Postcards from the Edge

POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE—OF PARENTHOOD
THE FAMILY GROOVE'S RESIDENT MOM-ENTATOR, SASHA BROWN-WORSHAM REPORTS ON
THE MADNESS OF MOTHERHOOD

MEAN MOMS

In the eight months since my daughter's birth, I have been regularly courting several fellow new moms.
We go to coffee together, movies and visit each other's houses. We assess compatibility over the phone,
through emails and during long walks in the park.

This is the closest I have come to dating since I was last single 10- years-ago. I get the jittery first date flutters anew. I try to make a good impression. I wonder what to wear, eternally seeking the right mix of cute and capable, lest she think my focus is on something other than my child—all this and a nine-month-old that barely naps—can get exhausting.

Postcards from the Edge

When relationships with other moms are good, they are great. To whom else could we say, "My kid had that same rash", "Three o'clock in the morning is a perfect time to wake up" and "that poop stain goes well with your brown blouse" and get only compassion, empathy and smiles? There is nothing like a fellow mom with whom you can commiserate, cry and share sob stories. Nobody gets it like the woman whose breast is also attached to a small human's mouth for upwards of 10 hours a day.

Unfortunately, these relationships are not always good. And when they are bad, they are awful. Two weeks into the whole parenting thing, I joined a new mom's group. I saw it as an opportunity to get to know my fellow new moms and to share some of the experiences . It was also was an opening to escape the confines of my house in the wintertime. But, as with any group of women, there was a sniper in the bunch.

"Are you going to put your baby in a car seat?" she asked me when I left the group one day, as my baby snuggled in her sling against my belly. I looked at her, puzzled. Had I shaved my head, hung out with Paris Hilton and gone pantiless in front of paparazzi? Was I married to Kevin Federline? No. Because I am not Britney Spears. And yes, I use a car seat. Duh. I just use the convertible kind, the kind that never leaves the car.

"I just wondered," she said. "You know it is illegal not to." Duh, again, I felt like saying. Instead I smiled and thanked her for the advice—even though I instantaneously felt shamed and humiliated. What had given her the impression that I would compromise my new daughter's safety? The next time I saw her I came armed with a response. I managed to work the word "Britax" into the conversation at least 12 times. She smiled. I had passed the test. And then? "I overheard you last week tell another mom that you read an article about immunizations causing autism. I hope you are planning on getting the shots. I mean, that is the only responsible thing to do."

I felt slightly violated. Not only had she eavesdropped, she'd called me out as an irresponsible parent—again. I guess she wanted to clarify three things: 1.) She was smart 2.) She knew a lot more about parenting (even though our children were two weeks apart) and 3.) She was a lunatic.

"I just that I want to help," she explained when I complained about this drive- by-attack of smug. Who was she to tell me how to parent my child? Was I telling her that the green overalls she had her son in made him look like a Glo-Worm?

I decided to ignore the woman and chalk it up to one person's personality defect. But then it happened again two weeks later when another "helpful" mother stopped me in the hall outside of my gym's daycare.

"Do you put your baby in there?" she asked, still out of breath from her workout and glistening as the light reflect ed the sweat beads on her toned shoulders. I cautiously nodded, because I had quickly learned that the gym's daycare was the subject of much debate and scrutiny among my fellow mothers.
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"Do you like it?" she asked. The question seemed innocuous enough. Maybe she was considering putting her own daughter into the daycare occasionally. So I told her that yes, I liked the daycare and that while it was not Stanford, the women were nice and it gave me an opportunity to work-out for an hour on the days when my daughter was well-behaved.

Blinking her eyes, this assassin in spandex revealed her nature quickly. "Oh I was not asking because I would put my child there," she said. "It just seems so unsafe and unsanitary. I leave my baby with her nanny."

This was not a friendly gab session after all. It was another battle in the mommy wars—not the ones fought between the working moms and the stay at homes moms, but the one fought between the mothers who are trying to get it right with sagacity and the mothers who want to prove their own worth by destroying another's. In fact, the playgroup, the gym, the bike path—anywhere that two mothers might rumble—have all become battlefields. I have learned to tread lightly, avoiding the landmines planted by my crafty enemies.

I guess I should not be surprised. Women have been antagonistic to one another since the dawn of time. I am pretty sure Adam and Eve were alone because Eve killed off the other women in the Garden of Eden long before she had the chance to tempt any men with fruit. Women are cold and mean sometimes, but it hurts most when you need them. And never had I craved female friendship as I did in those months following the birth of my child, when I felt like I might never be normal again. So, why are we so mean to each other? Insecurity? Jealousy? Do women feel like they need to cut each other down to feel good about themselves?

At least in the dating world, men wait until at least the third date before revealing their third nipple or other oddities. The meanness is saved until two people know each other well enough to care. But in the world of mommy dating, the claws come out on first sight.

It needs to end!

I propose a truce: an end to the madness (and the meanness). We need each other. Parenting is an exercise in super human strength. We need to find patience where there is none, humility in lieu of pride and kindness when we want to give someone the brush-off. So, I ask simply, "Can't we all just get along?" After all, one day that mom who forgot a pair of socks for their toddler may be the same person holding the flask when you are dying for a drink. And accusing her of neglect is not the way to get it.

—Sasha Brown-Worsham

Sasha Brown-Worsham is a mother and freelance writer who lives in Boston, MA where she writes and
chases her suddenly mobile daughter around the house.