Some Good Reading

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I read 2 great posts over at Momastery.com this week that really have me thinking. The first was about mom-petition, titled Quit Pointing Your Avocado At Me. The author, Glennon, defines mom-petition as the feeling of judgement you perceive from other mothers surrounding your parenting skills and practices. For me mom-petition also can involve kids, because sometimes as moms we see the product of all parenting skills and practices and define ourselves by it. This part of mom-petition can sound like, "my kids is smarter, more athletic, taller, etc." but sometimes the comments are of the more subtle variety.

I am competitive by nature and I sometimes find myself in situations where mom-petition is lurking and I frequently get sucked in. There are even times that I can foresee myself in a mom-petition and amp myself up before hand to keep out of it. Do I succeed? Very rarely - I always seem to find myself getting sucked in. I hate it. And I completely dislike the person I am in those situations. My favorite line from Quit Pointing Your Avocado At Me comes near the end: "We can choose to see each other as competition or as fellow warriors – fighting the same fight on the same team."  As moms we each have our own goal to the best mom we can be, but we are all different, so the kind of moms we are is different as well. And as for the mom-petition that involves kids, I am going to interpret those, "My son is so ________ for his age" comments differently. Rather than feel like those moms are pitting their child against my child, in which case I turn into a mama bear defending my cub,  I am going to aim to be happy that those children are thriving and that they have moms that are extremely proud.

 It is my choice to be in the competition and if I don't play, there is no game. Thankfully it isn't too often I feel like I am in a mom-petition. My friends are the type who like to commend you on mom-things and who truly want to see all our kids be great. Still, those few times I do find myself in a mom-petition, I am going to sit on the bench and observe. Well, I'm going to try really hard to, anyway!

 The other post on Momastery.com was a guest post from Chrissy called, Not Your Typical Mom. I loved her pictures and story so much that I started reading her blog (you can see it in my blog list on the right-hand side).  I have actually read a number of her previous posts and am going to go back and read her blog from the beginning - that's how great I think it is. The last time I did this was with with Kelle Hampton's Enjoying the Small Things.

 Happy reading!


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