Jr. High, where everyone has to do the same thing, talk the same way and wear the same thing, or you are an outcast, and judged accordingly. It pisses me off, like it did then. But the difference: I really don't care and I am an adult. Deep down I do not care, yet it still makes me mad! I am writing about it here, so it is clearly upsetting me. Crap. The trauma of my past rears its ugly head.

How does this happen? What the hell is wrong with our society that we have to make mothers out to be bad guys when their children are not acting perfectly, or their decisions don't match your own? I am guilty of it, especially when I did not have children.

It is shocking because I know how hard I try. To be patient, loving, firm when I need to be without being a drill sargeant, to play, make healthy meals, adore and not beat myself up when I feel impatient and irritable. I feel like all this should be obvious...but I guess it is not. That is what bums me out.