You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February, 2007.
Help me out with a moral dilemma here. *all names have been changed to protect one guilty adult, one sad parent, and 2 innocent children.
There’s this woman that I know, Lisa, her and I used to be friends not too long ago. Our daughters are almost the same age. It was cute having them play and we would chit-chat. Her and I are extremely different in personalities, but we got along ok because our kids did. Plus, I’m the type of person that is amiable. I’ll shrug off a lot of things because I know how people are simply different.
Anyways.. Lisa used to take care of this baby named Emma. Emma was just a few months younger than her own daughter. Immediately, those of us who went to Lisa’s house for a playdate would notice that poor little Emma would stay in her carseat almost the entire day. If she wasn’t in the carseat she was in the crib “taking a nap”. The only time Emma would leave one of those two places is when one of us moms played with her because all of us got so sick of seeing this injustice.
Let me put it frankly, Lisa is a lazy bitch. She’s extremely obese and absolutely exhausted all the time to take care of 2 little ones. Renee (Emma’s mom) bought a double stroller for Lisa to use to take the 2 babies out on beautiful days… did Lisa ever go out? No. Those babies stayed inside all the time. When there was an opportunity to leave, Lisa would bitch and moan that it’s too hard with 2 babies.. although all of us would offer to help.
Some of us moms spoke on the side and said that at least Emma will be able to crawl soon and then walk so we won’t have to worry about the carseat thing anymore. True, but then we had to worry that she was in the crib half a day.
Lisa is entirely unfit to taking care of anyone’s children. She ignores them, spends most of her days on the sofa, plays on the computer a majority of the time, and is generally an unhappy person who would break out into “fits”.
So why didn’t I tell Renee all this? Because I couldn’t. Lisa and I had a huge falling out, and if I told Renee the truth would she have believed me? I found out recently that Renee was warned by Lisa that many women may contact her and say bad things about her taking care of Emma. All of us were seriously tempted to, but were worried we would be sued for slander.
Lisa is not taking care of Emma anymore, Renee has finally seen the light. One of my friends has spoken to Renee candidly and has told her everything she saw at those playdates. Needless to say Renee feels horrible. My heart goes out to her because if I ever found out someone had wronged my child…. I would feel unfit myself and guilty as hell. Then I could get pissed and plot to beat the shit out of her behind the Piggly Wiggly.
So.. my moral dilemma. Lisa is looking for a new charge to take care of. I think she’s unfit, possibly abusive, and shouldn’t even be taking care of her own kid much less someone else’s. She’s taken out ads on craigslist, and I just want to call her out on it and warn everyone. Can I get in trouble for that? Should I even do it? I just don’t want to see another baby harmed.
I’m a different type of parent. I’m not up my kid’s ass all the time. She spends a good part of the day amusing herself and I spend my day working from home. I spend an hour or so with her in the afternoon and about 2 hours at night. I don’t talk to her constantly through the day, sometimes we’re quiet through lunch. I want her to be able to hear her own thoughts or maybe talk and share with me.
It’s amazing whats being said when you just shut up. I know so many mom’s who chat with her baby/child all day long or feel like they have to entertain them every minute of the day. When do you have time to clean the house? (By the way, that’s stay-at-home moms.. working moms are entirely different). Those moms are the same ones who only play children’s music in the house and in the car.. watch children’s programs only on TV, and pretty much surround them and their baby with academics, stimulation, and primary colors. Doesn’t that get old after a while?
Granted I’m not playing rap music and watching CSI with Little Bit, I do know what is acceptable for my little viewer and what’s not. But if I want to watch an episode of King of the Hill, well, I’m watching it.
Whoops. Got off on another rant.
Sometimes you make that connection with one woman who you identify with. Maybe you share some hobbies, parenting skills, or you can laugh with one another. It’s so important to have at least one mom you can be close friends with, so that when the chips are down you can call her up and cry.
It’s not bad all the time.. I made one connection to one mom out of all the other moms that I know. Her and I raise our kids basically the same way.. and when her and I differ on something we respect one another so much that we don’t say a word or we shrug and say “That’s cool”. That’s how it should be.
Maybe on my site other moms are making that connection with other moms, so they can find their kindred spirit.. or just the person to phone up crying and saying that they’re having a rough day. That’s why I keep up with this. Deep down inside I’m a softy.
What a hot topic that is… both on and off boards, but mainly on boards. One comment from a mom that anyone who doesn’t breastfeed is abusing their child and a total flame war begins. Formula moms say that they’re providing their infant with nutrition just as well as the breastfeeding moms. Breastfeeding moms call formula moms selfish and lazy. Ugh.. it’s a battle I’ve had to stop many times.
So what’s my stance? I could care less. I say, feed your baby, period. Do what you feel is best. Keyword here is YOU. Not your doctor because I think pediatricians are complete shit. I spend 24/7 with my baby and walk into an office where the doctor only knows my baby’s name right before he walks in the door and he has the balls to tell me that it’s ok to feed my baby solid foods now? Screw you dude, I’ve been doing it for a few months now because I felt she needed something more to fill her up than just liquid.
Just wait til I post on why Little Bit’s pediatrician dislikes me.
After going through this beautiful experience of having a child some women choose to breastfeed, maybe for a few weeks or maybe for a few years (I saw an 8yr old being breastfed, another post entirely). No matter how long the child is breastfed, the mother enters a fog. I think it’s due to hormones and the nutrition that it takes to making milk and basically supporting another human life (as if 9 months wasn’t enough).
But no matter, this fog.. this little gray cloud that looms over. It’s not an Eeyore type rain cloud, it’s simply a fog that you’re wading through. Your emotions are a little high, and you may end up doing things you wouldn’t normally do.. such as shop in the women’s section of a store, see a holiday sweater and hesitate to perhaps buy it. That’s a breastfeeding fog. Or maybe hanging out with a bunch of Bush supporters while you are clearly not. You get fired up when people question the way you raise your baby, but you shrug when people comment that you look like death warmed over. Suddenly you’re hanging out with women that you would not normally be friends with, but they have babies with the same age as yours.. and generally you all seem to get along.
Then, you decide that it’s time to stop breastfeeding. After 3 hours of stopping you feel empowered. After 12 hours of stopping you begin to feel guilty and consider of going back to it. After 24 hours you cry along with the baby. After a week both of you are doing better and you’re back to feeling empowered. Emotionally this is typically what happens, physically it’s a lot more than you think.
So after this week is completed, there’s a sudden change. You walk into the bathroom one morning and eyeball that red lipstick that you bought as a joke a few years ago. You never considered wearing it seriously until now. Why now? You’re clearing out of the fog. You sit down one evening and begin watching TV, and remember that you use to enjoy reading. You haven’t read in forever, you really haven’t felt like doing so until now. Wow.. what’s that sudden change? It feels like something has been lifted off of you.
That’s the fog blowing itself away. After a week or so, the world seems to change. You feel a little less heavy (metaphorically) and more airy. You feel a little more like your old self now. On one hand it’s fantastic, on the other there’s a slight horror. Who the hell have I been hanging out with? Who ARE those women? They’re crazy!
You realize then that the only thing you had in common with those women were the children, other than that.. you have nothing to discuss. And who really wants to sit around and talk about babies all day? Not me.
So I left that little group. They were pissed. They made fun of me, talked bad about me, and hell, still write about me to this day. They took it so personally that I wanted to do my own thing and didn’t want to “hang out” with them as often as I once used to. But how can you hang out with people you can’t talk to? They don’t share my interests or hobbies, hell, we don’t even raise our kids the same way. I was nice about not going over to their houses as often as I used to, they took it to an entirely different level. While I moved on.. they stayed there.
Oh well. I’m just glad to be out of that fog. It was a nasty thing to be in, but I didn’t realize I was in it until I was far gone out of it.
After having a baby and feeling all alone, many ladies sign up to a networking website and feel overjoyed to be part of a community and talk with other moms. Maybe they like to swap stories, pictures, and just chat to someone that doesn’t drool. Maybe they’re even excited to get out of the house.
We get this a lot. Women are overjoyed to find an online community and enthusiastically agree to playdates. What’s a playdate? A playdate is when you take your kid(s) to a lady’s house with her kid(s) and all the children romp around (babies roll around) and the moms snack, talk, and stay for an hour or two… or sometimes 6 hours.
Yea, 6 hours. Sick huh? When you’re in a breastfeeding fog, shit like that happens. I’ll save it for another post.
Anyways.. women agree to going to playdates. The mommy hostess is generally excited and elated that she’s opening her home, will fix a fabulous lunch, share recipes and chatter about the lovely pictures on the wall. Except what really happens is that everyone cancels….. save one. Me. I go. I go because she’s my friend, and I enjoy her company.
Fuck everyone else who canceled on her, which is a large amount of women. They blamed it on their kid, they blamed it on her, they blamed it on traffic… but none of them will really say why they cancel. Because they’re too lazy to get their fat asses off the couch and dress their kid. Or they have better things to do.. like going to Gymboree and buying clothes they can’t afford to go to places they say they’ll attend but end up canceling. But hey, they got a well-dressed child right?
These are shady mamas. Mamas that say “Little Sally has the sniffles.. I would hate to get other children sick.” Honey, the only person that’s sick around here is me.. of you.
Why do I keep up with all of this? I don’t know.. maybe a sick fascination with all of it. Or that I don’t have much going on in my life that this little bit of drama keeps things interesting. I have a lot more stories about all of this though… so much more that would make your head spin.
You should take a Dramamine.
For a few years now I have been an owner and operator of a major mother’s networking website. I started it when my own Little Bit (which is what I’ll call her from here on out) was just a few months old and I needed a place to meet other moms and socialize my baby. I had no idea what I was in for. I thought it would be easy… set up a website, get a group of moms together, talk about babies, get together a few times and everything would be hunky-dory.
Oh no. That wasn’t the case. I realized just a few months into this little social project of mine what happens when a group of women get together. It leads to disaster, implosion, feelings getting hurt, and broken friendships. You have a wide variety of women on a public board swapping advice but not reading what others have to say. They only want to say what they need said, check to see if others agree with them, and either defend their answer or lose interest and go on to the next topic.
Before I was pregnant I had social problems, not as great as they are now, but I had my difficulties. I want to make sure I don’t pass this down to my own Little Bit. Even my husband is worried that she could turn into having social issues because her own mother doesn’t like people. So that influenced me more to create this “group”. I forced myself to go out into the public. I went into some of these ladies’ homes and chatted with them while our children played. The more I went to them.. the more I despised people. The more I had to force myself, the more I just wanted to stay at home with Little Bit and not see anyone. That includes going to stores. Yea, the world is a tough place and I’m finding it harder and harder to leave my house. But I have to. For her, and maybe a little bit for me too.
As you can imagine, I have no friends to tell this to. My husband listens as much as he can but I know it’s frustrating for him to hear his wife having a problem with the outside world and now the Internet world. I find people so ridiculous. That’s why I’ve began this blog. I need to get it all out. I don’t need validation for my feelings, but I think by people reading it.. it feels more therapeutic than just writing it in a notebook where no one will ever read it. Plus, it’d be nice if someone got a chuckle out of my life.
