The Mom Crowd

We all do it. Some of us do it on purpose every single day while the others do it on accident. When you become a mother, you become aware of other things that you did not recognize before. The amount of women with

children in grocery stores. The types of cars mothers drive. How you want to look as a mother and how you don’t want to look as a mother. So we all have done the mom vs mom comparison but how often do we do it and why we do it are the true questions.

How often we do it depends on these factors:

• Job – Do you stay at home or do you go to work? What type of job is it? Staying at home will offer endless opportunities to view other moms around you at playdates, school, social meetups with the children. While as the mothers who attend a 9-5 daily job will not get to see how the mothers act around their kids.

• Social Circle – A mom who has a circle of friends that are moms allows ample opportunities to compare herself. A mother who is the only mom of the group will be comparing herself to her kidless friends; which is not a fair comparison.

• How many Kids- Mothers that have more than 1 kid will have extra time to compare. If one mother goes to one soccer game that night and the other goes to two; then she has an extra hour and a half to compare.

Why we do it depends on these factors:

• Appearance – How did she get to be so skinny and I still have baby weight? Simple because we are all humans and not one human is alike. Why is that mom dressed in a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants…would it kill her to put on actual clothes? You have no idea what kind of day that mother has had. Maybe she has 6 kids that were all up last night and that was all she could manage at the moment. At least she has clothes on!

• Status – Did you see that mom’s purse? Is she crazy to bring that into a elementary school! Look at that car she is driving…that can’t be safe.

• Child- This is the worst. We judge the mom off of the child when we know nothing about their situation. We all know that kids are kids. They all have their moments and we do too. Just because a child is having a meltdown in aisle 4 of the grocery store does not mean that is how they typically act.

So why do we do this mom vs mom comparison to ourselves and each other? There is no one right way to be a mother. She may be better at some things but you are better at others. There is not a mother I know that is perfect and we should not try to be. Learning and accepting who we are will help each of us understand that there is not an award for “Best or Worst Mother.”

Written By: Courtney C., The Mom Crowd Contributor