“When Moms Verbally Attack Each Other We All Lose” – Mamapedia Voices
Competition among moms starts the minute we have our first child. Did you have a natural delivery or C-section? How much weight did you gain? Sometimes these questions are asked before the most important question of all: How are you and the baby doing?
The competition heats up when our babies reaches the infant stage. The topics available for moms to attack each other’s parenting choices are endless. Breast fed or formula fed? Cloth or plastic diapers? Homemade or store bought baby food? Organic fabrics or synthetics?
I’ll never forget sitting in the park when my daughter was about a month old. Feeding her a bottle, talking to a friend, a mom we didn’t know approached us. She interrupted our conversation to inform me that I was holding the bottle wrong and my baby might be taking in too much air. I calmly asked if she was a doctor. Of course she wasn’t. She was just a know-it-all-mom looking to put down a new mom. I ignored her and kept talking, confident my daughter would survive.
It’s a mystery to me why moms compete with each other endlessly, openly criticizing other moms—friends and strangers alike—over parenting decisions big and small. It’s mean and hurtful. It’s all about the “right” choices or the “best” way to parent. Of course, the “right” way is always the method used by the mom dispensing the advice. I’ve never heard someone say, “I learned the hard way, my obsession with designer baby clothes drained our family budget and didn’t really make a difference.” It just doesn’t happen that way.
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