The degree of support I’ve felt from the online mothering community over the years has been amazing. When I was a newbie mom and newbie blogger, people came out of the woodwork to offer support, encouragement and kind, thoughtful advice. I knew I was never alone in my mission to raise my children to reach their potential, even when my husband was deployed and the rest of our families were thousands of miles away. I have the great good fortune to now pay it forward here within the HDYDI community.
Mommy Esq.’s three lovely children and my two loud ones enjoyed breakfasting together.
I’ve made lifelong friends online. A lot of people I know think it’s a little creepy to take my kids and meet up with “strangers” from the internet, but they’re not strangers. There’s an honesty to my relationships in blogosphere that I strive to achieve in my real-life relationships. Just yesterday, my daughters and I spent the day at the Texas State Fair with Mommy Esq. and her family. They welcomed us into their home and lives with open arms and hearts. Mommy Esq. was an online friend of years, but has been a “real-life friend” for only months. It’s quite something to see our children begin to develop similarly deep friendships with each other.
My twins are my first and only children. The greatest mothering lesson they taught me, as soon as I was able to see them at around 36 hours old, was that there is no one right way to parent. M has different needs than J does. Their father meets those needs differently than I do. There’s no right and wrong, only my way and other ways, as long as there is love, goodwill, open-mindedness, and patience.
Certainly, there are parents who harm their children, from ignorance, incapacity, lack of will or, rarely, malevolence. Sadly, I have observed the effects of neglect and abuse, and children of those parents need us to step up and contact the authorities, serve as foster parents, and be ready to adopt them if need be. Those parents are rare, though, and they’re not going to take your advice anyway. Why waste energy on doing anything but sharing what worked for you and taking advice from others that might work for you?
Imagine my dismay to get online last night to discover that while I had been relishing a gorgeous friendship born online, one of the mothering communities in which I participate, The Official Group of National Organization of Mothers of Twins Clubs, Inc. had blown up in judgment over breastfeeding, of all things. Honestly, I couldn’t be bothered to read back through all the ugliness, but from what I could glean, a male non-member had communicated his feeling that breastfeeding images were sexual, and moms had lined up to judge and attack each other. Breastfeed. Don’t breastfeed. Some moms can’t breastfeed, so no one should ever discuss breastfeeding. Breastfeed in public. Never breastfeed in public. Share breastfeeding images proudly. Never ever ever share a photo of your child at your breast. If you don’t tandem nurse, you’re a bad MoM.
Stop it, I say. End the Mommy Wars.
Mommy Esq. and I decided that at least one photo of the two of us was in order. The sangria was a nice treat at the car show.
Our children do not need us to feel judged and defensive. They don’t need us to judge and offend. They need their parents and other mentors and role models to talk to each other, to figure out what works for each parent-child pair. They need us to celebrate the differences between our families and our parenting styles, not condemn all who do it differently than we choose to or must.
I am deeply thankful that in all the years I have been part of the HDYDI community, first as a lurker, then as a commenter, then as a guest poster, next as a contributor and, most recently, as the coordinator, I haven’t seen anything but support for the MoMs and DoMs out there. Thank you all for making this a safe place to discuss and explore how we can best parent our individual, unique, extraordinary children within our individual, unique, extraordinary life circumstances.
And I beg the moms of the NOMOTC Facebook group to remember what brought us together in the first place. Bring the kindness back. Let the hurt and anger go. End the Mommy Wars. Don’t worry about who’s right, only about what’s right for you.
End the Mommy Wars.
Sadia (rhymes with Nadia) has been coordinating How Do You Do It? since late 2012. She is the divorced mother of 7-year-old monozygotic twins, M and J. She lives with them and their 3 cats in the Austin, TX suburbs and works full time as a business analyst. She retired her personal blog, Double the Fun, when the girls entered elementary school and also blogs at Adoption.com and Multicultural Mothering.
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