Tag Archives: judgy

Are you a Natural Mother?

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Are you a natural Mother? I sure as hell am not!

Being a Mother has been the only job I’ve ever had in my life that brought me to my knees begging for mercy on multiple occasions.

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My husband recently brought it to my attention that other people he knows (sometimes himself included) feel inadequate when around me as a parent. This made me sad. Never since becoming a Mother have I EVER tried to force my opinions or ideas on another Mother because I know people parent from their own experiences. What may be important to me, may not be for you.

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Here is a perfect example. When my husband and I were about to become first time parents, I had actually gotten my ideal job offer, BUT, it wasn’t meant to be because my husband was on a trajectory that would make him 3 times more money than I would ever make, but it would require him to leave for long stretches of time, and IF I took my job offer, it would have meant that my baby would be without either of his parents for most of the beginning of his life.

My own Mother’s words rang in my ears about how much she had wished she could have stayed home with me when I was small instead of leaving me in daycare or with various babysitters and I made the decision to stay home, because I wanted better for my son than I had. I wasn’t sad about it because I have faith in myself and know if I went back to work tomorrow I know I could get a full time job, without much headache.

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I think this is what makes me come off to other Mothers as being a natural. The opinion that others have of me, doesn’t bother me. I will tell you it is entirely because of the fact that life has taught me, when others find fault in you, it is because they don’t have the bravery to look at themselves and figure out what is driving them to criticize others. I know I look crazy to others and I know others think I should care more about their opinions but I just walk through my life to my own beat, looking a touch crazy on a regular basis, and I’m proud of that!

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I parent my children without apologies. I make every bad situation into a teachable moment for them and myself. I’ve turned every meltdown that my kids have thrown in public into a teachable moment for me, sometimes I learn my lesson and say, “No way am I gonna attempt that shit again” other times, I just am hurting to solve the issue and try and try and try again! I hear the criticism from others, I just don’t care! Also I have developed this amazing ability to tune out people, I mean if I can tune out the screaming banshee of a child of mine throwing a tantrum about having the wrong spoon colour, tuning our a mean mommy wannabe is easy peasy.

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Back to my original point, I am not a natural Mother, nope not me, you must have me mistaken for someone else! My house is constantly a mess, I swear in multiple languages, multiple times a day! Everything about Motherhood has been difficult for me, I just stepped up, and did my best, researched the shit out of everything I could and then applied what I could to my own situation. Now I will make a list of the things that didn’t come easy to me.

Pregnancy

Childbirth

Recovery from childbirth (two c-sections that had open holes for over two months, and terrible nurses making me cry in hospital both times)

Sleep (the fact that none of my kids slept for more than 3 hours at a time for more than a year a piece) I am not a morning person.

Breastfeeding judgement

Pumping problems

Judgy Grandma telling me to give formula because my kid was too skinny

judgy relatives thinking that both of my kids were on the Autism spectrum (even though I am trained to find markers of learning disabilities and they are trained to be gossipy Aunties, please give me your unsolicited and uneducated opinion)

Hormonal imbalances

Infertility issues when trying for my second

Miscarriage when trying for my second

Dealing with having my health deteriorate due to complications from childbirth

Weight gain for someone like me who used to be athletic!

Dealing with postpartum depression

Despising my husband for not helping because of his and our culture’s chauvinist ways.

My husband not standing up for me to people who constantly criticized me in his circle of people

My husband not stepping up to the plate once we became parents

Recognizing my children have allergies, and then having to step up to the plate and change everything that I had learned to about cooking and relearn to make everything from scratch. A whole lifestyle change.

Even now, I get so much judgement for REFUSING to hang around people that despise me, because it isn’t worth my emotional sanity to give toxic people even a moment of my time.

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The point of all this is to show you, or someone you know that even when you suspect that someone is perfect, chances are they aren’t. I struggle EVERY Day! I am constantly learning how to deal with life so that it doesn’t tip me back into depression. I don’t want your pity because I deal with my emotions, I have balances and checks in place to ensure that I don’t fall back on hard times. I am emotionally intelligent enough to ask for help when I need it, but I am very cautious of whom I ask.

I hope you take a good hard look at yourself today and just be happy that you have made it this far!

 

Damned if you Do, Damned if you Don’t…part 5 I think?!

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Damned if you Do, Damned if you Don’t…part 5 I think?!

This post is about the insane mothers that I have seen this week, or month and the pure confusion in my mind. This damned if you do, is about how to respond to atrocious behaviour by parents.

I have basically been on 24/7 patrol since March 14th, it is now April 10th and literally the sicknesses have been running a muck on my household as if they all just woke up from hibernation from our ridiculously long winter, just to see how much one mother can take alone.

But during the few times that I have been out I have encountered some strange parents, first I will discuss

 

The Entitled Mother:

Do you ever wonder when your child comes home sick for the millionth time, how? How?!? Your child’s school has a no sick kids policy, yet, still viruses come home. I will tell you friends, it is due to the Entitled mother!

I will tell you how it all began…the week we were supposed to go on vacation, I decided to send my older son for swimming lessons during the March Break. The very first day of classes this lady walks in to pick up her child from the previous class, with her other smaller, feverish, cranky, runny nosed, uncomfortable child walking in right behind her. Seriously this baby was sick, but still she insisted on letting him run around the viewing area crying and screaming, all I could do was watch and keep track of the things that he was touching and before I knew it, he had literally touched or some part of his bodily fluids had touched every,EVERY surface of that waiting area. Oh I forgot to mention, the lady also walked in with her mother, who was just running behind the very upset child, just letting him spread the virus. As the child was running around and grandma was watching she was talking to the owner of the swim school and myself and all the other moms, about how she was so concerned for her small son, because he just kept running this high fever for days and that she took him to Sick Children’s hospital because she didn’t trust any other hospital. Here is what kills me, ,she was so concerned, yet, she was willing to spread the virus to anyone and everyone when she could have clearly been a little bit, just a tiny bit considerate, either kept the small child home and resting for the 15 minutes it would take to pick up her older child, with her mother, or she could have made the child stay in the car with grandma (I saw the car, it had a dvd player in the back) the child could have watched a movie or continued sleeping (which is what she said he was doing before she brought him in and this was the real reason for his crankiness). Seriously what the fuck! Why?! I attempted to avoid all the zones that child touched, but it didn’t work. I got sick. Unless I missed something, please tell me, but Why the hell would she have done this? Why?!? how do you point out to someone that they are complaining about something that they will so obviously be passing on to EVERYONE that they are complaining to?! Like I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs at this woman, are you an idiot?!? do you not see that you are now putting me in your situation? do you just want us all to be miserable? Fuck! Please my friends tell me how I should have responded.

The Disgusting Dad:

I encountered this man on vacation in the kiddy pool. Any parent who used to jet set or travel knows that once you go on vacation you no longer get to spend your time chilling by the side of the pool with the swim up bar or just chill in the water, you MUST go to the kiddy pool at least once, so that your child can play with the other children on the resort, otherwise you feel as if you are the wicked witch of their childhood. We went, where we met Bill and my son, became friends with his son Vincent. So while our boys played Bill decided to pretend to be a sea monster, and then proceeded to gulp water into his mouth and spit it out at his son and mine…YUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He then proceeded to do this so many times that I saw my son, go take a gulp of water into his mouth, and I lost it, I called him by his full name and Yelled through gritted teeth; “Don’t EVEN THINK about it! Spit that water out or we leave now and you will not enter a pool for the rest of the trip!”

The father Bill apologized when I guess he realized how disgusting it was, I mean for fucks sake it is the kiddy pool, how many germs are in it, and pee for that matter! Yuck, YUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!! and sure enough my older boy got sick, on vacation, in paradise, throwing up and not sleeping and then passing it on to his little brother so that all of us were dehydrated when it came time to go home.

What do you think did I handle this correctly? I probably could have been nicer? I hate hurting people’s feelings but damn this was just too gross for me to hold back, my husband said he saw Bill’s look on his face when I scolded my kid and it was as if I scolded him…

In my defense each time these are just a taste of some of the images that went through my head, also I’m not a germaphobe, I know kids get sick, in both the cases above it was preventable, if others were considerate:

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The Get more flies with Piss mother and father:

I’m not sure if this time of mother exists outside of my suburban community, but there are so many here, and yes you read that title correctly. This is the type of parent that goes out of their way to be a high-strung bitch, man or woman. I get my son’s hair cut at a place called great clips, and for children the haircut can be as little as 8 bucks, but my son and his dad can get their hair cut at the same time by the same woman and get the same haircut, so it works perfect for us. This mother that went before us, was just constantly correcting the hairdresser as if she was the expert. This hairdresser God bless her, she just took the verbal abuse, to the point where the mother took the comb and spray bottle from the hairdresser and proceeded to shout at her about how she didn’t cut it right and that the child’s hair doesn’t sit properly, and then in the same breath just said forget it. She pushed her child off of the chair and proceeded to just say mumble under her breath and pay for the haircut, while she was paying she kept making eye contact with me and rolling her eyes, as if to say “Can you believe this shit?” I gave her the most confused WTF? face I could muster, because I didn’t agree with her even a little. Then she made contact with another mother who I guess was Italian, and proceeded to have a full conversation with her in Italian about how bad this place was. I didn’t understand all of it, but I have been around enough Italian conversations to get the jist of it. NEWSFLASH people when you switch from speaking English to another language in public when you are upset, WE ALL KNOW that you are saying something that you are too big of a Pussy to outright say!! If you are so fucking brave to complain, then fucking complain so people whom you are talking about can respond to you, don’t fucking speak in another language, that’s just bullshit, and you know it! I gave that hairdresser a 8 dollar tip, she deserved it!

I’ve seen father’s do this, and it grosses me out equally as much, if not more when I see the verbal abuse that some father’s lay out on to customer service reps or front line workers like the clerks at winners etc.

The Snickering Bitch Parents, in their cliques:

I’m writing this one last because it angers me the most! It wasn’t even my own experience, it was one of my friend’s. She also had been home all week with her children and decided to take them out to the McDonalds playground by her home. Her eldest son, has Autism, and although I’m not familiar with too many of the details she said that he broke free from her and when she found him he was eating someone’s chicken nuggets. She apologized, profusely and offered to pay for new nuggets. (Keep in mind she has three boys under 5, and she is such a good mother) But instead of being a fellow understanding mother, these women said “Oh we were wondering where his mother was!” as condescending as possible. Seriously?!? I have had random children come up to me in department stores looking for their parents, and once after an hour looking for the parents as annoyed as I was, I just told the parents that their child was outside, and that she was cute and someone could have taken her, even though I wanted so badly to punch these parents in the face! (they didn’t even thank me)

The only seat my friend could find in the play area was in front of these women, and they just continued to snicker about her. If I had the chance I probably wouldn’t have been so understanding, I most likely would have turned around Exorcist style and thrown some nuggets at them and reminded them that this wasn’t the fucking Ritz Carlton they were at for lunch but instead the McDonalds playground!

I don’t understand, how grown men and women can act like children. My questions to them are along the lines of did they grow up in barns? Are they just mean spirited bitches? They couldn’t have been having a bad day and just be lashing out, because they were outright snickering?! What kind of people still do that? I am so perplexed! How can we judge other parents so harshly? How can we lack so much Empathy, for our fellow human beings? Not just Empathy for parents, but the elderly, special needs, and just your neighbour in general? How?!?

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Autism

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My last gripe is about the lack of empathy lately that I hear for parents of young children. Since I was pregnant with my first child, in 2010 they introduced priority parking spaces for Pregnant women, and parents with small children, they are next to the handicapped spots, in most commercial parking lots. Recently on April Fools some news station played a joke on twitter about an able-bodied person being upset that they had to walk so far because all the pregnant women got priority. People on social media went off, and lambasted parents for saying that the parking spaces weren’t for them but their children. I can personally attest to having used these spots during the DEAD of winter at -35 or colder and taking both of my children out of the car, setting up their stroller, getting them both in, and hoping their don’t freeze their fingers off. Also I guess I missed the memo that as an able-bodied member of society, I can sacrifice a parking spot further away, so that a baby (not necessarily the parents) won’t be out in the cold for too long. Fuck, seriously when did people become so bloody judgmental and entitled?   I used to always park my car at the end of parking lots when I had not kids and still do when I don’t have the kids with me or during nice weather. A little walk never killed anyone I agree but a little baby finds it very hard to keep their fingers inside a stroller at all times and if it is -35 degrees outside but feels like -45, a child could get frostbite, you try explaining that to a 1 year old. oh and for all you old school mothers that haven’t had children for the last 10 years, shut your mouth about how you survived with your children. way back when you barely needed car seats, let alone had to deal with babies mixed with the polar vortex!

I think I’m just feeling a little bit like this girl today, mixed with Anger!

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Please people open your eyes a little bit today and just have some empathy towards others, parent or not, you never really know what someone is going through. The strongest people usually are silent about their gripes and hardships because they don’t want to be perceived as weak, but it doesn’t mean that they couldn’t appreciate others showing them that they understand.

now i must go back to my sicky poos..

Think about Empathy bear when you are out in the world today:

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Damned if you Do, Damned if you don’t, Part 4

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I would like to talk about how you choose to nourish your baby. There are very opposing views on this, the Breastfeeding mother, the Pumping Mother, the Formula feeding mother. I personally breastfed and occasionally pumped with my first child. The ONLY reason I didn’t pump for my second child was/is the sheer lack of time. The amount of criticism that a woman receives based on her decision to pump is tremendous. It is absolutely mind-boggling to me how much EVERYONE and their effing mother gives so much of a fuck about how women feed their children. Wow, even thinking about it now, and what some of my friends and family have faced, no matter their choice. I’ve decided to try to show you how EVERY SINGLE ONE of us will be judged regardless of which category we fall into.

The Breastfeeding Mother:

As someone who is a breastfeeding mother, I can tell you, that I wasn’t a crazy fanatic about nursing, I was a lucky one who had both children latch on fairly easily at first, but I didn’t have too much production at first. The first two months of breastfeeding were terrible, TERRIBLE, just TERRIBLE! There were so many complications, from clogged ducts, to my son losing weight, to cracked nipples, engorged breasts, finding places to nurse in public, getting looks in public, covering up in public, travelling through airports, etc.. Most people were really encouraging about how great it was that I was nursing my son, until he was about 7 months old and had teeth. Then I would get comments like, “Oh, if your kid could walk, talk and chew his own food, why would you nurse him? Doesn’t he bite you?” While I understand that this is a legit question for someone that has no knowledge of the topic of nursing, but these people were other women, other mothers, and grandmothers who were being passive-aggressive biatches! For the record, it isn’t too painful to nurse when a child has teeth, the only real reason it is painful is if your child is mischievous and actually bites you on purpose for a reaction!

I fed my oldest until he was about 15 months, and began the weaning process at about 13 months, I’m still in the process with my youngest. It isn’t easy to wean, just like it isn’t easy to latch, we as women are pumped with so many hormones that when someone makes passive aggressive comments it doesn’t help, in fact it stresses us out more, and when we are stressed, the baby is stressed. Just because you have some ideal of when I should stop nursing my child, it doesn’t mean that I will.  I mean I have to put up with other people’s idiocy when it comes to judging my parenting decisions, I wonder why they think I should respect their opinions so much when they are so judgy about mine?!

The Pumping Mother:

Let me clear this up, the pumping mother can also nurse or formula feed to supplement, but most of the time, they pump their milk, for reasons such as having to return to work, or my one friend who was so sure her boobs would be deflated if she nursed, so she did the next best thing, she pumped her own milk, hoping that her boobs wouldn’t deflate. Whomp, whomp it didn’t work, but even she was judged for always stuffing a bottle into her child’s mouth. She would explain to strangers that it was breastmilk not the devil’s formula! Really?! She was Explaining this to STrangers! Why?! because we are so overwhelmed with judgement that we feel the need to explain to total unknowns what we are feeding our children. We have so much to explain to others because we are all so overwhelmed with guilt, it is hard to carry a baby for 9 months in this age, there are so many restrictions, that previous generations didn’t receive. People used to smoke, and drink while pregnant, and if I ate sushi at a restaurant while pregnant I got the evil eye! This poor woman felt the need to explain to strangers that she wasn’t feeding her child formula in public, but her own breastmilk, and the strangers would be like “oh, that is good, because formula is so bad, and breastmilk is so natural.” This whole idea about formula being bad, and that women are less of a mother is also an insane idea, I’m pretty sure most people in my generation were formula fed, we all survived…and if we didn’t it most likely was due to other things and not our addiction to formula in the first years of our lives.

The Formula feeding Mother:

This Mother is the Most Loathed type of Mother around. She is the worst according to pretty much everyone. I feel for my friends that formula feed, for whatever reason! There are many reasons that a woman might choose to formula feed and you know what we as a society need to understand that it isn’t something that Everyone wants to do or even can do for that matter.

One of my best friends couldn’t nurse, something about production, and the first thing I told her was fuck anyone who gave her a look, and that do whatever works for her. She has told me how hard it was for her, and how it made her feel like she was doing something less for her child, based on what others say to her. Then I have another friend who just said no, I’m done with this nursing thing, after I think two weeks, and she was happier. I have another friend who breastfed her first and gave her second formula after a few months, and she was happier too! I know another mother who weaned baby about 3 or 4 months in and she also is happier. What I have noticed is that anytime a mother does something to make herself happy or in this case makes a decisive decision, society looks at her with pure disgust and gives her that just smelled vomit look, when they find out she has fed her baby poison formula. I remember one of these lovely ladies told me that when she went to her doctor’s appointment, that even the doctor was shocked and couldn’t comprehend why she wasn’t still breastfeeding. Really?! the doctor too? Come on, this is just too much for me. Formula is a scientific advancement, why would a doctor of all people put down this choice. even if the doctor doesn’t agree isn’t there a bedside manner class in med school? oh wait, there isn’t, that explains a lot!

(before you jump down my throat for that bedside manner joke, I’m basing my knowledge off of my older cousin’s med school commencement ceremony, where the guest speaker wasn’t a celebrity but a very experience doctor who said that there needed to be a med school course to learn proper bedside manner)

 

To each their own and I always tell my friends and other women, NEVER say NEVER, because when you do, your kids will most likely eat your words at some point for your judgy bitchiness! Also remember if you cannot respect others’ choices, when it comes to raising Their children (not yours) then think about what society would be like if EVERYONE was exactly like you, and if you like that idea…something is very off about you my friend, because I would hate to be surrounded by people EXACTLY like me, what fun is that!?!

Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t, Pärt Deux

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I hope you enjoyed my last post, here is part 2, while still on the topic of pregnancy, and childbirth, this DIYD (Damned if you do) is on the topic of Hospital Birth or Home Birth…seriously I have been thinking about all the different categories that I can do this with and the possibilities are endless. I hope you enjoy! If you do not enjoy this, (especially considering how much of this all is sarcasm combined with my sick sense of humour) go somewhere else and read something that does amuse you. Simple.

Truthfully I do not even understand why people are so judgy about this. After my first delivery, where I was scared, stressed, and only given the option of an epidural, I would not have minded having a home birth. With that said, there are CRAZIES on both sides of this argument that take things to a whole different level, I have tried my best to sum it all up, but I hope that it conveys my point that no matter what you choose as a woman or parent, you will be bombarded by haters! Haters, Haters everywhere!

HOSPITAL BIRTH vs. HOME BIRTH

HOSPITAL BIRTH:

I am surprised that you are willing to expose your children to superbugs and diseases so willingly, I mean I have some garbage outback that you can smear onto your baby’s face when he is born if you would like. We thought you would be a better parent than that. Why would you bring your baby into the world in the place where people go to die? The doctors are just there as pawns, of the pharmaceutical companies and you are just a sucker buying into the business of birthing babies. I bet you will get an epidural, and pitocin to induce your labour too, not to mention that they will most likely use a vacuum, or forceps or some other contraption to get your kid out and most likely harm them. When they harm your baby on purpose they basically have you for life once you begin life there. Wow, I am ashamed to know you.

HOME BIRTH:

I am surprised that you are willing to expose your children to superbugs and diseases so willing, I mean I have some garbage outback that you can smear onto your baby’s face when he is born if you would like. We thought you would be a better parent than that. (so funny how similar both sides fight using the same arguments) Why would you not want your child to be born in a sterile environment. What if you missed a spot cleaning and the baby lands right there? Eww! Simply put, you, your dirty hippy Doula, and Midwife are bat-shit cray cray! You are going to turn your baby into some sort of, weirdo, who like does weirdo hippy things like you.

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Like I said earlier, Haters are going to hate you no matter what you may choose, so brush them off, like they are Dirt off of your shoulder.