The Mom Crowd

We are homeschoolers.  We are also a family of five.  We also have a mommy that stays home.  That’s just a couple of the choices we have made.  Despite all of those being really great choices in my mind, sadly society on a whole judges us.  People wrinkle their brows and roll their eyes when they find out we homeschool.  They ask us why we wanted to have three kids when it is so expensive.  They ask me if I get bored working at home.

What I want to ask them is when did it become cool to judge other moms?  It is the single most horrible thing about being a mom when it comes to walking out of the house with your kids.  You are not only judged as a women (too fat, too thin, too mean, too flirty) you are now judged by the choices that you make as a mom.  Like I need another thing to worry about people.  I mean, I am trying to raise tiny humans for goodness sake.

I once met a really nice man who told me that “life is better when you embrace that there is unity in diversity.” Boy I wish that was a national motto in America and a few other places……………

In a world full of war, bullies and others who are trying to say that there view is the best and that you should think like them, saying that there is unity in the fact that we are all different is a big statement.  It is hard sometimes to understand why people feel so empowered to share their opinion but most of all I struggle with the fact that people seem to feel so empowered to share their opinion in front of my kids.

The other day I was talking to a lady who is new on the street.  She asked if my boys were sick.  This I assume was because it was 9:30am and my boys were outside, riding bikes and playing Nerf Guns and not at school.  I told her we homeschool and the boys had finished all of their work early today, so we decided to play for a while.  I got the usual one eyebrow up and the “wow you homeschool” look.

I told her that is was the most amazing experience and that she should not judge me for my choice because it was my choice.  She said she was not judging anyone but I told her “ya you kind of are.”  I had to call her out, I really felt like I had to stick up for my choice and my kid.

The thing was, my oldest was standing right there and wanted to know why that lady was acting like going to school at home was bad.  This prompted us to have to sit down and talk to him that going to school at home is not only just as good, if not better than going to school the way everyone else does and that her reaction was only because she didn’t understand that being different, well that being different is not a bad thing.

If we were all the same, then we would all be very limited in what we do, what we like and how we do these things.  It is because we are all different that we come together and learn from each other.  It’s a hard concept for kids to understand but sadly it is harder for adults to learn.  It is also sad that I cannot imagine not being judged by the other moms on the playground.  It is even more sad that I expect to see people roll their eyes when I say I homeschool.  We all know that being a mom means doing the work of like 40 by yourself so why do we not get the fact that it only makes it harder when we judge that other mom who is busting her booty to just get the kids to their play date?

When I became a mom the last thing in the world I wanted was to be judged.  Being a mom is hard enough and we all know that.  So why do we feel so obligated to judge other moms.  Can’t we just appreciate that they are just trying to make the best choices for their family?  Their family is not mine, so why would I want to pass judgement on them when I don’t know what it is like to be them?  I think it is possible but it is going to mean that we all put each other in check.  Moms need to mom up and when they have that other mom roll their eyes at them for having their 4 year old use a sippy cup, we need to say that we all make our own decisions and that’s okay.

So take the pledge a embrace your choices.  Just like you tell your kids that the kid that called them stupid is really the stupid one, don’t be afraid to stand up and say that you made a choice and it was right for you.  Be proud of your choices.  You made them for a reason right!?