Mean Girls, Mean Moms

Sometimes, it’s fun to indulge in guilty pleasures. The other day, I was enjoying such a minute (well, actually 96 minutes to be exact) as I watched the movie “Mean Girls.”  I know this movie is aimed at a much younger, much less matronly demographic than a pudgy-40-year-old, but still, I enjoyed the movie.  As I was watching the angst of teen drama and pressure to perform in front of friends, I started to think about the pressure so many of us felt when we were that age.  “They” always say the teen years are so hard, but I have to say, the early mommy years can be just as hard.

There’s a scene in the movie when two students are telling the new girl the layout of the lunch room and telling her where it’s okay to sit and where it’s not.  They break the tables down in to common teen cliques…jocks, nerds, math geeks, etc.  Of course they use much funnier descriptions, but it’s a pretty accurate description of teen cliques.

If you thought we outgrew those cliques when we got out of high school, you’re wrong.  I started thinking, what if a movie called “Mean Moms” were made?  What would the lunch room in that movie look like?

• Don’t sit there…those are the moms who don’t nurse.
• Don’t sit there…those are the moms who buy plastic toys.
• Don’t sit there…those are the moms who use cloth diapers.
• Don’t sit there…those are the moms whose babies don’t sleep thru the night.
• Don’t sit there…those are the moms who spank.
• Don’t sit there…those are the moms who breastfeed until age 4.
• Don’t sit there…those are the moms who don’t make their own baby food.
• Don’t sit there…those moms have kids whose clothes don’t match.
• Don’t sit there…those moms have kids who throw temper-tantrums at the supermarket.
• Don’t sit there…those are the moms who can’t seem to put makeup on or do their hair in the morning.
• Don’t sit there…those are the moms who say everything is “Fine” when we know it’s not.
• Do sit there…those are the “in” moms who do everything exactly like they should.

It’s easy to want to be in the “in” crowd of moms.  These are the moms who look perfectly put together, who act perfectly put together and who talk as if everything is perfectly put together, but I’ll let you in on a secret…everything isn’t perfectly put together.  Know how I know???  Because Motherhood is messy.

As we get older, we can look back on high school and see that the mean girls who teased and flaunted and back-stabbed were often nothing but insecure, frightened young girls, doing what they could to survive the jungle of high school by convincing everyone (including themselves) that what they deep-down fear about themselves isn’t true.

Why can’t we carry this perspective into motherhood?

Think about this…the mom against whom you feel less than standard, the mom who is always telling you what the latest parenting magazine has to say about co-sleeping (or any other buzz topic), or the mom who makes you feel like you’re just not doing enough (“What?  Your child is two and isn’t playing Mozart on the piano, speaking three languages and eating eggplant and capers? What kind of mother are you???”) …isn’t it possible that she is nothing but an insecure, frightened mom, doing what she can to convince herself of her own worth in the jungle of parenthood?

I guess my point is that mean girls often grow up into mean moms.  The kind who think that if you are doing something different from what they do, then you’re not “normal.”  They want you to parent exactly like they do and if you do anything different, they’ll make sure you know it’s different, thereby implying that it’s not acceptable.  Just like you can look back at high school now and see the motives that drove those mean girls, we moms need to look at our parenting insecurities and apply the same perspective and not worry about what another mother is or isn’t doing.

Motherhood requires grace.  Not only toward your child, but grace toward yourself.  You won’t do everything perfectly.  You will mess up.  And some people will notice.  But give yourself some grace. Stop comparing yourself to those other mothers who act like everything is perfect.

-posted by Donna Venning, a homeschooling mom of three who when asked how she is doing, sometimes says “Fine”, even when she isn’t.