When Mothers of a Feather don't flock together!
Motherhood is such an overwhelming experience. You grow a human inside you providing him with your own blood and flesh. You labour and bring it into the world. You swear to love unconditionally and protect till the end. It's a sacred job of all. Yet it is in motherhood only, where you feel brutally judged by everyone else. Each one seems to be the parenting expert, specifically other mothers!!
So who judges a mother the most?? Of course, ANOTHER MOTHER!!!
I had a group of girlfriends in my college days, who shared common interests. We would spend a lot of time together. We would hang out frequently. After all, birds of a feather flock together. At least that's what I thought until I became a mother.
If it hadn't been motherhood I would never have realized that birds of a feather doesn’t always flock together!!
There is no right or perfect way to parenting. But still there will always be few mom's and dad's who feels that their ways are much better than others!
A mother who exclusively breastfeed will judge a mother who formula feed her baby. Meanwhile, formula fed baby's mother will judge breastfeeding mother's baby for not being so healthy. It's a vicious cycle you see!!
Why mothers judge each other?
First of all it's just a human nature, upto some extent at Least. Everyone wants to prove themselves right and to be accepted by a certain group which they personally believe is right.
Somewhere we are insecure about our own parenting methods.Somewhere it's to satisfy our raging motherhood hormones, which doesn't allows us to think logically and maturely all the time.
Mother who is being judged constantly is more likely to judge other mother. It feels good to feel better than someone who are on the same page. It seems like an achievement.
It makes the suffering less. When someone had delivered fast because of induced labour and I, on the other hand, had spend 26 hours in labour, I judge her. Not because I made a different choice but I have to prove my point of different choice. Otherwise, why am I suffering, this question will haunt me forever.
I wish I could say that I didn't judge the other mothers ever, but eventually I did, insecurities being the biggest reason. Perhaps I might have managed not to be straight-forward with my judgements. But you ever have been in a situation where you gave other mothers a side eye, you would relate to it! Eventually we all feel judged!!
As I am slowly getting the facts of why we judge and why we shouldn't judge.
Why we shouldn't judge each other as a mother?
Judging doesn't define who they are but it defines who you are. You don't want to be called judgemental for the goodness sake. It's as simple as that.
You never know what is it on the other side. Every coin has 2 sides. All parenting struggles are not created equal, and we're the ones who should be teaching kindness.
It makes this overwhelming journey of motherhood a little less troublesome. After all we might not be on the same page but we are in a same book of parenting. (Which has never been written!!)
We all know motherhood doesn't come with a manual. When we become mothers for the first time, we all were immature and clueless. We still are! One thing works for you, won't work with someone else.
Our super naughty kids are enough!!! Don't add yourself to the queue of sworn enemies. Accept that we are on the learning curve. No child, no mother, no dad, nothing is perfect, it applies to parenting too.
On a serious note, you might be hurting someone really bad. Your hard or even mild judgements may push someone to switch to formula as she is not able to produce enough milk due to stress. You don't want to fill your 'pap ka ghada' with it right!!
What to do when people judge you?
Remind yourself why you made particular choices and stay firm.
Don't take personally or don't blame yourself. It makes the judgement even worse and you are making it worse for yourself.
On a lighter note, read above things and ignore the judgements.
Enjoy your motherhood to the fullest!!!
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Comments (5)
asha chaudhry
Wow congrats Shruti Giri !
Shruti Giri
Woow...thanks asha di.... Thank you babychakra for publishing it!
Mrs. Chhoker
So lovely 😘
Shilpi Vijay
It's so true..lovely post
Anusha DK
great article