Friday’s Rants from the Soap Box in my Living Room!

Welcome to my Friday’s Rants from the Soap Box in my Living Room. A small space in the week where I can have a chunter about things that have made me twitch with annoyance or made me question if the world has gone mad or not….
I also  linked up with MummyBarrow for her Ranty Friday. You can find her blog and link up here if you’d like to join in. A good rant can be therapeutic. Click on the link at the end to join in!

I was going to rant about buying clothes for my children, this week, but that can keep for next week.

My rant is short this week. I am not feeling that well, the tummy bug that hit Small Boy last weekend, that has been galloping round our local community seems to have decided to visit me, and I feel pretty grim, but can still rant, so not that bad! 🙂

I am over parents judging other parents. I know, sometimes it is difficult not to judge someone, for their actions, and there are definitely parents out there, who do appalling things to their children, and pushc judged and dealt with, by the appropriate authorities. What I am talking about, is mother’s, judging other mothers. Before I had children, I thought I knew how to parent, what parenting choices I would make, and how good I would be at the whole parenting act, and I would look at people with their children and think “I will never do that with my kids” “or I won’t be like that, or make that choice” and THEN I actually had children and realised what a hard 24/7/365 job it is, and that I actually didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and it came back to bite me hard, that I had judged other parents, as I tried to juggle life, a new baby, then two children as Small Boy joined our family.

All of us are doing our best, some of us do things one way, some of us choose other ways. If children are loved, nurtured, cared for, provided for, given the best that their parents can manage, and their parents are doing what they think is best for their families (which most are, obviously there are exceptions, but I am talking generally, not about specific issues like child abuse, drugs, neglect etc)

It isn’t up to me to judge how another mother feeds her baby, what type of nappies/diapers she uses on her babies, what educational choices she makes for her children, what clothes brands she chooses to dress them in, if she uses a pushchair, or a baby sling, or anything else. If she is loving her baby, and doing the best and what works for her family, then that is all that matters. We chose certain parenting lifestyle choices. That doesn’t make me any better, or any less than any other mother. What we practiced worked for us. I have many friends who did things differently. They have happy, healthy, thriving children. If you put our kids together, you wouldn’t be able to tell which ones co-slept, which ones were formula fed, which ones were in a free school, which ones are home schooled, which ones parents worked, and which ones stayed at home, because they are normal, well-adjusted children.

I have seen no less than 4 Facebook posts, in the past week,  where someone has felt judged, or where someone has judged someone else, or posted something that would make mothers, doing their best, feel like they really are inferior.  I have seen comments on Twitter, and I was at the group that Small Boy and I go to, last Monday, and overheard two mothers ripping another mother apart, because she has chosen to return to work early. Really, we need to mind our own business, parent our own children, to the best of our abilities, and stop picking apart other people’s choices! This parenting malarkey is hard, and we should be standing together, not picking each other apart, helping each other, not criticising other’s choices.

Judgy mothers, get over yourself, go parent your own kids!

That is all! Normal service will resume!

This blog post is dedictated to my friend, Leah. Not only did she face a very difficult time, when her own little girl (same age as Big Girl) was born, when both of them nearly died, and then spent a long time dealing with health issues, but now she cares for and fosters other children, and is loving and dedicated and works so hard and has a huge heart. She and I have done many parenting things differently, but I am in AWE of her, and her strength. She is doing something , which many wouldn’t be able to do! I know she will probably tell me off for gushing publicly, but I wanted to honour her, and recognise her hard work!