Judge and be judged

-This post might sound extremely angst filled and pissy. It probably is but is not directed to anyone who is reading this-

Cognitive dissonance occurs when there is a pre-conceived notion of how something ought to be done and how it is actually done in actuality. This disparity creates a great amount of tension and often the tension is resolved by justifying why their way is right and why the way it has been done by others is wrong. This allows one to reconcile his own beliefs with what is going on in the world even if it means denial, paranoia or outright condemnation of others around them.

Every mother enters motherhood with a set of ideas and a belief system with which they will attempt to bring up their children with. They get these ideas from friends, books, the web and so on and so forth. But any woman who has already had a child would attest to the fact that more often than not, parenting books make one feel like a failure, the web has too much information that it often confuses rather than inform and friends, well, friends and family are often all too happy to offer advice on how the new mom should approach situations where she has had no prior experience in. Most of the time, this advice is well-meaning and well-intended. The problem however is this strange phenomenon where the advice spewing mother takes personal offence when the advice she so kindly provided is ignored. When this occurs, the new mother is judged.

And hell hath no fury than a mother whose advice is scorned.

It is something that puzzles me because it seems like these mothers forget that regardless of what they say and do, the one who deals with the fallout of either listening or not listening to them is the new mom. This has happened to me a great number of times in varying intensities.

Most recently, I have seen rather extreme reactions to what must have been seen as flagrant disobedience on my part.

I have been told that my going back to work full time will scar the children for life because I will, most definitely neglect them and leave them in the arms of strangers. This will inadvertently develop into future relationship issues between mother and children and should I want to avoid that, I should do as I am being told to, which is to stay pregnant and barefoot at home.

I have also been sternly told that going on holiday with my husband, without my children is a sin almost punishable by death because once again, it's neglect and reflects how selfish I am to put my own interest ahead of my children. I am just waiting for someone to tattle on me and tell child services.

Wanting to wean my children off the night feeds and train them to sleep through the night warrants the battle call for others to rise up in arms against my suggestion and hurl accusations of my wanting to starve my own children. It's brilliant how some minds work.

Last but definitely not the least is breastfeeding. First I get flak because I decided that I would give my babies one formula feed. I am warned that it is something I MUST NOT get addicted to (milk powder- the new heroin). Then I am tsk-ed at for not feeding direct because breast milk fresh from the source has much more nutrition than expressed milk. Then, when I whine in exhaustion about getting up in the middle of the night to express, I am chided for putting my beauty sleep ahead of my children's health. There's really no winning with the almighty mothers out there.

So what happens? The grand plans of being a mother in my own right seem to disappear. Others seem pleased that I [arent according to their rules. Am I happy? Of course not. Will I choose my own way eventually? Yes. Do I get angry? Must you ask?

It hasn't been long. I am sure those out there that cannot wait to contribute their two cents worth will continue to do so at any opportunity. They will also be as quick in condemning perceived disobedience. Through all this, one thing becomes blindingly clear. The main focus of the rapid fire judgements is not what it should be, that is the welfare of the child/children. Because, if it were, they would be able to discern between those who are really going to screw up their children and those who are trying their darndest to make the best out of a sometimes shitty situation. The main focus becomes cattle prodding the mother in the direction they so desire. Who cares about anything else really? Because at the end of the day, it is about how they were right and I/ we are wrong. At the end of the day, it's basically "Kids? What kids?"

Bah.