I posted a question yesterday in a multiples support group asking if anyone ever hired a night nurse or other kind of help. I didn't feel the need to give any context to my post: 6 kids under 4, no family in town, husband works shift, etc. I just kind of naturally assumed that a group of moms of multiples would understand this kind of question. The first response was "Ha! No." Ouch, that one kind of hurt a bit, especially because I don't personally know any moms. Was this an "I wish" or "I would never dream of doing such a thing?" And then a few posts later another mom commented something like: "I would never and could never. The bonding at night is just too important." Call it hormones, call it over sensitive, call it whatever you want, I started to cry. Now I felt like I needed to defend myself. Now my parenting of my 3 children who had not yet arrived was already being called into question. Another mom said, "family can come and help. my mom came for 6 weeks." That's great, family is wonderful. Not every family has the schedule to just leave a full-time job, and sometimes family members are ill. There were supportive comments throughout this thread, but isn't always the ones that seem ambiguous or a bit judgmental that leave the biggest impression. I began explaining my situation and some people "took back" what they had said earlier. Perhaps some of those things shouldn't have been said in the first place. Does a mom really have to give her whole history every time she asks a question?
Then I started thinking about all the other things I may likely do when the triplets arrive that I have seen so many people say "I would never," "What kind of mother does..." And I thought, well shit, as if parenting isn't hard enough, now I'm adding very special circumstances into the mix, and those circumstances may require me to change how and what I have done as a mother to date. They aren't things that make me any better or worse. They were just my preference for my kids. I might use formula. I might use these things to help feed my babies. Guess what, my babies might cry. I may not wear them enough to your liking. They may spend more time in a swing than you would prefer. I may stick a pacifier in their mouth. Or perhaps drive a car without a tether. All of these things don't really define us as mothers, they don't determine who gets mother of the year and who is an epic failure. Every mother, I believe, is just trying to do her best. Sometimes a mother's best is not screaming, or going on a field trip, or reading a stack of books, or simply getting out of bed.
I just ask that if your opinions don't align with mine it might be best to hide my feed on facebook, stop reading my blog, or just unfriend me altogether. Honestly, I can't even believe I writing a post like this, but I have a feeling it is going to get hard. When I was preparing for my VBAC and my HBAC I fought to protect my "space" from outside negativity and opinions. Moms and women, for whatever reason, can't seem to let each other catch a break. We can't seem to just support and encourage, it doesn't mean we have to agree. I will end this post with one of my most favorite blog posts, I think she said it much more eloquently than I did!
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