Competitive Parenting: why I ditched mothers group

Posted on 27 November, 2018

You know who is really annoying? First-time mums.

Okay, calm down. I am including myself in this equation.

Being a new mum will put you through the wringer. There are few experiences as challenging and unsettling, tiring, stressful and emotional as the early days of being a parent. Yes, it’s a glorious period, full of love. But it’s also a time when you are going through the most profound changes of your life and you have no idea what you are doing.

There are books, and websites, and forums; an overload of information… But your baby doesn’t seem to be behaving like that baby in the book. And yes, you have friends, but maybe they’ve already had their babies and have lost sight of the early haze.

Or they haven’t had babies. Or they don’t live close by and the thought of getting your bub in the car for a drive to visit them is the thing that just tips you over the edge.

No parenting book or magazine will prepare you for the loneliness and isolation you feel when your partner walks out the door for the next nine hours leaving you alone with your cherub.

So what do you do? You join a mums group. What’s better than having a support system that understands your situation? In theory, the benefits are remarkable. In reality…not so much.

This is strange, because most people I know are perfectly capable of sitting, drinking coffee and chatting to another person that may have a different perspective on life. So what’s the problem? My theory is that parenting has been turned into a competitive sport in which nothing you do is ever good enough. That’s why at my mums’ group I found myself highly annoyed on a weekly basis.

“My Philomena’s eating kale,” announces one mum. I sink into my seat because mine will only eat Cruskits.

“Bub’s still not showing signs of crawling yet?” another enquires, pointing at my wee one sitting happily on the grass.

“Boston won’t eat his organic date bake,” declares another.

“What? You’ve actually fed your baby peanut butter?”

I’ve never felt so patronised by such drivel.

“You took bub to the pool? Aren’t you worried she’ll drink the water?” one mum asks.

“Pensacola isn’t a headband baby…no offence,” another proclaims, eyeballing me and my little one who’s got an oversized bow on its head.

Welcome to mums and bubs groups. Ugh. This was a special place in hell where my self-esteem went to die, but I hear others enjoy them. Some mums were older, some were younger, but either way, I found myself totally irritated every week. Miss a session and someone will notice, and then the mum guilt kicks in.

“I’ve not seen you for a while?” probes one mum.

“I saw you out walking the other day…I hate active people,” scoffs another. When you have a tiny tot apparently you are automatically signed up for the most brutal sport in town. Motherhood.

The fact is that, whether we like to admit it or not, motherhood makes many women very competitive. And the pressures on mums are getting greater every year. Like play dates. Triple ugh.

I get nervous before they even start. Why? Because of the constant monitoring of, and debate over, the ins and outs of what you do as a parent. It’s not just overbearing, it’s plain boring.

“What temperature is your house?” interrogates one mum. “I might bring a heater for little Tarquin’s play date.”

“How sheltered from the elements is your backyard?” she asks again. “Actually, let me check the wind speed before we play outside. Oh, and TV’s banned in our house!”

Pass the sick bag, I’m going to vomit.

Did our grandmas walk backwards with a pram to stop the mild afternoon sun shining on baby’s face? Of course they didn’t! We are the generation of mothers who can unfortunately claim credit for this particular form of lunacy.

Partly, it is because we no longer live next door to our own mothers. So isolated new mums, bereft of others to observe and no longer believing in themselves, turn to unfiltered information on the web or listen to the ramblings of other child-obsessed parents.

I will scream if one more mystical soothsayer chants ‘It takes a village to raise a child’. Not because it’s not true, but because it is almost impossible in our modern world. One mum can’t do much to change that.

Early parenthood is a period of our lives where we should be lifting each other up; cheering each other on instead of tearing each other down. If more parents decided to truly support each other, maybe we could stop the insidious spread of competitive parenting. What happened to kind words and encouragement? That’s what real friends are for, right? And we could all use more of those.