Mommyblogger Manifesto

(in other words, it's damn long, but possibly, still worth your while)

There is some big ole to do about a duck afoot in the blogoshpere. I don't honestly know what its about, or whom is involved, because I make a concerted effort not to get involved in that kind of thing.

I suspect it's some in joke reference to how bitchy or how incompetent some poor woman outside the circle of privilege is. I'm guessing it's because she challenged one of the Queen Bees. But who knows? It's how those things tend to go, but it could any one of a hundred age old petty squabbles.

Long ago, in a place far, far away, I brawled with the best of 'em. And after the whole ordeal was said and done and left in the past, I realized that the only reason I ever felt the need to criticize or challenge someone else's views, whether it be on parenting, or politics, or religion, was to temper my own uncertainty in the views that I held.

I also learned that while perhaps winning made me feel better for a fleeting moment, the triumph was brief. And that sustaining such a combative and contentious mien was really exhausting, and at the core, unsatisfying and demoralizing.

In short, being the bitch might feel good in that brief shining moment when you have outbitched everybody else, but afterwards, you just feel mean, petty....small.

These days, I haven't the time, the effort, or the inclination to weather another tempest like that. And with twelve years of parenting under my belt, I have the confidence to rely on my own instincts and trust in my own ability to reason through some of the tougher issues that come with raising kids.

The thing is...if we're all honest, most of the things we do as mothers are to impress other women. Not our kids.

Because a twelve year old doesn't care that he was breast fed for 42 months. Or that only diapers woven of the purest fibers from the first shearing of a lamb fatted on rosehips and caviar touched his delicate bottom. Or that he was only allowed to play with toys fashioned from virgin Beechwood, Hemp and Conch shells harvested from the Caspian Sea.

Other women care. It's the acceptibility gradient by which we judge with whom we will allow ourselves and our children to socialize. If we didn't have that internal barometer, we'd all like each other and get along despite our differences and we just can't have that, now can we?

It's stupid.

Standards are good. Important even. But taken to extremes they become divisive, destructive, and elitist.

I no longer care about impressing other women with my parenting or my parenting views. I rarely let someone's else's views influence my opinion of them as people unless they are truly, inhumanly, unspeakably vile.

I do care about impressing my kids.

So how exactly DO you impress a twelve year old?

That's hard to say. Because things that you might think would earn some grudging respect and undying gratitude, may elicit only a grunt, a nod, and a barely adequate expression of thanks.

And then, sometimes you do a thing without even thinking. It isn't planned and plotted and reserached. It's a knee-jerk reaction, a moment of weakness. But suddenly you're a hero.

The lesson here might be to just quit planning and plotting and researching and fly by the seat of our pants. Some of us figured that out long ago. Some of us are far too entrenched in our grown up ideals to navigate through life without our Google safety net.

The other day at the pool, some older kids were really making things miserable for everybody else trying to weather the already brutal Georgian heat. They were throwing...nay...hurling a tennis ball to one another lengthwise accross the pool. Small children, infants and other adults were all in the path of this testosterone fueled horseplay, and it was literally impossible to get out of their way, as their movement followed the path of the ball.

Their language was bad, their topics of conversation completely inappropriate.

Many of the Mothers shooed their children into the baby pool, which is a mere 5 or 6 feet square, where they huddled, trying to play while packed in like sardines.

It pissed me off. We pay some pretty steep dues to belong to this HOA, which is the only way to garner pool privileges. I decided that I'd be damned if I'd let a bunch of adolescent pissantes chase me or anybody else who pays, out of the pool. Our pool.

"HEY YOU GUYS!!!" I bellowed.

Everyone in the pool turned to look at me.

"TAKE YOUR BALL TO THE DEEP END AND THROW CROSSWAYS PLEASE!"

They looked at me, made comments amongst themselves and moved. A little bit.

I repeated my request and added that they were endangering little children and that someone could get seriously hurt.

Again, they snickered, shot me dirty looks, and moved. A little bit.

I just wasn't having it.

I got up, walked over to them and said,

"Dudes. I have asked you like three times, nicely to go down there and throw across the pool, so you don't hit any little kids. If you can't do that, I have no choice but to get bitchy. I know your Mom (pointing) and your Mom (pointing) and your Mom (pointing) and you KNOW I will tell her how you were behaving down here. Don't make me get all neighborhood busybody on you...mmmk?"

There was a chorus of mumbled "Yes Ma'am"s, and they grudgingly migrated to the deep end of the pool.

I realized, too late, that Diminutive One, who looks up to these boys and thinks them the epitome of Middle School cool, would be embarassed beyond belief. I anticipate paying for that with a couple of days of pouting truculence and monosyllabic discourse.

I turned to him, intending to apologize and attempt to mitigate some of the damage, only to find him grinning from ear to ear.

"Why are you grinning like that?" I asked, truly perplexed.

"Mom. You are such a bad ass."

And that was that.

I impressed my kid and I didn't have to outbitch anyone except a pack of teenagers who deserved it. I didn't have to eat my words. I didn't have to apologize for going too far. I didn't have to make myself scarce, hoping everyone would forget my behavior.

Girls, c'mon. If you want to be a family of Polyamorist Buddhist Nudists who co-sleep with your 12 vegan children, all of whom you've breastfed until they were five and whom you now unschool...then be proud of that. If you think the best interests of your family and your children are being served...who cares what everybody else thinks?

And if someone ELSE wants to do that...why do YOU care?

I chalk this all up to a really profound sense of powerlessness and insignifcance on the part of women that dates back the the pre-suffrage days. It doesn't have to be that way, if we choose not to let it. Don't be powerless. Don't be insignificant. DON'T make a mockery of womanhood and all it stands for. Because women are not the sum of this kind of behavior. Women can change the world, feed and clothe it, kiss it's boo-boos and right it's wrongs.

But we have to quit beating each other up first.

Peace, ladies.