Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Acronym this

Today I went to the library for story time. While I was there, my friend and I decided to introduce ourselves to two other Mom's.

Now, before I continue, I am definitely sure that I have droned on and on to one of my friends about the story I am about relay to you. I don't remember who that poor friend was as I tend to drone on and on to many of my friends. Poor friends of mine. The droning, it's not very becoming of me.

As I was saying. I decided to go introduce myself, and my poor friend, to these two other mom's because I joined one of those meetup.com online groups geared to Moms. Yes, I know, humiliating. Now, in my defense I did not want to join originally but my friend did and she didn't want to go to an event by herself so she reeled me in and I, on my own free will, joined the bandwagon.

The first meetup wasn't a success. It wasn't horrible, but we got stuck with one of those over bearing Mom's. You know who they are. The ones who are positive that the way they are raising their child is the absolute only way to raise a child and if you veer off of her path of child rearing you should be compared to that of a criminal.

Realize that I could have written off the entire group and packed up my things refusing to play ever again. Instead I decided to just write off this particular Mom and I chalked it up to one wackadoo and I would not let her spoil the bunch. I haven't been able to attend many more of the events due to travel and cruddy weather. Finally, today an event was planned that I was actually able to attend. Before rsvp'ing yes, I decided to take a look through the other members profiles, just to get a sense of who would be there. As I read through them, I found myself becoming very confused, feeling like a needed a legend just to interpret exactly what these women were trying to say. It felt as if they needed certain acronyms just to prove to others how good of a Mommy they really are.

Here's some good examples:

".....I chose to give up my legal career to be a SAHM. I bf and practice ap. We look forward to meeting other families."

or this one:

"....I am EBF'ing, co-sleeping, delay vaxing, np mama.."

and not to forget this beauty:

"....I am a SAHM. I BF, wear, CD"

and this one just takes the cake:

"....I'm a stay at home mom and an active member of La Leche League. My daughter and I are "AP'ing", I wear, CD and I love trying out new slings and wraps."

So, it makes me wonder, what would my acronym be?

I am SAHM and I do bf if you could interpret that as bottle feed. But would am I allowed to admit that I bottle feed? Or can you not wear that as a trophy? But since she is on (gasp) formula would I then be a bff for bottle feeding formula?

Should I say that I am an ex-epm'ing mom which I learned that epm means exclusively pumping mom?

I make fresh baby food for my daughter so would that be considered mf for making food?

See, it's all confusing to me. I just don't get it. We all are moms. We all do what we think is right for our children. But in the end? No matter how hard we try? We will do something that will land our kids in therapy. So really the best thing to do is to stop being so concerned about the acronym that you can attach to yourself and just love the heck out of your children. Realize that other mom's will love their kids differently.

And make sure you set aside plenty of money for a good therapist.

I'm a mom.

I love my daughter.

No acronyms required.

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