When I first started down the path of an Attachment Parent, I remember thinking that the competition between moms was bizarrely fierce. Like, the kind of fierce that was way more about the moms than it was about the kids.
A conversation could start about what do you feed your kids for breakfast, and eventually someone would post about how they basically make everything by hand and baby is never fed anything less than 100% organic homemade food. And this would always seem to carry the mom's belief that if you didn't do what she did, you weren't as devoted. Now, hey, if you've got the time, good on you. But it doesn't make you better than anyone else around here trying to get the job done. Pop Tarts may not be the Breakfast of Champions, but if I'm really sick and my kids need to eat, I'll toss them a box and call it good. I know. I'm spectacular.
So what is it about us moms that makes us so competitive with each other? Why is it that our opinion can't just be ours, but has to be accepted as the right one? Can I say again that there's no trophy here?
I think what it comes down to is that we have so much invested in what we do as parents, that we sometimes have to believe that what we're doing is the absolute best way, and if others can't see that, it threatens what we believe. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I know that the intense passion we put into the family that we love can sometimes come across as overbearing to others.
Since there's no trophy and no winning in motherhood, I wish some of the super competitive moms could just take a step back and enjoy. For serious.
