Such a bad mom...?

From over here, it looks like you might be a bad mother.

Sometimes I feel like that's what other people are thinking of me. I don't believe it's true, but women can be very judgemental and critical, and well, sometimes I just wonder if they are being critical of my parenting style.

Today at the park was a great example--especially following Ada's fall down the back steps yesterday (my neighbor probably thought we were awful to let her stand on the stairs on her own. Gasp, oh the horror!) We're at the park--a tiny neighborhood park on Belmont that isn't much bigger than the size of a standard house lot so maybe 30 feet wide by 120 deep. There are over 20 kids and their moms or dads or nannies and their strollers. It's a lot to take in and I'm clearly over stimulated. Moms on cell phones. Kids eating snacks. Toys being borrowed, stolen, and fought over. Pretty close to full-on chaos.

We've been at the park for about 15 minutes. I'm yawning and daydreaming when all of a sudden I hear a mom squeal and look to see that Ada has run under a swing and got kicked in the face by the woman's child. Everybody is fine. One minute of screaming and all is right with the world. Too bad Obama doesn't have it that good. Then about ten minutes later she ran straight into a railing at forehead height for the ramp up to the jungle gym. The same mothers saw her do both. And they saw me watch her do both, or watch me not watch her in the first case.

To that I just say "So what?" This is a big city. When am I going to see those moms again?

Moral of the story: Don't be too quick to judge other moms, and don't worry if they are quick to judge you. Focus your energy on being a good mom.