Around the Web…

Some stories for your Tuesday afternoon:

• Not surprising: Real moms feel pressure to lose weight when reading about celeb moms — Daily Mail
• Tips for teaching your children table manners — BreezyMama
• 60 things one mother has figured out since, well, becoming a mom — lilSugar
• Birthing moms are primping for photos post-delivery — ParentDish
• How parents can model good eating habits for their children — Chicago Tribune

Comments

“Real” moms? Huh? Celebs are not real moms? Sure they are.

I don’t think this divisive language is helpful to any of us. “Real moms” and “Real Americans” (Thank you Sara Palin) total nonsense. We are all just the same. To think otherwise is a form of paranoia.

- Jacqui on November 16th, 2010

I agree, Jacqui! The same thing goes for people who insist that “real” women have curvy figures or that “real” women are not toothpick thin. ALL women are real women, whether they are famous or not, no matter what their body type and size is.

- gdfg on November 16th, 2010

Totally agree! We are all real! Some may have more money, some may have less, some may have more time, some may have less, some may have more support (wether financial, practical or emotional), may have less. As my godmother usually says, most of it is your attitude, if you percieve something to be a problem it is, if you don’t it isn’t. And she had a very small support net, having grown up an orphan without a family and being the sole provider in her family. Does her hardship make her more real than anyone else? Off course not! One of the most down to earth women I have ever met was also one of the richest people I have ever met and she had had almost more griefs in her life than my godmother, but like her godmother she had a very positive attitude to life in spite all that happened to her. A lot of people thought her as someone who just glided through life and had everything served to her. She did not. She was an heiress to a lot of money (of which she donated a lot), but what is all the money in the world if you loose your parents at 14? What is all the money in the world if people only want to know you in hope to gain some of it? What is all the money in the world if your first husband only marries you for it? What is all the money in the world if you get beaten so badly during your first pregnancy that you loose your child and are never able to concieve again (the only good thing that came out of that, was that she was able to divorce her abusive huband and that she not had to pay him allowance after the divorce, but don’t you think she would rather have kept her child)? I can tell you, all the money inn the world does not make you less real, does not make your problems less real (they may be of anoter nature though) and does not make your joys less real. We all go through hardships and losses, some more, some less. But what defines us and our lives is our attitude.

There will always be someone who “has it better” than us, but there will also always bee someone who has it worse than us. I don’t earn half as much as my neighbours, but at least I earn enough to keep my flat, and I have somewhere to live, which is more than my brother who is unemployed and homeless can say. But he on the other hand has a loving girlfriend and is surrounded by friends he can stay with where as I am single (not for lack of trying to find somene) and am slovely building up a new social network. Which one of us is better off? Which one of us has more real problems than the other? Which one of us would be more real? Or comnpare me with my neighbour who is about to give birth any day now. Her baby will sleep in a new cot, wear new clothes and be transported in a new and quite fancy stroller. If I were to have a baby right now, it would sleep in a second hand cot (hopefully with a new mattress in it), wear second hand clothes and be transported in a second hand stroller, or possibly a new sling. It would also be cloth diapered whith the cheapest diaper system you could find, because that’s what I could afford right now (I’m banking on nice parents here). Would that make her a less real mom than me? We would still have many of the same worries, we would still love our child equally much, we would both experience problems with breast feeding, weird coloured poop, lack of sleep, though I would be slightly more worried about economy and would not be able to take any maternity leave, because as a freelancer I can’t really afford to say no to work. I guess that’s worth thinking about as we are nearing thanksgiving.

Ok, that was a bit of a rant, but the concept of “real” people irks me somewhat. Who is to say someone elses problems or circumstances are more real than someone elses? And where do you draw the line?

- MiB on November 17th, 2010