Photo by Editor B
The following is a guest post written by (my dear friend) Caroline Starr Rose of Caroline by line.
My husband brought in the mail and held out a small envelope -- a gift certificate for my soon-to-be birthday boy. Just a few days before I’d gotten a phone call from the friend who’d sent it, telling me her children wouldn’t be able to attend his party.
My first response wasn’t how thoughtful she had been to send a gift along anyway. It was the realization I’d never even think to do anything half as kind. Her small gesture became a measuring rod of motherly devotion, one that exposed how far below her I ranked on the adequacy scale.
What is it about motherhood that brings out the worst in us?
For all the beauty that flows from it, why do we so deeply feel the need to compare our mothering with others? And how is it that when the topic turns to working mothers, stay-at-home moms, or those who do a bit of both, how is it so easy to ooze ugliness about decisions different from our own?
I’ve been a mom now for a decade, and during those years I’ve stayed at home, taught full time, and written children’s books from a home office. In other words, I’ve fiddled with the work/home ratio in a variety of ways.
Here are some not-so-flattering things I’ve learned about myself (and other moms) along the way:
1. Difference brings out the desire to condemn.
As kind as we are publicly with mothers who don’t “do” work as we do, private conversations with like-minded mothers can be downright cruel. I’ll confess that when I stayed home, I sometimes thought working moms were selfish and their kids were neglected.
And when I returned to the classroom, I wondered along with other teachers what those at-home ladies did all day.
I mean, sometimes they were still in their pajamas in the morning drop off line! (I may or may not occasionally hustle my own boys to school while wearing something fuzzy and decidedly meant for nighttime.)
Somehow pointing out the limitations of mothers who handled life differently than I eased up on the guilt I felt about my own flaws.
Photo by Evil Erin
2. Difference highlights our own inadequacies.
I’m no supermom. I’ve yet to perfect my work-from-home-while-mothering game plan. There are times I realize I haven’t given my boys my full attention until almost bedtime.
So when a friend with only good intentions does something thoughtful for my son, it’s easy for me to immediately qualify her as “just” a stay-at-home mom, someone who doesn’t have the extra challenge of balancing dinner and editorial letters, copyedits and soccer games, someone who’s downright luxuriating in extra time I don’t have.
But if I’m honest with myself, the way I handle missed birthday parties wouldn’t change if I suddenly was handed extra hours in the day or if my work load sharply decreased. I’m not wired like my friend.
It’s not good or bad. It just is.
3. Difference exposes our fears.
There are so many legitimate, beneficial ways to parent, and yet I often find myself unsure of the choices I make.
Because, honestly, isn’t not parenting “right” our deepest fear?
What would happen if we didn’t make others’ decisions a commentary on our own parenting abilities? What if -- to our cores -- we could support those who parent differently than we do?
There would be a lot of grace to go around. We’d all be on the same team. And we could finally cut ourselves some slack and more fully enjoy this amazing thing called motherhood.
*How have you wrestled with the comparison trap since becoming a mother?*
Caroline Starr Rose blogs about writing, reading, and the publication process at Caroline by line. Her debut historical novel-in-verse, MAY B., releases January 10, 2012.
