A quick addendum to last week’s entry. We took a little family drive into the wilds of Central NJ, yesterday, and fell in love with a couple of the little country towns that are just outside of Princeton. I grew up in Northern New Jersey and have always said I’d never move back, but one thing I will not deny about NJ is that its pretty parts are really pretty. (Writer’s note: You can only make fun of NJ if you grew up there, so edit comments accordingly!) We stopped for lunch at the local tavern in one of these quaint little towns and fell in love with the Main Street USA feel of the place. This whole moving idea is really growing on us, even if it can’t happen for a little while.

But I digress. This week’s entry is about “mompetition.” You know what I’m talking about. It’s the seemingly constant competition that goes on between some moms. I’ve had an unusually high amount of exposure to it in the last week, so I figured I would share. Here’s a few stories from the trenches that took place over the last few days.

- I was talking to some local moms about daycare options in the neighborhood and I mentioned where my son goes for daycare. The other two women looked horrified and one asked how old my son was. “12 Weeks,” I said. “And he’s in DAYCARE???,” she replied. “Yes, he just started this week,” I said. “Oh, well I guess that’s okay, then.” Ok?? She was just starting to look into daycare for her 2 year old daughter, “for socialization.” I was taken aback by the judgment I was facing for going back to work at the time when most mothers go back to work after having a baby. I tried to keep an open mind and not judge these women as the conversation continued, but as they complained about lack of money, lack of adult time, and issues with their children’s social behavior, I wanted to wag a finger and say, “See why daycare can be a good thing?!?!” But I also didn’t want to be a hypocrite…

- In another conversation with a different acquaintance, we were discussing the rigors of breastfeeding. (She had chosen not to BF at all, I am currently BF’ing but supplementing with formula due to supply issues.) I confessed that while I’d love to continue giving Charlie as much breastmilk as possible throughout his first year, I feared that I might not be able to keep it up past six months. My fear is that I can’t keep up my frenzied pace of herbal supplements, pumping, and feeding, but I never got to explain because her next comment was, “Because it’s so miserable and you feel like a total cow right now, RIGHT?!” Um no, actually. I sort of love that Charlie and I have this special bond and have our own moments together every day. It’s actually what makes me keep up my regimen. But thanks for assuming that I don’t want to do something great for my son because it made you think of a farm animal so you assume it should make everyone else think that way, too.

- Certain female relatives have made numerous comments about the fact that we cloth diapers, expressing amazement that I’ve “kept up with the laundry” or that they look so much easier to use than they’d imagined. It’s not so much the comments, themselves, but their frequency is a little much. I might not be Susie Homemaker, but two extra loads of laundry each week is really not that big of a deal. It almost seems as if they want me to throw in the towel with CD’ing because they couldn’t see themselves doing it, so how could anyone else?

I get why mompetition exists. In most circumstances, women just want to have shared experiences with one another. So we seek out women who have the same views on certain aspects of motherhood, and in doing so create the impression that we are measuring ourselves against each other when really we are just trying to find out which moms are most like us. But very often, we say things that hurt each other, even if it’s unintentional. And I say, “We” because I’m sure I’ve been guilty of it, too. I can’t honestly say I’ve never judged another mother for her personal decisions on how to raise her child, but I do my best to check myself when that happens and realize that there are many ways to raise a child.

My dream world would be one in which women supported each other in a number of ways, including as mothers. But with so many of us being Type A personalities, it’s hard to resist the urge to compete. I’m sure I will have experiences that are far worse than the ones I mentioned in this entry, but all I can do is control my own behavior and just smile and nod when someone tries to one-up me in the mommying department.

What sort of mompetition trials and tribulations have you had to endure? How did you handle it? Share your stories!