Parenting

I feel like Mom vs Mom on parenting style is so rampant in this area. You're not doing it right! You're not doing enough! You're neglectful! What?? You didn't breastfeed!?? What?? You don't co sleep anymore, or wear your 5 month old in a sling at all hours?? You use chemicals to clean your house? You don't hold your baby for the night feeding? You put your baby in anti-attachment parenting bouncy walker things!?  It's like if I don't know you really well, I say nothing on these topics. But even the people I know really well it seems like I am getting judged silently but I do it back and I hate myself for letting my thoughts go there.

For example, I know this Finnish Tiger Mom who has her 4 year old in violin lessons. I just can't imagine that a 4 year old actually wants to and likes taking violin, not to mention has the attention span for it. He not only cannot appreciate expensive music lessons at his age, but he will grow to hate it like every other kid I know that was forced to take a musical instrument, myself included. It was not until college that I wished I could go back and take piano lessons, because I love playing and it's very relaxing. This 4 yr old also takes Mandarin, speaks Finnish at home and is going to go to a Spanish immersion kindergarten or preschool or something. Are you serious?? What about soccer or tee ball, good old fashion outdoor sports? I think that this overachieving never ends in a positive ever. Even Rosie Pope brought in a Tiger Baby, an Asian woman, who said that once her career tanked due to the economy so did every thing else in her life including her marriage because she only knew how to love herself based on her work accomplishments, sad.

I guess it's the whole entitlement generation that I am part of, where people just think they should have things not caring if they can afford it. Thinking and depending on government to take care of you, etc. (I am 100% against that which is why I did not and will not vote for Obama or any socialist border line communist like him but I digress...) The entitlement of this generation goes so far as to effect  family planning, Nature has a way of telling each of us when our reproduction time is over. There are many families of  3 these days. For whatever reason it may be, just be happy with what you have. And most importantly if you can't afford 2, 3 4, 5 kids WHY KEEP HAVING THEM?

Now I really have to rant about this old high school friend she has 5 kids that's right 5! She is so far right wing conservative bible thumping fanatical Christian, that she home schools all her kids to shelter them and teach them everything Bible and Chirstian. For example, Dinosaurs were made on the 5th day or something like that so they are not millions of years older than humans, forget science and carbon dating! Anyhow, I thought she would be done at 4 so when she texted me that she was pregnant again I was a little disgusted. I don't know why I had that reaction, maybe because I know that this woman bases her self worth on how many kids she can pop out.  She is so unbelievably unhappy that she turns to having babies to satisfy her existence. She even admitted to me that she is "addicted to babies."  She comes from a broken home so when she found Jesus after senior year of high school she got sucked in because she didn't have a stable family life to go home to and now she can't turn back. I wonder if she knows how brainwashed she is?

Ok so this story I am going to tell is about going to a  kids park for a mini high school reunion this past Monday.  The mother of 5 kids, called ahead to Happy Hollow to make a group reservation because she HAD to bring her nanny because she can't possibly handle all 5 kids by herself and I guess with a family as big as hers she can't afford to go to theme parks and such unless they get discounts, or I guess you just always look for discounts with that many people/kids. Anyhow the rest of us all showed up at 10:15am which was when our group was scheduled to get in, so when the Crazy-Christian-Mom-of-5 didn't show up by 10:45 we went in without her.  2 of the other mom's had yearly passes so they didn't  have to pay either, which, long story short, we didn't have enough people to qualify for the discount. When I told Mom of 5 via text message that we went in and that we couldn't get the group discount anyhow she wrote back "bummer that cost me $50."  Then I texted her a few minutes later to let her know we were going to the petting zoo and she was like "we're not coming". We other Moms were all surprised, and she proceeded to tell me in another text that she thought it wasn't very nice that we didn't wait for her. In our defense, she was an hour late at that point, it was super hot and little kids just don't sit and wait. I also then asked her how she figured $50 because we only figured a difference of $25, and in the end it was really $42 but she didn't have to bring her nanny or a 2nd car.

So here is the irony and the best part of the story. 2 years ago she was somewhat bragging to me about how she bought her husband a $60k Porsche for his birthday!!!  AND SHE COULDN'T PAY THE EXTRA $42 !???? Perfect example of reproducing just because she can and not because they can afford them.  That is her entitlement, based off "God's will to have as many kids as He sees fit for us". Do I really have to go on about why this doesn't work in our area, the most liberal and expensive area in the country?

Anyhow, the other 3 Moms, my old high school friends are all doing fabulous! Our parenting styles are all the  same. And in our chat we came to find out none of us breast fed past 3 months for one reason or another. We talked about our old school, and how if we could afford it we would put our kids there in a heartbeat! It's a K-12 private school but it's VERY expensive. I'm just amazed at how good I feel after I see my friends from growing up. It is so easy to be around them to talk without feeling judged. There is just something about old friends. One of the Moms lives 8 minutes from us, so we get together more and more, she is also a stay at home mom with a daughter who is 20 months old and it's just so fun. I could sit on her couch or at the park with her all day!