{Day 26} In The Mommy Wars, I’m A Conscientious Objector
{Please enjoy this guest post from my new bloggy friend, Suzannah, from So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter}
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Get the epidural?
Breast or bottle?
Cry-it-out? Co-Sleep?
Work or stay homet?
To spank or not to spank?
Parenting is difficult, for sure, but the way decisions and philosophies polarize mothers is certainly among the worst parts.
May I let you in on a secret?
The Mommy Wars cannot be won.
For what are we fighting? Peace, community and contentment were never won through comparison, competition or judgment. I’m laying down arms, smoothing lines in the sand and confessing to you this:
I’ve no wish to fight you, mama. Mothering is hard, and we need allies, not enemies. In the Mommy Wars, I am a conscientious objector.
Four years into this mothering gig, I have a pretty good idea of what works for my family. I have more than a few opinions about raising kids, and I love dialoguing about what works for us and what hasn’t.
But I don’t know what works for you, and I won’t pretend to be an expert on your family.
{I’m trying not to, anyway. My heart is flawed but sincere, friends.}
You are different than I am. Your family is different than mine. Your kids are different.
There is no one-size-fits-all-way to parent.
It’s so easy to forget, isn’t it? We get defensive about our choices and end up throwing one another under the bus:
“I breastfeed because I care that my baby has the very best.”
“Spanking is child abuse, plain and simple.” (Or, “Spanking is the only Christian way to discipline kids.”)
“We’ve had to make material sacrifices, but mothering is too important a job to leave for someone else.”
I’m thankful to be able to stay home with my kids during this season. But how quickly do we forget that not having to work is a luxury–especially from a global perspective?
Other women want to work and use their education and gifts to provide for their families and serve the greater good. Is my choice to be home superior to yours to work? Our situations are completely unique, and what works for my family is not a universal truth.
We all love our kids and want what’s best for them. We misstep, second guess, learn from our mistakes and plead mercies new every morning. Let us tread lightly, with grace–for ourselves and one another.
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Suzannah breathes summer camp ministry and lives the life bucolic with one husband, two babes and eight chickens. She writes everyday poetry and practical theology at so much shouting, so much laughter and tweets at ShoutLaughLove.
{Beth here again: What do you think? Have you had experience with The Mommy Wars personally? Do you agree that there is no one-size-fits-all way to parent? Share your thoughts and experience!}
The only mommy war I can think I have is the one between myself and my stepson mother. I have tried watching her in silence and I just can not do this any more for several reasons. One she does only enough to get by with her son and that is evident in his behavior which breaks my heart. Two, this is the big one, she married another drug addict and lied about it to me and the child’s father. Needless to say, the gloves are off and we are in a full blown war.
I think it’s no coincidence that the mommy wars tend to happen most passionately among the younger of us. As we get older, as the kids start getting older, we start realizing exactly what you said: that there isn’t a standard manual that is the best for everyone–every family has its own blueprint and its own calling. I still have to talk myself down off the soapbox sometimes, but I’m getting better!
Suzannah–I love your words & more so, your heart. I can hear your sweet laugh mixed in with all of this. It’s these last three lines, “We all love our kids and want what’s best for them. We misstep, second guess, learn from our mistakes and plead mercies new every morning. Let us tread lightly, with grace–for ourselves and one another.” YES!
How can we be so passionate, yet filled with such mercy. I feel like Shaun Groves in speaking on sponsoring children is the same in speaking of mothering (with complete mercy).
As always, wise and helpful words, Suzannah. Sometimes I think the more dogmatic we become, the more we reveal our own deep insecurities about the choices we’ve made. Far better to make choices within the confines of our own situation, our own family, our own understanding of what works and does not work for US. Blessings as you re-enter reality after your time away. Sometimes that takes some doing!
it is so easy for passion and conviction to come across as harsh and dogmatic. that is something i am ever needing to refine in my own heart. you are wise, friend. thank you for your kindness!
I think that it is so easy to engage in the war with out even realizing it especially in areas that we feel strongly about or have done a lot of research or whatever. Not so much for wanting the other mama to feel bad or condemned but because we are so sure that our way is *best*. And maybe sometimes, it truly is, but that doesn’t stop to consider the journey or experience that others are on. I will honestly say that I am guilty of being pretty adamant about my opinions; I often don’t share them but I know they are present in my attitude. NOT that I actually think that I have got it all figured out! For me anyways, life as a mama has a way of humbling me and giving me perspective.
As an aside note, I really find that even parenting how to books often do this very same thing in their directives of how to parent, at least that is how it often feels to me when I have turned there in desperation for advice!
Anyways, thanks for the reminder that conviction, even in parenting, is not worth much unless accompanied by loads of grace.
marissa, you are so right. the hurtful words are mostly unintentional. we say them because we are passionate in our convictions (not a bad thing!) or feel defensive when our choices are undervalued. advocacy with grace is a difficult balance to strike.
parenting books can be the worst! when i read them as suggestions to cull from instead of The Whole Truth, i find them to be a lot more constructive.
You comment totally resonates with me, Marissa. I have the tendency to see the things that I’ve researched and thought about and hold strong opinions about as black and white universal truths. Regardless of whether they are or not… I must remember that grace and humility are the better policy when interacting with other mamas, and that all of have a road and a story that we’ve living. It would do me well to not assume I’ve got it all figured out. I might still hold some pretty strong opinions, and even believe that some are in fact universal truths… but those opinions should never be shared without being washed with grace and a humble heart. Thank-you so much for your encouragement here. xoxo, Beth (of redandhoney).
beth, i completely get this. at the end of the day, we don’t have to believe that all choices as equal. i’m a breastfeeding advocate and have pretty strong ideas about schooling, food, discipline–and a million other things! the grace and humble heart that you mention is what i long to give–and know i fall short of. grace is for us, too:)
thanks so much for being such a gracious hostess here. i love all the discussion and honesty.
Amen, this is so true. Sometimes I find myself comparing to other mothers, but really I am do the best I can, I love my boys, and keep looking to God to help me raise them. But yet the mother war still happens. Thanks for sharing this. It does help.
Krista
comparison robs us of joy, doesn’t it? i’m clinging to the grace that even when i’m not doing my best, there is forgiveness and another chance to try again. thanks, krista.
I responded to Suzannah on twitter, then fleshed out some thoughts on my blog: http://wp.me/psDHQ-tg
laura, i really appreciate your perspective and i think your words are revealing. these seeds of competition and insecurity cannot grow the kind of community we need to see us through tough times. it’s the antithesis to being the living, breathing Body of Christ that truly loves one another–and the world. thank you for keeping this conversation going.
Thank you Suzannah, for the wisdom to come alongside women who are aching for an ally.
“Let us tread lightly, with grace–for ourselves and one another.”
Myself, I have stayed the parenting course for 13 years now, with 4 children. 11 of the years were in a church while my husband pastored & I stayed busy(er) as a homemaker. I always bow out of mommy wars, it hurts too many hearts, especially new moms. Though it is also why blogging became so beautiful for me. To read & hear words that spoke to my heart, & I had more time to process. Your voice is a gracious blessing!
i too have much appreciated kindred voices in this online space. it has been a rich blessing–especially in those isolating early months of young motherhood. my challenge now is to shut the computer and do the hard and sometime hurtful work of really digging into my own community here. i know that if cultivated, they can sustain my heart in far more lasting ways.
thank you, alicia, for your kind words of encouragement.
This is brilliant. I love the parallel you drew here and I will be using it in my own life now. This is language that I get.
I love you both.
thank you, friend. you are a real peacemaker, sarah.
LOVE this. Thank you!
“Our situations are completely unique, and what works for my family is not a universal truth.”
If only the world operated this way. I love your perspective, Suzannah.
leigh, i am so thankful that this online community is so much bigger than mommy bloggers. sameness is boring and your voice is a blessing here:)
Yes and amen.
my sister in law fights the mummy wars with me every single time we encounter one another….and i’m still childless! in her mind, it should only be the natural way: no circumcision, cloth diapers, home and natural birth {preferably unassisted}, only breastfeeding and organic foods…the list goes on. more and more she rants, the more and more i quiet down. i feel like a coward because my views differ from hers in many areas.
i hate this fight. =/
oh friend, my heart goes out to you. there can be a lot of dogmatism in the natural community, and it’s not serving anyone.
for some reason, i’m thinking of evangelism. our gospel should be good new!–whether it’s our faith in Christ or a green “gospel” we want to convert the world to. a lived and gracious gospel will win converts in ways that bullying and rants never will. and at the end of the day, we will come to different decisions about so many things that shouldn’t be deal-breakers in friendship or community.
blessings and healing to you and you sister in law. xo
I have extensive experience with the mommy wars. I am not dogmatic about my choices. Other people are other people and if I want them to respect my choices, I need to respect theirs. My abilities, patience, personality, parenting style is different from others, and my kids are different from other people’s kids. You cant compare apples to oranges (though so many do), and claim that what works for you, and what you feel strongly about, is the only right choice. Thank you for writing this.
exactly. i am not parenting your kids so how could i possible be so arrogant to presume what’s best? we need friends to walk alongside us instead of experts telling us where to go.
thanks for being here, frelle.
1st: please tell me that the number at the bottom is a capcha.
2nd: as a happy single (and childless) woman, I say Amen. I would love to write a response to this in the “Woman Wars.” Work or stay at home? Get married or stay single? Have children, don’t have them? I have been fortunate in my third decade to have wrestled with these demons and come up with some angels. But it is hard fighting the mommies. When I first started blogging, I lucked into a great community. The twist? I was the only childless woman. Not the only single woman, but I didn’t have any kid stories to spice up my posts, or cute pictures of toes. And I lost quite a few friendships not to fights but merely to the men they married or the boys they gave birth to. You need us. We are the single women who will come over, not babysit, eat your excess of cookies, and not talk about diaper rash.
sign me,
a survivor in the war among women.
Cupcakes and xoxo’s,
SL
SL, in response to your second point, yes, yes, and amen. We should be friends.
yes yes YES! we do need each other–especially because the real heart stuff that unites us as people has nothing at all to do with diapers, schools or baby feeding–it’s love and passion, purpose, pain, culture, struggle, ideas and faith. we mamas need you to help us get beyond the surface. sometimes we’ve been so long in the land of the littles that we’ve forgotten how.
i am so sorry that you’ve been treated as an outsider to an exclusive club. thank you for reminding us that community is so much bigger than demographic sameness.
you are so right that these mommy wars are a battle in a larger war among women. we need to stop judging one another choices and lives and realize that we have so much to learn from one another. thanks so much for your perspective.
Wow, I think a huge weight just lifted off my shoulders. Thanks for sharing this!! I am so scared to make a mistake raising my kids and we hear so many voices and there’s no way to follow everyone’s advice or example because they don’t all fit. Mother’s are left wondering what’s right and what’s not and “why is this the only thing that works for us when everyone else seems to say it’s the wrong thing to do.” I think I’ll be a better momma if I can just block out those other voices that just don’t fit (and try not to one of them to someone else!)
stephanie, i am so blessed by your comment. tuning out the conflicting “experts” and well-meaning advice is not easy, but i do believe that we know what’s best for our own families–even the newest mamas!–and there is such freedom in listening to our instincts.
walk in grace, friend.
I think moms are shell-shocked from too many years of competing. They compete in school, college, work,church, everywhere there are women who want you to compete. I have been parenting for 21 years, I have six kids and I homeschool. I have found that all these facts keep women from even starting a mom conversation with me because they assume I am dogmatic about my choices. It takes a few minutes to put women at ease, if they can be put at ease,and let them know I am not sitting ready to pronounce judgement on their choices. It is sad that so many live in environments of judgement and competition. It is extremely difficult to come out from that and be an objector, but joy and contentment are the rewards.
romelle, i love that reminder to give the benefit of the doubt to one another. we do so often make assumptions–especially when people’s paths or experiences are different–and we miss those chances to walk alongside one another.
you are a wise woman!
Sweet Suzannah – you are wise, as always. All of this, so true. Allies, not enemies.
Mothers with kids older than mine seem to feel compelled to offer advice I’ve not asked for. Sometimes I ask them, “What is it that you think I’mdoing or not doing that made you say that?” Usually, they cannot tell me.
Which tells me, I’m doing what’s right for MY kids. I know them best. I love them best. That is all.
oh, unsolicited advice can be the worst! i need to remember that we are better served by a listening ear and kindness than answers or fixes.
thanks for walking this road with me:)